MÍRAME in Beverly Hills - Game changer from the Tacos Puntas Cabras chef

[CiaoBob]

I think I would rather bathe in lava than go to Canon Drive in BH on a Friday evening, during the pandemic, with a long line of bling-y showoffs, d-bags, and poseurs (many “making an unmasked point”) queuing and praying for an outside table at Wally’s. But I would go anywhere to try Josh Gil’s food.
Tacos Puntas used to do a night time omakase of “real food” once a month when Josh got to show off his prodigious talents that extend way beyond the excellent taco and tostada game he was playing at TPC.
How strange it is to find him in Beverly Hills. I do fear many of the local natives will pass on the exoitc-ness of what he is attempting, and market forces my push him to dumb down the cuisine, but at the moment he is not pandering to them at all.
Take a look at this menu

MÍRAME — COMIDA

Everything we had was outstanding. Perhaps the incredible combination the crab and corn in the tostada was my favorite but the Mexican XO sauce on the lettuce stems was a particularly mindblowing case of Chino-Latino cuisine.
The tortillas that came with the whole snapper were fantastic, heirloom, handmade red conico corn and flour.
Glazed lettuce stem.ogo salsa roja.guajes.xo sauce

Grilled octopus.chicken skin.avocado.ayocote beans.preserved lemon

Dungeness crab.corn.avocado.salsa matcha

Whole fried baja snapper.chili chintexle.masa jus.tomatillo milpero

GREEN LANTERN (cucumber.jalapeno.cilantro.celery.fennel.lime.tequila)

To be sure this his menu is expensive and “fine dining.” It surely blows away Dred-O. More closely aligns with Broken Spanish, but quite different and unique.
Cocktails were excellent as well loved La Ranfla (a tequila based homage to a Negroni with enchiloka tamarind chile.tropique.excelia blanco)
Going back soon.

Very Loud Cars with Doors that Open “Up” instead of “Out” - aka Scissor Doors (I had to look that up for this post) - many, many

[Sgee]

Silicon Valley: Russ - These are not the doors of a billionaire!

[Haeldaur]

I too had to go into Beverly Hills recently and felt disgusted afterwards. The place is completely sick.

[bruins]

I saw one of the guys from Million Dollar Listing LA when I was picking up from Xian a few weeks ago so totally fine

I’ve missed Tacos Punta Cabras and plain Punta Cabras, so definitely will hit up Mirame soon.

[J_L]

Great find, CB!

[paranoidgarliclover]

@CiaoBob

Scissor Doors

Scissors doors actually go up and out b/c they rotate on a hinge. If you say that the car door just opened “up,” we’re all gonna think you’re talking about gullwing doors on an SLS. Just an FYI.

Great post. Was Gil also behind Punta Cabras? I liked the “taco stand” portion of Punta Cabras, but I was not as impressed w/ the entree dinners (although they were still good). This menu you posted looks far more interesting than what they were serving at Puntas Cabras, and I never had any of the specials at TPC. Certainly seems worth a try.

They also appear to be thinking of a (small?) store. The menu has flour and corn tortillas listed, so I wonder if @Dommy might opine on the quality of them at a later date.

[CiaoBob]

AFAIK Gil was NOT involved with PC. And I agree with you, it was just OK. I believe he and Dan had split well before that.

[CiaoBob]

Gracias signor!

[CiaoBob]

EaterLA’s @matthewkang has a nice blurb on Mirame’s amazing salmon skin chicharonn - I loved it as well

The best dishes Eater editors ate this week

[WireMonkey]

@CiaoBob

salmon skin chicharonn

Was your salmon skin thin as @matthewkang mentioned (because it looks a little puffy in the photo)? Either sounds good, I just sometimes have salmon skin lying around and am always looking for other applications.

[CiaoBob]

Thin and crunchy.
Sorry my iphone photos suck.
And I have no idea why they come out rotated - they aren’t rotated on the phone.

[WireMonkey]

@CiaoBob

my iphone photos

No worries, it wasn’t the perspective that was ambiguous. I thought maybe some of the bumps were airy puffs whereas the Eater blurb was very clearly thin. We’ll have to check them out!

[Omotesando]

I ordered yesterday through Postmates.

The salsa trio was really good, although pricey at $11.50. You get three different kinds of salsa, but alas only the same tiny portions that you can pack up for free in those small plastic containers at self-serve places like La Salsa. For the $11.50, you also get 4 small fried tortillas, but the fried tortillas were not quite as good as chips might have been and the small discs were awkward to dip. I wish they sold bigger portions of the salsa a la carte, because they were good enough that I would have paid $11.50 for the salsa without the fried tortillas if the portions were a bit bigger.

