“Ga-wow, this is the most amazing dinner ever!” – Luke, pretending to be Jose Andres

I was in LA for work this weekend and I got to check out Jose Andres’s newest restaurant, The Bazaar, which is in a brand new hotel called SLS. It was truly an amazing and entertaining experience. I wasn’t the only one having fun, everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Dinning these days seems to be an exercise in formality, a show that goes through the motions without anyone enjoying it. Amuse bouches are no longer fun surprises, but are expected if you go someplace “new and innovative.” Dining is not normally a shared experience, one that transcends the divide of tables. Each table ends up being an island of isolation.

None of this is the case at The Bazaar. Eating there ends up being an experience shared by all diners. I sat at the tapas bar for dinner, and the people sitting next to me started telling me how much amazed they were with the whole experience. Carolyn and I first got to experience something similar when we ate the Jose’s MiniBar, which is a six-seat bar with a fixed menu and all the food prepared right before you. Everyone at the bar eats the same food at the same time–some of it interesting and unusual and all of it delicious. The whole group of strangers are all trying something new for the first time, together. The Bazaar manages to capture this experience and expand it to the whole restaurant.

The food is complemented by a whimsical interior design that looks trendy without being at all pretentious. I ate in the bar area of Rojo, which has dark wood, chalkboards with Picasso-like drawings, and low hanging lights. I had dessert in the Patisserie area, which resembles something out of Marie Antoinette or a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Everything seems enthusiastic and over sized, much like Jose’s hand gestures and way of speaking. It all works, and none of it seems out of place.

The tapas served in the Rojo y Blanco section pull from Jose Andres other restaurants. A large number of the traditional tapas come from the menu at Jaleo. A tzatziki and flatbread tapa would fit right in at Zatinya and a number of ceviche and latin dishes seem to be influenced by Cafe Alantico and Oyamel.

Ok, enough rambling…on to the food!

• The Best Gin and Tonic – Mine was made with Hendrick’s gin and Fever Tree Tonic. What made this fun is that they added aromatics, some sort of blossom, juniper berries and a cool round, extra large ice cube. “Best” is a strong statement, but this was a strong drink and I think it stands up to the claim.
• Olives Two Ways – This was a two part dish. The first part was a traditional serving of olives, each stuffed with roasted pepper, a fillet of anchovy and topped with orange zest and micro basil. All of this is drizzled with olive oil. The combination is sweet, salty and savory, all at the same time.
  The second part are bubbles of olively goodness, with a liquid center. The center is some sort of olive and olive oil puree. It is surprising at first, but yummy. They are served out of a glass “olive” jar on to a spoon.
• “Miso” Linguini – This is a fun dish. Miso soup has some sort of gelatin added to it, then it is ladled out into a thin layer to harden. The “soup” is then cut into thin noodles and topped with fish eggs. The flavor doesn’t pop, but it is a lot of fun.

• Philly Cheese steak – This was a very fun dish. It is pretty much an inside out cheese steak. The first layer is very thinly sliced and very rare wagyu beef. The beef is wrapped around “air bread” which seems to be a hollow cracker, bread-like thing. The air bread is filled with a warm and gooey cheese that puts cheese wiz to shame. This dish walks the fine line between meathead and art house sophistic, and does it amazing well.
• Tortilla Reinvented – This was one of my favorite dishes, it is simply amazing. It is a traditional tortilla, reimagined. The base is a soft boiled quail egg yolk. It is topped with a foam made from potatoes, all of which is topped with little potato crunchies. It may sound a little weird, but it all worked together so well. This dish is both savory and delicate at the same time. It was also only $3, I wish I could get one every morning instead of a cup of coffee.
• Tuna Roll – Ceviched tuna, wrapped with thinly sliced avocado. This may not have been my favorite dish, but it still was very good.
• Caprese Salad – This is another great dish and so much more fun than a traditional Caprese salad. It has all the makings of a regular one, but all the flavors are amped. The tomatoes are blanched and peeled and are either very flavorful or juiced with some tomato puree. They are extra tomatoey. Instead of balls of mozzarella, there were bubbles of mozzarella, little globules filled with liquid mozzarella. There were basil leaves, but they were micro basil leaves and there was pesto to really bring home the basil flavor. All of this was topped with small air bread croutons.

Some how after all of that, I was still hungry. For my final dish I ordered the Sausage with White Beans. This is one of my favorite dishes at Jaleo. At Jaleo, the dish is small sausages served on a bed of white beans. At The Bazaar it is one large, homemade white sausage served over roasted white beans. I am not sure what they do to those beans, but they are amazing. I am guessing they are cooked cassoulet style, with lots of fat, and some mushrooms thrown in for good effect. The sausage was perfectly cooked, browned on the outside, but still moist in the center.

My journey at The Bazaar was not over yet. I was escorted to the Patisserie section which looks like some weird fantasy land, but has a very cool vibe. For dessert I had the Chocolate Stick, which is chocolate mousse on top of a bed of crunchies, dipped in chocolate or something fun like that. I accompanied this with a North Coast Imperial Stout, which worked perfectly with the chocolate and the bubbles helped break up the heaviness of the desert.