Chef's Counter at Kali

I don’t see a lot of feedback on Kali so I’m posting my experience from 8 months ago here.

This place has good food with great QPR. You get a lot of food for the money and for the most part, the flavor combinations work well even though they trend toward the heavy side with liberal use of black garlic sauce on 4 of the 7 courses. Perhaps it can get a little repetitive or at least bring more acidic elements to balance it? Overall, I would still recommend this place.


View from the counter


Nice open space


Chef’s menu please!


Strawberry Shrub to start. The vinegary drink was a touch too sharp for my taste.


Amuse Bouche 1a: Uni on top of a kelp dusted crispy polenta


Amuse Bouche 1b: Uni panna cotta with lemon foam and sea moss


Course #1: Yellowtail crudo with olives, dates, charred lemon oil, salad burnet


Course #2: Burrata with market berries, savory oats, almonds, basil oil, garden greens


Rosemary buttermilk roll


Course #3: Black barley “risotto”, black garlic, and toasted cheese
Highlight of the night. Very satisfying al dente texture with a lot of deep black garlic umami that are countered with the sharp tasting toasted cheese. Truly excellent dish.


Course #4 Sea bass, barley, chimichurri, crispy spinach


Preview of our next course!


Course #5: Dry-aged coffee rubbed duck, polenta foam, roasted cherris

For some reason, they were a bit chewy even though these were dry aged and cooked well.


Course #6 45 day dry-aged ribeye, fingerling potato, buttermilk sauce, herb oiled onion petals

Same thing with the ribeye, they were chewy for a dry aged steak?


Course #7 Candied egg yolk shavings on top of meringue gelato


Petit fours: biscotti made from yesterday’s bread and red wine gelee made from leftover wine

Kali Restaurant
5722 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038

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@moonboy403 You are on quite an FTC roll! Welcome and thanks for your contributions.

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Just trying to contribute to the community since I’ve always been lurking around FTC. I’ll post more of the restaurants I’ve been to within the last year or so. They’re mostly focused around LA, SF, and Vegas.

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Welcome to FTC @moonboy403. Great pictures.

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Chef meehan loves that black garlic and is pretty proud that he makes it in house—ricecooker on warm for 1 month.

Seriously??

Serious. Rice cooker or crockpot method.
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/ezk7qn/black-garlic-is-a-true-umami-bomb

The black garlic sauce was wonderful and a true umami bomb, but it was also too much of a good thing both times I visited.

My goodness, thanks for the info!

Even crazier, I am embarrassed to admit I never really bothered to check what black garlic actually is! Apparently cooking it for a month is standard operating procedure to make the stuff! I admit that I thought it was just a different variety of garlic till now >.< Maybe I’ll make some!