Professor Gourmand

Wayback Machine — Kato, January-February 2018

I had heard SO much about this Taiwanese restaurant that at the beginning of January 2018, I had to venture out to West Los Angeles to see what it was like. It was a small place on Santa Monica Boulevard, a few blocks west of Sepulveda. As I recall, it seated about 32 people, three at the bar and the rest at tables. It also allowed you to bring your own wine. I went for the first time in January 2018, with a bottle of Naked Wines Stefano di Blasi Zibbibo-Cattarano blend, a good sushi wine. At the time, it had a $118 prix-fixe menu. I started with a kushi oyster, with uni served on a brow butter brioche with tomato puree and kombu. Really pretty, really tasty. That was followed by a flawless piece of sea bream in dashi with wasabi. After that, spiny lobster that had been poached in dashi with nasturtium leaves and a spicy element I couldn’t identify. Then, a bowl of chawanmushi arrived with Dungeness crab and a LOT of ginger. My notes say this was the “giddifying” dish that opened me up to the rest of the menu. Next, a steamed filet of turbot with kohlrabi in a dashi-onion broth, and THAT didn’t prepare me for a STAGGERINGLY good filet of sablefish served on ginger rice with XO sauce. It was at about this point that Nikki, the manager, told me she tastes every bottle that’s brought in and that my Sicilian wine had “won” the night. Three desserts followed: elderflower ice with frozen yogurt and grape jam, a speriphied Satsuma-imo brown butter sable, and a bowl of jasmine ice cream with chocolate crisps. Fabulous dinner (I compared it to Scratch…