Went to Akikos for lunch - great value for $150 for the omakase. The caviar/toro/toast was pretty epic.
Dinner at Saison - been a long time - great team there. Food was really good, service was great. (they use astrea). Would immediately be the best restaurant in LA. LA’s fine dining scene western food wise needs to raise its game.
Lunch at Little Shucker - fun little neighborhood joint for fresh seafood. Cold lobster roll > hot.
Big fan of Akiko’s, but it’s been a while. I believe the caviar/toro/toast is something new. Need to go back!
Last time I went up Saison (a long time ago, before prices hit the stratosphere), I was Unami-ed out. Every course was smoked and/or with mushrooms.
Is it more balanced now?
didn’t seem that noticeable to me
How do you feel about their reputation?
What’s their reputation?
Suing former employees, not paying suppliers, misuse of funds.
That’s a Josh Skeens issue if i remember correctly and he has nothing to do with Saison anymore and hasn’t for awhile.
Definitely it seemed to surround him. I did not know he was completely out. Does this mean they no longer play Huey Lewis and the News on repeat! I was once eating in the bar and was the only person. The music was so bad I asked, since I was the only person, if they could turn it off and was told NO its part of the chef’s vision!
mostly 90s early 2000s hip hop/ R&B.
Skeens has been gone for awhile now - you can see the leadership team on their website for the group. A lot of inside baseball in regards to what Skeens is doing now, prob best left to chat over a nice glass of wine 
Since it’s been such a long time, we went back to Absinthe two weeks ago. Overall, hugely disappointing.
The wine list is still very good and reasonably priced, but the food is okay but WAY overpriced. Feels like a total ripoff, probably taking advantage because of proximity to opera/symphony (which is why we went).
We had a dozen oysters ($60), a good tasting burger you couldn’t possible eat with your hands because it was 3 inches tall (why?!), a decent but not exciting beef bourguignon ($45) and two tiny, sad looking, and mediocre desserts for $16 each.
Anyone had the YOLO pairing at Lazy Bear? Curious if it comes close to justifying the premium ($500).
I am in SF for the FOG Design + Art fair and excited to get to some nice dinners. Ate at Abacá last night - very tasty Filipino-Californian food, and very convenient since I am staying in the hotel in which it is located. I had a reservation at Bodega but nixed it after we were too tired to get up the courage to head out in the rain.
I am going to State Bird Provisions on Friday and Mourad on Saturday, to revisit two of my favorite places here. Sunday I am super excited to go to Prik Hom for what is purported to be very authentic, kick-ass Thai cuisine. Then maybe China Live for dim sum on Monday.
My wife and I went to Prik Hom last month. We didn’t at all understand the hype or the hassle in getting a res. Fortunately, a friend couldn’t go so we took his res. That friend went about a week later. He liked it better, but again didn’t understand the hype. It’s certainly good, but it wasn’t eye-opening. In that price range, we feel Kin Khao is much better.
The restaurants we’re most interested in trying are Dalida and Burdell in Oakland.
We’re going to Penny Roma next week when my daughter is in town. The Dinner Party menu is a steal. The added bonus is that Trick Dog is literally right next door.
Khin Kao is great and Nari (same executive chef) is off the charts (truly fine fining).
My sense is a lot of the hype for Prik Hom was generated by being placed on the New York Times Best Restaurants in America list. It seems like having a good, well-connected publicist is more important than actually serving great food.
A friend of mine was similarly underwhelmed by Prik Hom – I got a reservation in the first week of February to see for myself.
Just had dinner at Kin Khao - holy shit! Just so crazy good. Thanks for the recommendations, Larry and Barry! I’m still headed for Prik Hom on Sunday and will compare/contrast.
And dinner at State Bird Provisions last night was epic. I was dining with two vegetarians (reasonably strict, no animal protein and slight tolerance for broths/sauces) so we went that way 100% and the meal was amazing.
Booked a dinner at Nari based on your feedback, Barry. It’ll be 02/02 and I wanted to go somewhere i hadn’t been before.
So, Prik Hom. The food is delicious and clearly made with care. The flavors are clear and fresh, with an overall sense of lightness and delicacy. My favorite dish was the Umami Spicy Shrimp, which had lots of funky/gutsy shrimp flavor; the grilled halibut curry was also very tasty, with the fish taking center stage and delicious charred flavor spiking through the curry. That said, I was hoping for more oomph to everything; Kin Khao provided far more “wow” moments. So I agree with the consensus here that if one were to choose one Thai restaurant for a stunner of a meal, it wouldn’t be Prik Hom.
I need to check out Kin Khao…
Regarding Prik Hom, I feel like it’s a great restaurant, but placing it on the top 50 list creates unreasonably high expectations. We enjoyed the meal a lot and I would go back, but it’s not a must-go-to place.