Ink Restaurant

"When trying to express oneself, it's frankly quite absurd to leaf through lengthy lexicons to find the perfect word. A spontaneity keeps conversation keen, you need to find a way to say precisely what you mean." (from Mary Poppins)

The word is SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS.  That is the word to describe my ultimate dining experience at Ink in Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.

My brother Gary and cousin Ramon took me there last night for my birthday. We opted not to go with the tasting menu as you only get 4 items plus dessert. We wanted to try as many little plates as possible. We ended up with 8 items which split 3 ways and a bottle of wine...was plenty.

The food is truly unbelievable. We started with the carrots with coconut ice, cardamon soil, carrot juice curry. Didn't even sound appetizing considering Gary and I hate coconut. The coconut ice looked like white rice but had the consistency of mini rice crispies but lighter and cold (after all it's ice) and crunchy yet melted in your mouth much faster than M&Ms. Then came the crab with charred avocado with a wonderful whipped fish sauce...yes...whipped; served with mushroom chicharron.  All we could do was moan......

We also had the beef tartare with hearts of palm, sea bean chimichurri, horseradish with toasted rye. Even if you do not eat raw meat, you will end up loving this dish.  The brussels sprouts with pigs ears, lardo and apple was to die for. Don't try and picture an ear of a pig. No way does it look like it. These were crispy strands that looked like potato peel. Then came the spaghetti with giant squid, squash and hazelnut pesto. I imagined an ugly giant squid on top of the squash. Wrong...you can't even see the squid. In fact the spaghetti was covered with foam, something I am not fond of as far as looks. It reminds me of soap suds but once you get past the foam, you are once again on the right course.

The Baja scallops with egg yolk and gnocchi was excellent. Never had gnocchi this good ever! The tuna was served with dashi sponge, soy yozu and pear. For the finale, we had the pork belly with charcoal oil, BBQ flavor with corn. This was FANTASTIC.

For dessert, we had the yuzu curd with beet sorbet and peach. Our favorite was the apple, caramel with burnt wood ice cream. Ohhh maammma!

Chef Michael Voltaggio was busy all night working his magic. I had to go up to interrupt his concentration to tell him what he already knows......

His cuisine is  SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS