Clueless what that means? Is it something to do with ego?
Thanks for the report. We made a reservation for early May last week, looks promising.
Update #1:
Pre-banged with @moonboy403 at the auburn bar before we headed to Inn Ann.
lamb tartare, charred broccoli, mustard, nasturtium
mb: Couldn’t detect any gamey flavor and flavors went reasonably well together.
ridgeback prawns, almond, green garlic, pickled peppers
mb: The sweet prawns were great by themselves especially if you don’t mind going full zombie-mode and suck up its brains. However, the crunchy almond, green garlic, and pickled peppers mixture was too salty and overwhelmed the prawns.
pb: prawns were excellent, albeit small. agree the pickled peppers were too overpowering, i enjoyed the dish more just eating the prawns plain.
charred chanterelle mushrooms, pumpkin, preserved persimmon, endive, bronze fennel
mb: Great balance between the buttery shrooms and the mildy sweet and tangy preserved persimmon sauce. Not sure how the pumpkin roulade worked with the dish though.
pb: agreed, great dish.
oxtail, seaweed marmalade, sunchokes, seeds & flowers
mb: Awesome dish. Think of an amped-up braised short-ribs and smashed crispy potato dish. Chef Bost should replace his “sunchoke cheese course” on the main menu with this.
pb: highlight of bar menu, loved the thick, rich sauce, soft tender oxtail, and crispy sunchokes.
sonoma duck leg, puffed grains, black garlic, torn herbs
mb: Generous portions of dark meat is cooked through and quite chewy but I do like how the various herbs thrown in to brighten up this somewhat lackluster dish.
pb: a bit vietnamese-y with the fresh herbs, skin was crispy in parts, meat was a bit chewy.
rice milk pudding, raw cream, pistachio, marcona almonds
mb: Fan-f-ing-tasticaly delicious.The combination of nuttiness, crunch and creamy pudding is perfect. Please migrate this over to the main menu in place of the mushroom caramel/yogurt dish.
pb: wow, another highlight, delicious.
Thoughts on Bar Menu:
mb: Skip it and head over to the main dining room. The bar menu is a landmine!
pb: eat in the dining room and supplement with the mushrooms, oxtail, and rice milk pudding from the bar menu.
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Holy $^&/%, you guys have some serious capacity!!! I’d be toast after a meal like that.
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Post Pizzeria Mozza bang at the Auburn bar with @PorkyBelly .
rice milk pudding, raw cream, pistachio, marcona almonds
the pudding is congealed into a lump this time so it’s not melt in your mouth like last week. shame.
I liked our visit Auburn this past weekend.
The food. The menu seems to have changed slightly (see below), but I was able to try everything except for the cabbage dish and the desserts. Flavors at this restaurant definitely veer towards the subtle but “clean” spectrum. The first half of the meal almost seemed to have an underripe feel to it, from the green strawberries used in the crudo, to the peas used in the peas dish. The flavors seemed to get more saturated, rich, and fleshy as the meal carried out, but still on the reserved side.
The highlights for me were the morel mushrooms and sonoma duck. Honorable mention to the asparagus dish solely due to the bone marrow broth which was wonderful. The dish that was the most fun to me was the epoisse. Nothing here is going to blow your mind in crazy flavor, just solid cooking here, on the more reserved side. In a way, the food mirrors the decor a bit.
The wine pairings. Corkage is $50 per, so they are really encouraging you to go for the pairings, which I think are a decent value for the amount of wine you are getting (one wine per dish). I applaud that they are offering something affordable. You are mostly getting village or appelation level wines at this price. Most of the wines were pretty well balanced and very typical for their regions. Since they poured the wine before the food arrived (smart), we could often guess what the next course was going to be by tasting the wine.
But I did have two issues with the wine. First, almost all the whites were pretty dillute in concentration, which means they are on the watery / mute in flavor side. Is this due to the price or due to the subtlety of those early courses? I’m guessing the latter. Second, we got two different pinor noirs from Santa Barbara (one with the duck course and the other with the wagyu course). Both tasted similarly, having a hard candy sweetness to them that is typical of the region, but I was craving something more earthy with that beautiful duck. In terms of a “pairing”, the whites were good matches, but I thought the reds were less successful. Hard to complain for the price, but a heads up for our more wine-centric FTC-ers.
Price OTD with tip was around $310, but my better half paid, so I can’t recall exactly. Love the decor and vibe. Beautiful plating too. Service was good. Enjoyable, was worth the visit, wish the food had a bit more pop at times, but it’s clearly well executed.
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I’m glad you enjoyed the food there. I really like the QPR on the 6 course menu especially when you go with someone else so you get to try OOE.
Were they busy?
I think they were busy judging by the fact that the bar was 80% full when we arrived with people waiting for tables. We grabbed cocktails, as tables were running 10 minutes behind or so. However, our table was in a part of the restaurant with only 4-6 tables, so much of hte place was shielded from view.
We planned to grab dessert in downtown after, which is why we went with the 4 courser, but only got savory dishes.
Totally forgot to mention the bread + avocado butter was awesome. It is far more butter than avocado, so it didn’t remind me of toast.
It’s essentially a richer and creamier avocado spread! Awesome indeed.
What does that mean? Did a Google search and still couldn’t quite understand the terms.
Those terms stem from the French classification system, though I use the terms very loosely to refer to the general pricepoint of the wines on offer, since many of the wines were not even French.
Basically in France wines are labelled by where they come from. My simple and way overgeneralized understanding is that the more specific the place on the label, the more expensive that wine is potentially. So for example, table wine of France < wine of the Burgundy area < wine of a specific village in Burgundy < wine from a specific vineyard in that village would be the general hierarchy. Of course a village level wine could be better than a specific vineyard wine in quality, but this is just a general reference.
All this to say, the wines on offer at Auburn were more value oriented in price point. At Dialogue and Somni, you are getting more expensive wines ($50-100 / bottle retail), but at several times the pairing cost.
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That review from infatuation kind of infuriated me. In my opinion just for food Auburn is the most modern restaurant in LA. It’s super ingredient driven, yes there are not a lot of “flavor bombs” instead you get the concentrated and accented taste of the ingredients. If that is bland then I guess traditional sushi is bland. The service could use work. Out of a bunch of fine dining meals I’ve had this year Auburn was the most enjoyable.
Definitely. Excellent flavor balancing act at Auburn and I love how light the meal is. At that price, it’s a steal for that level of refinement and execution.
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Auburn now offers family style takeout for $39 per person:
Family-style menu is inclusive of all items listed below.
Sweet rolls with normandy butter
Heirloom grains, wild arugula, radishes, turnips and preserved meyer lemon
Charred broccolini, green garlic and pickled pepper romesco
Koji aged sonoma duck with a relish of blood orange, pink celery and pickled marigolds
Celery Root Aligot
Rhubarb crostata, clotted cream
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Permanently closing…
Sad to hear hopefully the chef and his team land on their feet after this is all over.
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