Less enamored with the tuna belly tacos. The flavors didn’t work for me. If you don’t like onions ask them to leave them off your taco because the tacos come loaded with sliced raw onions. I just removed them.

[matthewkang]

Appreciate the hat tip. I found the meal to be excellent from top to bottom, with the exception of a misfire cocktail that we replaced with something a lot better. We sat in the back patio which felt a lot nicer than the more crowded front patio (which was quite the scene.) For entrees we had the hangar steak and the whole fried snapper, both of which were stellar. I haven’t been this excited about a new LA restaurant in a long time. I hope Mirame continues to garner praise/attention.

[CiaoBob]

Agree - top to bottom fireworks foodwise & the cocktails are a bit spotty. They sound good, but aren’t. Though I haven’t tried too many of the
$150 MAS CHINGON - Fuenteseca 18yr.soursop.quince.lime.orange grapefruit taragon salt.palo santo smoke

[cjla]

Ooof! I want to try this place, but even going downtown LA is too crowded for my liking. Maybe I can time something off hours, less crowded.

[Thor]

Went last night. Fantastic. Very comfortable space, wonderful food. Probably the best new opening in the Beverly Hills/West Hollywood area in recent memory - even pre pandemic.

[bruins]

Got takeout yesterday. Didnt realize it was next to the now dearly departed Carrol & Co. space. The Brooks Bros they sold out to has yet to open.

It was a little weird because when I called to place the order, what they had available was very different from what was on the website so the hostess had to essentially tell me what they had. I got the chicken + brussels sprouts taco, shortrib quesadilla, and caesar salad. Taco was absolutely fantastic; every bit as good as the best options from Tacos Punta Cabras and Punta Cabras. Quesadilla was ever so slightly underflavored on its own, though adding the guac that came on the side added the needed zing. Caesar was kinda interesting, they charred the lettuce. Honestly the taste was just regular caesar though, which is fine by me. Would definitely order again; hopefully with more taco options.

I took the Caesar photo after we had already tossed it.

[rlw]

Dropped in for dinner last night. Chef Gil is good at food.

Green Lantern

This was a solidly herby take on a margarita. At the beginning of our dinner, one of my companions requested the bartender prepare some sort of tequila shot for all of us (in a nutshell this was our crew’s first dinner back together since the beginning of a pandemic for our monthly dinner club). The Green Lantern was a much weaker version of that shot we first took shortly after sitting down, which may have colored my impression of the full size version. This was really fresh and showed off some of the creativity happening behind the bar, but I would have preferred something stronger

Tostadas with Salsa Trio and Guacamole

The chips and salsa course was solid, but the tostadas disappeared way to quickly. Thankfully we got some extra with the ceviche courses so we could finish off the rest of the dips, but the quickest way for a restaurant to win me over is unlimited chips/bread. the salsa were all good (i.e. nothing special) but didn’t have much to distinguish one from another besides level of chunkiness.

Fermented Green Tea Salad

I’m a huge sucker for tea leaf salad (it’s on my salad Rushmore) so it was a foregone conclusion that this was going to be both an automatic order and something I loved. It doesn’t have a number of the number of ingredients of a typical Burmese tea leaf salad, but I didn’t miss any of them in this representation. If anything, it let the fermented tea leaf dressing shine a bit brighter. A definite highlight.

Autumn Caesar

Our second salad was the Caesar, which gets a nice spin with roasted kabocha squash, goat cheese, and chicharon. It didn’t disappear off my plate as quickly as the tea leaf salad, but I enjoyed the twist of squash and goat cheese because the creaminess was a great contrast to the zippy tea leaf salad.

Pacifico Striped Bass Ceviche

I really liked Chef’s Gil’s cauliflower ceviche as Tacos Puntas Cabras, but wanted to see a different take this time and ordered the striped bass. This was delightfully refreshing with the nopal granita and cucumbers adding a chilled crisp bite alongside the creamy avocado. It turned out to be a solid middle course.

Lamb Barbacoa Tacos

To finish off the meal we all ordered a round of tacos, and I went with the lamb. It was simply delicious—rich and warm, with a healthy amount of creamy guacamole. Each order comes with two tacos, and I would have been more than happy to eat a third, though a second full order would have definitely put my over the edge because I was nearly stuffed at the end of the meal.

All in all, I’d situationally return. It’s solidly in Beverly Hills, so the higher price per person comes with the territory, but I was alright with the QPR. The space is beautiful and even though I felt tentative about dining out in general (this was our first dinner as a group), I was pleasantly surprised with how comfortable it was with the precautions and ambiance.

RIYL: winning a championship every 10 years

[Haeldaur]

Is it me or are the prices here a little…ridiculous?