Another Friday night in Los Angeles, we took a long drive over to DTLA (That means downtown). As I have said before it is a long drive to one restaurant to the next if you are venturing out of your hood and this area was in the complete opposite direction to where we were, it took about 45 mins. I was hoping this long round trip would be worth it for the food, this is what we travelled all this way for. We must have struck gold because we had one of our best nights in this restaurant. The food was exceptionally good, if it does not have a star by the end of the year, I am going to wonder why the hell not.
We did have a bit of trouble with our table at first, they kept seating us in odd places, like next to the restrooms, but when we finally sat down comfortably the night could begin. The menu was small and exuded quality, everything looked authentic. We chose another Mexican restaurant because this is one of the highlights of cuisine in Los Angeles and I think they do it well. I have an opinion on gastronomy here, especially tasting menus, I tend to stay away and leave that to Europe as I find it to be much lower level and not worth the time. I do not think it is their strength. This kind of restaurant instead is perfect.
We started with the Tlayuda, Guacamole. Wonderful flavour and crisp, the herbs the freshest they could be. “Ok” I thought, this is a good start of what is to come. I am going to struggle going home and slicing open an avocado, every single one in LA is so much better in quality and the one at Damian is super fresh topped with a lot of aromatic herbs to take it even further in taste. When you have a superb product such as this you do not need to do a lot to it.
The pork belly, small but knock-out in flavour, melting in the mouth. We could have eaten another plate of them, but we had to save some room for everything else. The calamar was tender not an ounce of toughness here, the flavour and execution exceptional. We had some smoked quesillo cheese on the side, not my favourite but it matched what we were eating.
Then what arrived was deliciousness personified, the duck carnitas (Cola confit), with taquero accoutrements. Upon my first bite, I wanted to sing its praises. This was THE dish to take here. The duck cooked to the exact perfect point, slow cooking at its best. Perfectly tender strands of duck pulling apart seamlessly with the fork, fresh, delicious, flavour notes hitting you from all angles. It was a huge size, and we could not finish it, so we took it back with us. No way were we wasting this! The tortillas alongside were what you would expect, at the top level. The duck was outrageously ‘yummy’ but the execution sophisticated and rustic at the same time. You could clearly tell that this duck had gone through a lot of processes to reach this level of perfection. The drive was worth it just for this alone. It was one of a kind.
After such a high, there was unfortunately a ‘low’ The dessert was average, I took one or two bites then left the rest. The hibiscus, meringue, and raspberry got lost in the shadows.
To summarise I was happy to have made the journey and discover this restaurant, I can confirm it is worth going to for satisfying, well executed cuisine with superb flavours that are on point. I will be back…
