Gold Dig #7

Tasting Kitchen is one of the few restaurants on the westside that appears on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list. In his words, it is “not cheap”. None of his westside picks seem to be. Nonetheless, the wait for this place is long. We decided to go without a reservation, and were told they could squeeze us in – in about an hour and a half. Luckily, Tasting Kitchen is just up the street from Salt & Straw, a fabulous ice cream place with unique “classic” flavors and seasonal options that I believe they change out every month. And yes, they will happily let you taste every flavor. What better way to kill an hour and a half than with some Black Olive Brittle and Goat Cheese Ice Cream?

When we finally got the call, we were seated at a large communal table. The room is dark (thus the mediocre pics) and extremely loud. As in – your throat will be sore from shouting by the end of the meal – loud. I suppose the benefit is that you end up having friendly back and forth with the strangers you’re sharing a table with, because you can’t help but overhear snippets of the shouting everyone is doing.

The Dish

We had some fun table-mates, who ordered some delicious-looking fare including a whole fish and some beautifully rare steak. I will admit I had a bit of order-envy, as our dishes were not worth the hefty price tag in my opinion.

Pollo al Mattone

Pollo al Mattone is chicken cooked under a brick. Chicken tends to be very low on my list of priorities when eating out, as I like to try more interesting things that I’m unlikely to cook at home. However, my dinner-mate was a less adventurous eater, and I had heard that this chicken was to-die-for. The chicken comes on a bed of beans, bread salad, and ‘nduja (which is an Italian pork salumi). Weirdly enough, my favorite part of this dish was the bread salad, which was slightly citrus-y and had the most interesting flavors on the plate.

Pasta Cavatelli

I’d also been told that Tasting Kitchen has great fresh made pasta. I lived in Italy for a bit and am a sucker for fresh pasta. Really good pasta doesn’t need a complex sauce, so I chose the Cavatelli because it came with cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) which is as straightforward and traditional Italian as you can get. But it also comes with pig’s ears, which fed my need to have something exciting in my meal. I was terribly disappointed with this dish. First off, it was tiny. About 6 forkfuls of food, which didn’t leave me satisfied even though I’d eaten ice cream beforehand. The pasta felt tough, rather than having the chewy springiness I associate with fresh pasta. The flavors were uninspiring. And I’ve had great pig’s ears, but these were not them. Such a bummer after finally getting to try this much anticipated spot.