The Last Days of LudoBites (For Now)

Do you remember when the circus would come to town?  They'd pitch their tents and every night under the bigtop, mysterious things would happen.  Sinewy women would walk the tightrope.  Painted elephants would kneel on one knee.  Clowns would shoot out of cannons.  You'd watch all this with a box of crackerjacks and a sense of wonder. Then one day, the circus would leave.  That day was a sad day.  But you knew the circus would come again next year.  Well, LudoBites is folding on August 22nd.  I plan to try and eat there a few more times before that happens.  I read that another Bread Bar location will be the site of the next LudoBites in September, but Chef Ludo told me and Lauren of Harb Knock Life that he and his doppelganger wife Krissy are looking for a space ideally a bit more east of the current location.

I'm sure there will be another incarnation and that we will all look forward to the acrobatics and the mysterious doings under the bigtop.  With that understanding, let's move on to the food.

Again with the green beans. I had to.  The green beans, peach, coconut, apple, horseradish, lemongrass had beans that snapped, peaches that hummed and apples that sang.  It was a sour, sweet, grassy, crunchy summer feeling.

Again with the lobster medallions, honey-sherry vinagrette, daikon, rosemary. I've eaten so much of this fun sweet and sour gloopy sauce, there might be a separate organ in my body dedicated to processing it. Kind of like a gallbladder or something, my gloop goes in there separate from other foods.

Cod, onions soubise, grilled chanterelles, balsamic, kumquats. The kumquat sauce was so kumquatty. Is that a word? I love cod and this was delicious.

Grilled beef tenderloin, smoked eggplant, goat cheese, shallots chive flowers. Harbknocklife is a red meat lover. Every other post on her blog shows her chowing down on some rare bloody thing, so we had to order this. It was all stupendously tasty. The eggplant really brought a healthy and earthy feeling to a big ole hunk of juicy tasty cow ass.

We also got the spaghetti carbonara, santa-barbara prawns, sage. This was compliments of the chef. I wanted to order it, but was afraid the dairy would be too much for harby. It was rich and decadent but not too heavy due to the portion size and due to the mingling of some type of organic matter with the noodles. Sorry for the imprecision. I guess I'll have to have this again. You just can't go wrong with an egg, a huge wingspan of bacon and a solo pink shrimp with noodles. No siree Bob.

For dessert we had the organic strawberry soup, wasabi-marscapone, pistachio parfait separated, so the dairy wouldn't mingle too freely with the other elements. This was light and berrylicious. I especially loved the pistachio parfait and the berries. I ate almost all of it while Lauren, a Psychologist in training, was analyzing Chef Ludo who was discussing the tremendous pressure to perform that is bearing down on him. I told him, whether it took a toll or not, we liked the end result, so the unbearable pressure and stress was pretty much cool with us. I got a quintessential gallic look that probably meant, you're dead clueless Korean. *shrug*

The chef sent this out gratis. I had had it before and enjoyed it both times. It's a deeply fascinating creature the chocolate cup cake, foie gras chantilly, candied bacon-almonds, maple syrup. The bacon almonds and maple bring the whole thing together. It also works because while the foie gras chantilly is rich like an animal protein frosting would be, the chocolate cake is dark and austere and plays off the buttery foie gras in a surprising way. Definitely this is a must try item.

So, I'm looking forward to my next meals at LudoBites. Aren't you?