Scratch Bar: Interesting Pork Belly Oyster Bite and Mussel Uni Sake Shot But Too Small Portions

I had high hopes for Scratch Bar whose dineLA menu looks so good I had to check it out although I ended up going after it was over. There were some clear winners although overall, the portions were ridiculously small and it needs to step up its desserts game.

Let's go over the winners first. The biggest was the pork belly and raw oyster bite. It literally was a bite, sadly. The pork belly was perfectly seared and tender. Paired with a raw oyster and some foamy sauce that complemented the saltiness of the pork belly, it was a perfect bite indeed. A fun fact was that it came atop a "dish" that looked an awful lot like what Koreans use as a lid for their stews. I flipped the dish and it was in fact the lid and later confirmed with the server. This restaurant went to town on this lid as dish concept, also using it in reverse and putting little bites atop the round lid holder for another dish.

Before I get into the dry aged hanger steak, the most interesting dish was the green mussel and sea urchin sake shooter. We weren't going to order it but then we couldn't resist after seeing our next table slurping it in one go. This was basically a shot glass of sake topped with a skewer of mussel, slice of jalapeno and pickled onion. After downing the shot, you are to scoop a creamy layer of avocado and sea urchin mix at the bottom of the glass using the wooden skewer with a mini fork. I loved the mix of spicy flavors and creamy, crunchy textures.

The hanger steak portion was skimpy -- I find that restaurants are increasingly serving sliced steak instead of whole steak. I appreciate the ease of slicing and eating but as a main dish, I expected an actual steak, not a few thin slices. Still, it was well cooked medium rare and the accompanying mashed potatoes were creamy and flavorful and asparagus gave the dish a nice crunch.

Now for the less successful dishes. One of the two main dishes we got was called 'squid in a box.' It was cut-up baby squid stir fried with some tomatoes, mushroom and greens topped with a crisp piece of bacon or prosciutto on a bed of an all-too salty mole-like sauce. The dish was overall too salty and nothing special. Also, as a main, all too skimpy of a portion once again. It was like a starter portion.

The second dud was the crab with corn pudding that we didn't realize would come cold. Ok, despite the description on the menu that said 'chilled King Crab with sweet corn pudding.' Still, we would have appreciated a reminder that the entire dish would be served cold -- not exactly what we wanted on a very cold evening. Not sure it's even something that should be served in the winter even though LA winters aren't real winters.

The worst one was the vanilla ice-cream that was falsely advertised by our server as the 'best vanilla ice-cream I ever had.' It tasted worse than Dreyer's. It was cute but oh-so flavorless. The biggest disappointment.

Our server comped us for quite a bit of stuff to thank us for patiently waiting for our food even though we never sensed that service was late. Anyway, the wines by the glass were pretty pricey although the Pinot Noir was good. I will return someday but parking is a pain for non-valet parkers like me because of limited street parking nearby.