Tavern
11648 San Vicente Blvd. Brentwood

We visited Tavern Thursday @ 8:00pm
Dish we will try to cook – Steamed Mussels & Clams w/ Coconut Rice, Onchoy & Thai Chilis $25

We just want to start out by saying we love our readers. The main goal of our blog was to learn more about all the techniques and flavors professional chefs use in their cooking. Yet now we realize that having the opportunity to eat at new and diverse restaurants all over Los Angeles is just as huge of a perk. When we decide which three restaurants to put on the poll each week we often have a favorite, and to be honest, we added Tavern to the list last minute simply as a third option. However, it was the clear winner and in the end, we’re certainly glad of it.

Restaurant Visit
Chef Suzanne Goin (AOC and Lucques) opened Tavern, with Caroline Styne, in Brentwood in 2009 on the quiet street of San Vicente. Tavern sits among a few shops and restaurants but the area feels much more neighborhood-like than bustling city life. Most people know the area mainly for the Coral Tree Café, which is located across the street. It’s this neighborhood feel and local clientele that adds to Tavern’s charm. The building itself is designed in a way where you feel you’re having dinner at a friend’s house… make that a really rich friend’s house. You walk through a rather large bar area that has a few tables, high-back cushion chairs and two TVs above the bar itself in order to get to the main dining area. The entire ceiling houses a sky-light with two circular, demure lamps suspended. Light yellow couches anchor the four corners with slate gray two-seater sofas lining the outer area of the room. On the opposite side of brushed metal tables are slate gray cushioned chairs. The floor is even covered in carpet, which is so rare with the modern trend of hard wood or polished concrete. Between the cushioned chairs, high, dramatic ceiling and two tall trees, the room is elegant yet comfortable. There is soft jazz music playing overhead and a small buzz from the other patrons – conversation can easily flow.

We dined at 8pm on a Thursday night, where most tables consisted of 40-50 year olds. Looking around, we noticed every man there was wearing a buttoned down shirt – most likely people come for a quiet dinner after work. A few people appeared to be in their 30’s but even in the bar area, the crowd skewed older. Waiters are elegant in white button down, long sleeve shirts with white ties and long white aprons, yet casual with jeans under the aprons. So, you probably shouldn’t show up in a t-shirt and flip flops, but you certainly don’t have to be dressy either.

We paused long enough from oogling the décor to oogle at the menu, which can only be described as a French-Asian-Indian-California inspired cuisine. We opted to skip the starters and went straight to the main course – ordering the Steamed Mussels & Clams with Coconut Rice, Onchoy and Thai Chilis $25, and the Market Fish (seabass with couscous, roasted stone fruit, pistachios & labneh) $28. When our food arrived and we started taking pictures of the plates, we discovered our waiter was quite a foodie himself. He had no problem with us taking shots of the food and spent several minutes with us discussing his favorite restaurants around the area. He recommended coming back to Tavern to enjoy their Saturday and Sunday brunch as that was his favorite menu.

Our dinner was as wonderful, actually even more wonderful, than the décor. The mussels and clams were precisely cooked and the coconut rice balanced nicely with the thai chili sauce in the broth. Fish sauce also lent a salty flavor to the dish. Romeo commented that this was an excellent example of Thai food compared to the not as impressive dish we had at STREET last time we ate out for the blog. We had a hard time finding words to describe the Market Fish, mostly trying to put our finger on the herbs and spices used. The best Amanda could come up with was “it tastes like Christmas,” leading Romeo to guess they might have used nutmeg or all spice. Part of the allure of the dish was not being able to precisely discern what the flavors were, yet knowing that you simply couldn’t get enough of them. The baked apricots gave a sweetness to the plate, but was not over powering. And the couscous grounded this sweetness to the subtle flavors of the seabass, again perfectly cooked. Both plates were fully consumed in a matter of minutes and we wouldn’t hesitate to go back and order the same again. Not really knowing that one was more spicy and the other more sweet, we seemed to pick the perfect dishes from the menu for each of us.

For dessert, we opted for the Warm Plum Clafoutis (with poured almond cream – serves two) $10. It was described by the waiter as a cross between a soufflé and a crepe, which oddly enough, was pretty much exactly what it tasted like. Served in a skillet with a side of almond crème, the dish wasn’t very sweet but was a nice ending to the meal. As we just so happened to be celebrating a birthday, we were also served an assortment of 5 cookies on a plate. Walnut shortbread, pistachio shortbread, chocolate chip, raisin oatmeal and chocolate brownie, with the walnut shortbread being our favorite.

