Ludo Le Roi at Royal-T

Like the King Returns in Lord of the Rings, (yes, sound the nerd alarm stat), in December, Chef Ludo Lefebvre and Krissy Lefebvre returned triumphantly to the cooking scene in Los Angeles and we, the Frodo Baggins and dwarves and elves of Middle Earth, convened to eat yet again at LudoBites at Royal-T which hosted LudoBites in conjunction with an art installation styled "In Bed Together" which brought together the work of various artists under one roof.

DianaTakesaBite was invited to opening night so I tagged along as her plus one. Joining us was TheDeliciousLife. We stood behind the red velvet ropes like wanna bes startin' somethings. Then they let us in. Fools.

The bartenders were pouring my favorite drinks: free ones.

All night long, I kept seeing this spectre dressed in a dark monastic robe and vaguely Japanese flip flops. Was this (gasp) a male geisha? Where was his "split peach" and his obo? No, my ignorant Western friend. This is an artist. I liked his dress sense but it was a cold night. I hope he had long johns on underneath that robe.

Like a live art demonstration, Ludo and his sous were cooking for the artsey crowd. They look rather like two mixmasters DJ-ing their hearts out huh? They moved in unison like smooth criminals.

Raw scallops with pineapples. This was like Tahiti in a cup.

Crepes with bacon jam and goat cheese. Yummy.

Gossip columnist and TV personality Janet Charlton. Do you remember her from Inside Edition or whatever show that was? Am I the only person in any social gathering that recognizes the petit stars of yore? My face recognition technology is pretty effective if I say so myself. What I loved best about Janet is that she always kept a smile on her face no matter the horrors that had befallen a celebrity. In a way, like all gossip purveyors, she personifies the banality of evil.

In any respectable art gathering, there should always be at least one gentleman sporting a Members' Only jacket. With its all purpose polyester, the snap fastened collar and neutral tones of beige, maroon and navy blue, could anything be more stylish or cool? Cross your arms and stand contrapposto and bam! you're like a Greek sculpture. I want a Members' Only jacket too.

There's always one guy out there who thinks you're taking a photo of him instead of the nearly naked tattooed ladies. Strong self-esteem should have its limits, no?

Don't tell that to whoever modeled for this re-take of Manet's Olympia. I recall learning from my Italian art professor (who had a shockingly hot young wife that I ran into at Trader Joe's while buying cheese) that Olympia with her direct gaze at the viewer was a break with artistic convention and teamed with the fact that she was a 'ho, it was nothing short of cataclysmic. What art could shock us today? Not much.

Ludo and Krissy. This is a cute pic, no?

As much as I enjoyed the opening ceremonies, I was more excited to come to Royal-T a week or so later to graze with Angela, Diana of DianaTakesaBite, Lauren of HarbKnockLife and Sarah of TheDeliciousLife.

We started off with carmelized peanuts with curry. This was the best damn crackerjack I've ever had. If they sold this in Bombay, it would be perfect to eat at cricket matches and bollywood movies. Diana and I went to town on this.

Bread soup, poached egg, gruyere marshmallow. You know how they say beer is "liquid bread"? Well, this was the real thing. I loved the marshmallow. This was Angela's favorite dish of the night and it was deeply savory and mysterious like gravy's lighter cousin. The egg pretty much melted in your mouth.

Our raw scallop, brown butter, pineapple friend from opening night was refreshing and again, sweet and sour like a tropical vacation.

We ordered two and sometimes three of every dish which Diana and I ended up eating by ourselves practically as Sarah was off socializing, Lauren had gone vegan and Angela was a light eater. It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

Diana and I loved the udon. We scraped every bit of the miso sauce into the wonderfully mushroomy broth and slurped up the noodles with large hunks of shredded veal meal. Veal is generally offensive to my mouth because the scary texture and the terror of eating a child essentially. Here, though, the veal was tender but not terrifying. In fact, it was pretty damn tasty.

Monterey squid, chorizo oil and kimchee puree was delicious. It was just spicy enough and the blackened sheet of eggplant challenged the notion of the place of burnt food on a plate. A must try.

Foie gras beinet. We all took a bite of this fun round friend. We all liked him very much. He was creamy and crisp and nourishing.

