Amalur Project Pop-Up: Some Highs and Many Lows But the Biggest Culprit is the Rubbery Short Rib

I usually have an aversion to the pop-up restaurant concept but when I found out about the Amalur Project, with chefs who worked at famed Spanish haunts like Arzak, I couldn't resist and made an exception (what can I say -- it had me at Spanish food). It was annoying having to pre-pay for the meal but I figured, let's trust the chef to give me good food. So I assembled a group of six food-lovers and walked into the sign-less restaurant, Cortez, in Angeleno Heights, with an open mind and empty stomach. The experience confirmed my skepticism about pop-ups.

 
Where to begin? Let's start with the good. The space was great: small and intimate albeit with horrible parking (news flash: this is not New York). They gave us a few complimentary amuse bouche to hold us over until the real deal came out. The beautiful canape-like things on top is a pumpernickel round topped with pickled root vegetables with creme fraiche and sour cream balls, sprinkled with some wild herbs and flowers. The root veggies included beets and turnips, and ever so slightly pickled so they weren't too strong. The combination worked in this case and it was definitely a sight to behold on the wooden cutting boards they were presented in.

The leeks with onion purée, watercress stems, thyme oil and grape was another successful dish although some of the leeks weren't as soft as they could have been. My favorite part of this dish was the onion puree, which was sweet and deliciously onion-flavored with pride. I liked the spicy touch that the watercress stems gave the dish although the stems were rather unwieldy to eat. 

The dessert, which combined a form of white chocolate coriander ice cream with elderflower granita and beets cut into tiny little squares was probably one of the most interesting and well-executed dish of the evening. It had an unusual flavors bursting with each scoop and I always love the interplay between sweet and savory in desserts. The blood red beets against the backdrop of the snow white (it looks like slush!) was also stunning in its contrast.

Now for the unremarkable: the Hirame, kobujime, toasted buckwheat, ume kombu tea (plum kelp tea), plum sorrel (the greens sprinkled on top). This dish was interesting-sounding in concept but in execution didn't work so well. Sure, it had the crunchy texture and nuttiness from the toasted buckwheat and the silkiness from the rolled up sashimi. While I understand the flavors were delicate, I could barely taste the tea or sorrel because they were so mild. I don't think everything has to be super strong flavored. However, not only was the sashimi itself not super impressive (not fresh or melt-in-your-mouth buttery), but the accompanying flavors and sprinkled buckwheat didn't produce any magic for me. 

The first amuse bouche we got were these pear slices floating over a bed of ice filled with sage beer. Again, delicate and refreshing. It would be a decent flavor cleanser. The fresh mint gave the pears a bit of a punch. I liked that it was an unusual attempt at adjoining flavors but not my favorite.

And we have arrived at the bad, the ugly, the unacceptable, the outrageous. Behold this gorgeous piece of short rib. I confess this was the item on the menu that got me the most excited. I even brought my own bottle of red to ensure I'd enjoy this (corkage was $10). The short rib came with salsify, the radish-like veggies that came as a side, and these wonderful potato chips that were fried to perfection. I expected the short rib to be fall-off-the-bone and didn't think of cutting hard into it with my knife when I got far too much resistance for my taste upon my first attempt at slicing. I tried a second time thinking I must have cut into a fatty area that wasn't flesh. But no. The rib was officially and hopelessly hard as rubber with no chance of my cutting into it without exerting all the muscle strength I can muster. This is ridiculous. I huff and puff and loudly crunch into my chips instead as a  sad alternative. I try one or two bites, hoping the wine will help to mask the rubbery texture. No luck

I stopped eating it and when asked whether I wanted to box it, I told the server the rib was not cooked properly. Short rib needs to virtually crumble but this one was too hard to eat. The server returned from the kitchen and assured me that the chef insists the rib is cooked right and -- cooked using a sous vide method. Really? That doesn't change the fact that I feel he royally screwed up the main dish of the evening. We got the corkage fee taken off for the bad experience. When I got home, I couldn't wait to braise that baby and did so for hours in wine, water, agave, tomatoes, garlic and some salt. The short rib is happy again. 

Another dessert on the house was a sage sorbet on a macaroon with yogurt powder that didn't swing my boat except everyone at our table couldn't get enough of the yogurt powder dusted over the dessert. Some of us wondered out loud whether it's just yogurt powder. And one of us called out the inevitable -- that it had the look of a pile of poop. 

The last of the complimentary desserts was a chocolate truffle but it was below average so I stopped eating it after the first bite. My mantra is, why eat something that doesn't taste good? Don't waste your limited calorie intake on sub-par food.