Blue Cow Kitchen: Better Than Its Former Self, Casa -- Get the Beet Deviled Eggs & Duck Wings

I definitely had reservations about Blue Cow Kitchen, owned and operated by the Mendocino Farms peeps and situated in the former Casa space in California Plaza. I wrote a scathing review of Casa a while back, and the owner Mario (or at least claiming to be, complete with email signature) emailed me, first flattering me about how he loved my (anonymous) blog and no-holds-barred honest reviews, then randomly invited me to lunch and when I asked why, he said he wanted to run some ideas by me and when pressed, claimed he wanted me to be his secret taster where I'd have an exclusive arrangement with him and tell him the real low down about his restaurants. Please. When pressed for details, I never heard from him again.

I tried very hard not to be biased when I walked into this rowdy restaurant filled with a boring crowd of Downtown professionals (except for my party, of course). Hey, I used to be one too so I can say that.

The short of it is that the food was actually decent. You've come a long way, baby, I  mean Mario.

The beet marinated deviled eggs (check out that beautiful fuschia color!) with mustard, bacon and jalapeno was a winner. Besides the nice presentation, the bacon was just crispy enough and its saltiness and crunch went very well with the egg. Not sure about how "candied" the jalapeno tasted but I liked the hint of kick to round off the bite.

The duck wings were a tad ducky tasting but overall the confit and then grilled preparation gave the flesh a softness (from the confit) and charred beauty (from the grilling) that boded well with its slightly spicy aji amarillo (Peruvian yellow chile pepper) glaze, which was delicious. Sprinkled with some freshly chopped cilantro gave it a freshness. The cucumber and sesame-ginger dipping sauce were an afterthought and duly ignored at our table.

The giant baked then fried potato wedges were good, some a bit overcooked and too hard but overall came out hot, crispy and stood their own against the two dipping sauces. I would have wanted the onion "whip," seemingly a variation on ranch, to be bit thicker but it did the job.

The fried chicken sandwich (we stuck to the happy hour menu entirely) came with slaw in the venerable Hawaiian roll. The slaw was bland. The chicken was good but overall, the sandwich did not come even close to this master chicken sandwich at Son of a Gun, the best I've had in LA so far. Even the one at Laurel Hardware in a biscuit was better than this one, although I admit it's somewhat of a different breed  (Laurel was a breakfast sandwich with an oozing fried egg on top, which makes anything better).

The short rib "French dip" was just ok. Maybe it was because I didn't have it hot because everyone at my table loved it. But the bun was dense and wet from the dip, I guess. The short rib was not overly flavorful with barely a mushroom in sight. The most baffling thing, however, was the presence of a slice of toasted bread inside the bun. Wha? That seems a bit redundant, no? Am I missing something? And yes, the previously melted gruyere cheese had congealed and didn't help the cause. I just ended up having the shredded rib meat and washed it down with my glass of Pinot Noir.

Good wine. Dessert was meh. We got two ice cream sandwiches, one with Guinness flavor and the other with salted caramel, that's apparently on the menus of any self-respecting chef these days. The Guinness was unremarkable. Think it sounded more promising than it was. The salted caramel was ok but nothing close to ethereal one at Strand House. The biggest problem I had was with the sandwich cookies. They were chocolate chip cookies, which didn't blend well with the already sweet ice cream. So sweetness overkill. Yes, it's possible. Then they were so hard we had to practically use a Samurai sword to cut it up. Thumbs down.

Service was decent. Vibe was not that great. Would I return? Maybe. But I won't go out of my way to do so. One last piece of advice: redo your online menus so all items are visible.