Even before tasting the food, we decided to make the mussels and clams for the blog this week. And after having tasted the food, we knew it would be quite a challenge to not only pull of the combinations of flavors in the dish, but to also execute it to the degree of difficulty Tavern exhibited. Did they use coconut water or coconut milk in the rice? What spices went into the broth for the seafood? Well, you’ll have to keep reading below to see what we decided to do and see whether or not we even got close.

Shopping
(prices reflect the cost of the package, not the portion we used.) The rest of the ingredients we already had in the kitchen.

Bankok Market
Ongchoy
Kafir lime leaves
Thai Chilis
White onion
Thai chili paste
Lemongrass
Red peppers
Coconut milk
Thai Jasmine rice
Fish sauce
Scallions
—————-
Total $21.72

Santa Monica Seafood
Black mussels
Manila clams
—————-
Total $16.00

Recipe
Below is our take on Steamed Mussels & Clams with Coconut Rice, Onchoy and Thai Chilis. While we have no idea exactly how they prepare theirs, we looked around online for recipes to see what typical spices are used and then combined that knowledge with the flavors we tasted in the original dish and went from there.

Makes 4 servings.

Coconut Rice-

2 cups Thai jasmine white rice
2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 tsp. salt
Scallions

Rinse rice under cold water. In a pot, add rice, coconut milk, water and salt. While uncovered, heat the pot over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Stir rice to prevent burning, then turn heat to low and cover tightly with lid. Let simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from heat and let stand for about 10 minutes covered. Fluff with fork.

Steamed black mussels and clams-

1 lb black mussels in shells
1 lb white clams (such as Manila) in shells
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
½ small white onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp ginger powder
1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3 ½” pieces
1 TBSP fish sauce
1 TBSP thai chili paste
1 Red Pepper
6 stocks Ongchoy (Chinese spinach), cut into
1 thai chili
2 kaffir lime leaves (or 2 TBSP lime juice)
1 tsp white granulated sugar
2 TBSP vegetable oil
1/3 cup shrimp stock (or water)
1 TBSP scallions, thinly cut diagonally

Prep red pepper by removing stem and seeds. Cut top and bottom off, then half pepper horizontally. Cut pepper lengthwise into 3 inch slices. Next, cut ongchoy into 3 inch pieces. Scrub mussels and clams and pull off beards if still attached. In a pot, add oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 1-2 minutes. Next add garlic, lemongrass and ginger powder and cook for 1-2 minutes, still keeping garlic firm. Add fish sauce, stock, thai chili sauce, thai chili, lime leaves, red pepper, ongchoy and sugar. Bring to a boil. Add the clams, cover and steam until clams open up, about 3 minutes. Add the mussels, cover and steam until mussels open, about 4 minutes. Once done remove lime leaves, lemongrass and thai chili.

Plating
In a shallow bowl, spoon in a serving of the contents of the pot. In the middle of the bowl on top of the mussels and clams, place about a cup of coconut rice. Finish by drizzling a small amount of Thai chili sauce and scatter scallions on top of rice.

Rating- We give our dish 4 out of 5 stars.
Every once in a while we scare ourselves into thinking we’ll never be able to accomplish a dish for the blog, then in the end, we end up with surprisingly good food. In the case of Tavern, from the first bite we were in love with complexity and authenticity of Thai flavors balanced with the refinement of a higher-end restaurant. It’s no wonder we were convinced that we would never nail this one in a million years. Luckily we proved ourselves wrong (or at least in our eyes). We’ll admit that it did help that we have a small understanding of Asian cuisine with one of us being asian and all. But regardless, in terms of figuring out ingredients and flavor there was everything from sweet coconut, to salty fish sauce, to citrus, to Thai spice, and yet we feel we were able to match everything pretty well.

What we didn’t figure out was some of the refinement (ie: our rice was a little burned), so in turn we had to give ourselves a 4, something that we’re proud of. One other aspect that completely surprised us was how quickly we were able to get this dish done. Although there were lots of ingredients, everything had simple preparation and for the most part we only had to use 2 pots. In the end we would gladly try this dish again and whether you’re at home or going for a night out at Tavern, we hope you try this dish too.

How would you rate our recipe? We look forward to hearing your feedback. Do you have any favorite Thai grocery stores? Do you have any tips for cooking with Thai flavors? Feel free to email us if you have any questions on the recipe and don’t forget to vote for next week’s restaurant!

Tags: Caroline Styne, chilis, clams, coconut, mussels, ongchoy, Seafood, Suzanne Goin, Tavern, thai food

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Seafood, Uncategorized. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.