Lucky Again at LuckyRice LA 2013

By Laura Medina

Other using LuckyRice LA 2013 Modern Asian Food Festival as an excuse to dress up and drink up like a grown-up (thank you Bombay Sapphire Gin), it gives sophisticated palates to eat like a grown-up, like celebrity guest, Lisa Ling.

These tasty tidbits are portion-controlled, light in calories (yes, due to the tasting size) and pack full of flavor, making it easier for fashionable foodies to skimming in their designer skinny jeans, drapey tanks, high heels, and actual cocktail dresses (thank you "Wonder Dress" http://luxurist.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-wonder-dress-or-cocktail-dresses.html) to sip and guzzle equally light-weight and refreshing flavorful cocktails.

This is how you nibble and sip as an adult on flavorful bites...

 

Rocksugar (the hip Asian arm of Cheesecake Factory) Pan Asian Kitchen's Vietnamese duck curry with a garlic chive pancake, served with a lime mint squash drink.

The reason folks are so hot for Asian-influenced dishes is that Asian cuisine and flavors tend to adapt quickly to changing times, preferences, and tastes.  It also doesn't hurt that cultured folks from all-over the globe return home with new-found Asian tastes, as in Britain's love of curry and America's Chinese comfort food.

Plus, Asian cuisine tends to be quick and economical, in step with today's eco-mentality of no meat wasted which is in lock-step with today's retro-artisanal butchering.

Lukshon's pig ear terrine, with edamame, pickles and ma-la vinaigrette, was a light, gelantinous layer of savory, filling but light protein.  Perfect for a Summer Zone Diet.

There was a long line at Katsuya's Dragon Lounge, snatching up these Hamachi caviar hand rolls with green onions and sashimi soy as easy, accessible treats.  Folks gobble Katsuya's grown-up take on the college student's comfort meal, Shoyu Ramen.  It's their take on Toyko-style ramen with marinated egg in a rich double broth.

Asian cuisine, like it's patrons and fans, is adventurous as it is adaptable, not afraid to push the envelope forward yet still retaining it's heritage roots;..and we cannot forget the importance of food trucks pushing this "New Asian" Cuisine forward and onward.  The Komodo Food Truck was at the Los Angeles Zoo's "Roaring Nights" adult-only, hipster night series a few nights ago.  Well, they were at at it again, feeding the same hipster foodie crowd (but this time in Culver City's Book Bindery) which shows the importance of food trucks' legions of fan loyalty.  They'll follow you anywhere.

Fans, newbies, and converts snack happily on Komodo's "dragon eggs," fried hardboiled eggs with a spicy-sweet soy glaze.  Then, folks and fans move onto Komodo's Nasi Goreng,
Indonesian-style steak fried rice paired it with jalapeño aioli and poached quail eggs.  The new fried rice dish...with grilled strips of steak!

Other notable nibbles are:

Chef Jet Tila's Northern Thai creamy curry noodle soup with braised beef tendon.  It's like the new version of the good ole' Mac & Cheese with a creamy cheese sauce with a kick of curry and fancier noodles.

Lukshon's modern lomi-lomi salmon with pickled mini onions, tomato gelée, and thinly sliced scallions sure had this scribe fooled, tricking into thinking it was all caviar.

One thing people look forward to the modern Asian fare at LuckyRice LA, tons of crunchy dishes.  From light-weight tuna ceviche nestled in crunch, made-from-scratch shrimp chips by Night+Market to Michael's Santa Monica's Thai Tostada.  

Good cuisine at a good restaurant should reflect the changing taste buds being introduced into the neighborhood but be also to change and adapt to new food trends to keep the menu fresh.  The formerly staunchly Southern-Californian Michael's Santa Monica has aptly adopted the changing demographics in Santa Monica, Southern California represented by it's Asian-meets-Latin Thai Tostada, like this Asian-Latina, South Carolinian living and working in Santa Monica.

Oh...let's face it, people just show up knowing LuckyRice LA has amazing array of cocktails; and it is the drinks alone that string fans from Manhattan through Las Vegas to wound up in Culver City.

Katsuya's Bombay Sapphire Gin-laced "The Burning Dragon" and "Eastern Legacy" were some of the yummy libations. 

LuckyRice Food Festival is also a mobile cocktail fete.

Revelers willing stood in long lines for:

 Hinoki & the Bird's “Matcha Rickey” a lively, bright green tall drink of Bombay Sapphire East, matcha fruit syrup, lime juice, muddled Thai basil, and club soda.  Once guzzled, the line switched next to “Enter the Dragon” a quick quaff of Corzo Silver tequila with chili and mixed it with mezcal, lime juice, honey, and dragonfruit. 

Folks then bounced on over to the next bar booth...

 Sadie Kitchen & Lounge’s new summer cocktail, “Summer Lovin’' a botanical, girly guzzler of Bombay Sapphire East, strawberry/cantaloupe syrup, Aperol, lemon juice, and soda water.  “Highlander Punch,” a Dewar’s Highlander Honey cocktail with a ginger kick.

Hitting the cocktail circuit...

There were also non-Asian restaurants present, such as Old-School Americana Seafood, Connie and Ted's “Tea-nage Dream” made with Oolong/jasmine tea-infused Bombay Sapphire east, rice elixir, demerara syrup, and coconut powder.  “We Be Shrubbing” cocktail, which is made with 42 Below vodka, watermelon cayenne shrub, ginger ale, and simple syrup to pair with the prominently seafood and pork fare at the food fest.

La Descarga’s Joe Swifka's ode to the foodie hot Thai Town in Hollywood,  “Thai Town Sour” with Bombay Sapphire East, ginger and basil syrup, coconut, chili, and lime juice.   “Kretek Cocktail” is influenced by clove cigarettes, Cazadores tequila, clove syrup, coffee, and bitters.

Sean Hamilton of new Hollywood bar "No Vacancy"

shook up “Hemingway on the China Front,” a daiquiri with Bacardi, fresh pink grapefruit juice, fresh pressed lime juice, Luxardo maraschino, and simple syrup.  

Sean was kind enough to give his China Doll cocktail recipe:

 China Doll by Sean Hamilton of No Vacancy

1 1/2 oz. Bombay Sapphire East
4-5 dashes of Jasmine water
3/4 oz. Fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz. Coconut jasmine cream
1 oz. Egg white

1) Combine all ingredients in a shaker without ice and dry shake for 20 seconds.

2) Then add ice to the shaker and shake cold.

3) Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with an edible flower.

Even the dessert has a ting of liquor like...

Far East's Sake Ice Cream.

In fact, the majority of LuckyRice LA's desserts were palate cleansers like the Fluff Ice's shaved Lamill Coffee Snow.

The over-riding theme at this roving, chic Asian food fair is that it is stuff-full of foodie innovations.

If you can't make to any of LuckyRice's food fests, you can have it in your home.  In ode to Los Angeles' dubious career-manical people, here's Bombay Sapphire Gin East's "Snake in the Glass,"...

 

Cheers to that!