Tuesday, December 6th 2011
Son Of A Gun
I raced home from downtown after my shoot making it to Santa Monica in a record time of 18 mins to meet BW for a belated birthday dinner at Son of a Gun on 3rd St. It’s owned by the same pair who own Animal, but this place is a move in the other direction; a more seafood oriented spot.
We were the first to arrive, it was quite small, as most of those spaces tend to be on 3rd, and we were seated in the corner, my favorite spot to eat. I immediately saw the oysters which is exactly what I had been craving all day. In P’town I lived on them and ate them almost every day. They were Kusshi from British Colombia, small, clean and not as fishy as some other varieties. We ordered a half dozen as BW, as brave as he is, was a bit weary to have any; he tried one and decided that it’s just not for him.
This was the kind of experience that I wanted to enjoy so I took great care in ordering everything one at a time, much to the dismay of our waiter, to avoid being inundated with plates. Our next course was Steelhead Roe with a Maple Cream and Pumpernickel and amberjack crudo, galbi vinaigrette with a watermelon radish. Steelhead is a type of fish that resembles a cross between trout and salmon and if a dish could sing this one would be in perfect pitch. Everything about this was spot on, the saltiness of the roe was in perfect harmony with the sweetness of the maple cream which was essentially a maple whipped cream, so light it almost wasn’t there and just sweet enough to match the roe. The pumpernickel gave it a savory crunch that rounded everything off flawlessly. The Amberjack crudo, amberjack aka Kampachi and crudo, Italian for raw, is a tuna tartatre dressed in a Korean style vinaigrette that I found to be quite interesting, again keeping everything orally sound, the texture of the fish matching perfectly with the salty vinaigrette was highlighted by the sweetness of the watermelon radish, do you see a pattern emerging yet?
I’m a big fan of mid courses, especially salads. We chose the lettuces, arugula, pomegranate, almond, manchego, sherry salad to cleanse the palate and prepare for the next act. Nothing fancy here which was the goal, but I have to say that the construction of the salad made it a bit difficult to enjoy. The leaves were far too large to accommodate such tiny components like the almonds and pomegranate seeds in one bite but still a lovely intermission.
For the headliner we decided to split something and luckily, as is usually the case we both were stoked about the alligator schnitzel with heart of palm and orange. When this dish came to the table I was quite surprised because I had always known hearts of palm to be somewhat dense pieces of fiborous plant material. This dish however had shaved ribbons garnishing the dish with a generous portion of orange segments. (I forget the sauce) now the thing that tied this dish together that was not listed but luckily worked incredibly well was the sauce………with vanilla. It’s always nice when you end a culinary experience with something amazing and delicious.
I really enjoyed this spot and would come back for sure, I haven’t had a meal that was so focused on the pairing of textures and tastes in a long time. It was clearly well thought out and presented even better.
I give it a 7.
We passed on dessert as neither of is has much of a sweet tooth and decided to spend the rest of the evening at one of our favorite watering holes Micky’s in WeHo. We were both home by midnight feeling very accomplished and well fed!
