SLS Hotel @ Beverly Hills Trilogy, Second Chapter: SAAM

First Chapter:
http://foodmakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2010/07/sls-hotel-beverly-hills-trilogy-first.html

8:30 p.m.

From Bar Centro to SAAM,
Our dining experience has finally begun.

It surely is an "intimate" room,
Only 7 or 8 smaller tables with our larger, longer table in the middle.

This post gonna contains a lot, A LOT of pictures,
To make the story short,
The tasting menu comes with 22 courses created by Chef Jose Andres,
SAAM happened to have white truffles that day,
So our menu became 22 "+1" courses.

8:45 p.m.

I pushed the wine pairing away and embraced my champagne instead.

1st Course: The Golden Boy (in the making)

Final product -

Alcohol first. Yes, just make us drunk before serving the dishes.
Pardon my tiny knowledge regarding alcoholic beverages,
Little is known regarding the first course (maybe that one drink at Bar Centro already knocked me out (> _.<)" )
The drink was infused with lemon, and some gold dust sprinkled on top,
Tastes kind of salty. Yes, that's my only input for the 1st course.

2nd Course: Lotus Root Chip

Thinly sliced lotus root, deep fried, and sprinkled with star anise powder.
Very good with or without alcohol,
Never realized star anise powder can be used this way.

3rd Course: Olive Oil Bonbon

Some interesting techniques were used for this course,
The Spanish extra virgin olive oil was reserved in a sugar/sea salt casing,
Simply grab the tip with your hand and savor the combination of all these ingredients.
Hmm..too bad I'm not a big fan of olive oil tasting..

4th Course: Bagel & Lox Steam Bun

Cheese in the center,
Salmon roe and fresh dill on top of the steam bun,
Not bad, but I think the uni bun from Bar Centro has better taste and texture.

5th Course: Tuna Handroll 2009

Wonder if they have a 2010 version of this dish..
The handroll was wrapped in super thin filo, admire the skills used.
By the way, don't be fooled by the picture,
One roll is about half the size of my pinky finger.

9:30 p.m.

6th Course: Black Olives Ferran Adria

One uncommon technique was used here called spherification,
To make it sounds easier,
You take the liquid-form ingredient and drip it into calcium chloride solution,
The end result is sphere-like droplets with semi-solidified casing and liquid center.
Fun!

7th Course: Jose's Combination

Ham from Spain, paired with caviar.
I totally screwed up this course,
Was supposed to "gently" roll the ham towards myself and eat the whole thing together,
Somehow my clumsy fingers made a mess and all the caviars were scattered throughout my plate...
It was good though.

8th Course: Buffalo Wing

The wing was deboned and marinated prior cooking,
Blue cheese and celery were also used for this dish.

9th Course: Crispy Nigiri

Yellow jack served on rice crisp. So so.

10th Course: Chipirones en su Tinta

Comes with flavored squid ink sauce and some kind of Japanese veggies (black stuff).
Asian readers,
Don't you think that black thing looks kind of like 豬血糕??

11th Course: Linguini and Clams

Linguini was made with dashi broth in a gelatin form,
Served with yuzu vinaigrette and black garlic,
Talking about black garlic, not sure what kind they used in SAAM,
But the black garlic back in Asia was more like fermented garlic.
*This dish was very good.

10 p.m.

(Champagne in front of candle light)
I still had more than half of the champagne left,
Taking it slow....just like our long lasting meal...2 hours already...

To be continued...

SAAM @ SLS Hotel
465 South La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
http://www.slshotels.com/
http://www.sbe.com/sls/bazaar/