For this month, it was TRUFFLES. I’ve never eaten a full blown truffle set meal. At $250 a pop and 600 consecutive phone calls over a span of 2 hours, I was able to get this reservation. Coupled with wine pairing, the meal was superbly awesome.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This has 1 Michelin Star. I remember that after this dinner, I was getting tired of blogging all my Maude meals. I started to go to Maude solo monthly for a few more times, but they started to enforce solo dining restrictions where you can only come at the first serving which is too early for me.

This is my 5th visit to Maude in 6 months. I guess I have the pleasure of doing this because I don’t have many financial responsibilities. This month’s tasting features pears, and again it did not disappoint me. I love pears, and I was curious in seeing how the chef uses it in his dishes.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This has 1 Michelin Star.

This is the month for tomatoes. I generally love tomatoes. They can come in so many different sizes and textures, such that it makes it very tasty. I will say that the meal for me did not disappoint.

We ended up getting the wine pairing which was about $70 extra. According to my buddy, the wine pairing was excellent throughout the meal and complemented the foods very well. I’ll just take their word for it.

The feature for Maude this month is corn, and it was way more awesome compared to last month. I like corn a lot, so I went in with some expectations, and I wasn’t disappointed.

It really sucks to get reservations here. To get this particular reservation I called about 100 times in a given hour. If you look on my cell phone bill, you will see at least 60 5-second calls to them coupled with 40 some calls from a desk phone. But I did it, woot! Corn is in season, so you can expect bold sweet flavors.

This could very well be my last post for food for a few weeks. Doing a special restaurant each week is getting rather grueling right now. I’ve decided to soften the blow, so I’ll go to Maude each month for the remainder of the year.

This is #26 of 52 (or 26?) of my 2014 LA food expedition.

For this month, the special ingredient is berries. Like my rhubarb meal that I went to 2 months ago, I was expecting this to be similar in that every dish would have strong presence and usage of some berry. To be honest, I was slightly disappointed because it didn’t meet my (overly high?) expectations.

What was so interesting about Maude was how each month has a different ingredient theme. I like this approach. Not only can you choose what you want to eat, but it also is cool to not have to think about what to order since the entire menu is a tasting menu. This so far is probably my favorite upscale LA restaurant (possibly attributed to the star of this month … rhubarb).

Scratch Bar has been on my radar for a while. I love out-of-the-box food creations and multi-course prixe fixed menus, and this restaurant had both of those. It’s relatively new, and it was not even packed at all. I ventured out here by myself after work, and I’m glad I did for an unforgettable night.

This is #16 of 52 on my 2014 LA food expedition.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This restaurant ended up closing, but it moved out to Encino with a similar theme but even more accessible.

On Friday, 3/14/2014, it was national “pi” day. Yes, that infamous 3.14 blah blah number that terrorized area and circumferences of objects. This place surprisingly has the letters “pi” in the beginning and is also on Jonathan Gold’s top 101 LA restaurants. It is best described as a peruvian-fusion tapas place.

This is restaurant #10 of 52 on my LA 2014 expedition.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This restaurant is unfortunately closed.

I remember Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods visiting this restaurant. And since I’m a huge fan of him and his experiences, I wanted to give this a try as well. Red Medicine from my understanding is Vietnamese-cuisine-inspired but not necessarily Vietnamese by any means. Don’t go there expecting traditional Vietnamese dishes fused with new American elements. DO go here expecting to get interesting concoctions where everything is not only pretty looking but also very edible.

Please note: This is not a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. Wolfgang Zwiener was previously the head waiter for Peter Lugers in New York, so naturally the restaurant style is very similar. You order a cut that’s shared with your entire party.

So how does it compare?

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. As I reflect back at this experience, I was super excited to see some of the NYC restaurants coming to LA. I remembered bringing my old coworkers here expecting a similar Peter Luger’s experience, but unfortunately it didn’t meet expectations.