Confit pork belly with mustard and frisee. I loved the way this dish looked. Doesn't it look like an underwater reef or some such? It could even be like an illustration of a complex part of a cell like a golgi apparatus. Don't you recall the golgi apparatus? It was so pretty and mauve. Do you remember? Do you also remember how your heart would beat when you had to dissect the earthworm and you'd put on your rubber gloves with a sense of the surgeon's responsibility? And then how you'd take a kim wipe and clean the beakers and the microscope slides and then you'd put away the bunsen burner, and you'd think, science is a trip.

This dish was a trip and a half. So delicious and you know I'm not even a pork belly lover but this was probably my favorite dish of the night.

Striped bass, garden vegetables, yuzu aoili. Again, Diana and I were all over this. I think Lauren ate some veggies. It was a clean fresh dish.

Hanger steak, escargot, baby corn and olive mole. Another favorite. So delicious, perfectly cooked and the mole was marvelous. As was the fat ass baby corn. This is not the baby corn of your chinese stir fry. Like one of those 20 lb infants, it was fatter than its peers and came with green hair. We loved him so we ate him up with a knife and fork.

Pistachio rice milk, lemon pound cake. I'm not sure if these two things went together but each was nice on its own. I love pistachio anything and this was deeply madly pistachio. The pound cake was delish. "Nobody does it like Ludo Lee."

I don't recall eating this dish. It's quite likely I did not given that I ate either Lauren or Sarah's portion all night and was pretty full at the end of the evening. How full was I? If poked my tummy with a knitting needle, your needle would bend.

The second time I went to have LudoBites at Royal-T, we were driving when we saw Santa Claus on a flatbed truck being carted around by a business advertising themselves. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

We started off with tuna sashimi, sushi rice cream and soy sauce gelee. I loved the rice cream but I also loved the gelee. Like salty bits of jello, they'd go really well with all kinds of asian foods like soba noodles or a bowl of cold rice splashed in a bit of green tea.

Once again, the beefey shroomy brothey udon was a big hit with my taste receptors.

The teriyaki cod was amazing. So moist, perfectly seasoned and classically satisfying. One of favorite of this night.

The pork belly, eggplant puree and plaintain was another favorite. Crisp seared fat never tasted so good.

We were most fortunate to procure LFC and the French colonel's secret recipe was a taste explosion in my mouth. Before the chicken came to the table, I told my friend this was the best fried chicken he'd ever have. Kind of like an astronaut might tell a civilian passenger to brace themselves at take off, I felt some kind of warning was called for. But the civilian actually threw down a challenge asking, "better than Honey's Kettle?" I made one of those whistling noises between my lips meaning I am so offended, my ancestors just farted in their graves.

So, what happened after my friend became acquainted with Ludo's chicken? I asked him, "better than Honey's Kettle?" And he said, "pretty good." That's how you know someone lost their throw down. Even a year ago, I might have said "face" while dragging my fingers down my face to signify my victory but I just sat with folded hands letting the internal glee flood every pore of my body. Dignity. It's nice.

Guacamole, exotic fruits, ice cream. I'd rather have the ice cream with the exotic fruits. The guacamole was like a party crasher but interesting. Who would ever think to use guac in a dessert?

Krissy led me to the kitchen so I could see the internal workings of the engine room. Sous chef Austin was there with Chef Ludo. It was hot and lots of energy was bouncing off the walls. I said something very profound like "it's hot in here" and scurried out to let the chefs cheffify their stuff.

I just loved my second meal at LudoBites, perhaps even more than my first because I felt each dish was stronger and even more delicious. It was sad that I wouldn't be coming back but I felt with the evening starting off with Santa, progressing with delicious food and ending with Chef Ludo advising us of his plans to cook a testicle-less rooster for Krissy's family at Christmas, I had had a great time and it wouldn't do to be greedy...

Until, that is, Will of Fooddigger.com, invited me to join him and some friends for an all Bruin dinner table at LudoBites. At that point, I became Gordon "greed is good" Gekko. Do you recall that scene where Gordon is walking on the beach with a proto cell phone and the phone is seriously the size of a VHS tape? Hilarious.

We had the sushi again. We loved it again.

Celery root soup. It was soothing and creamy with a truffley accent.

I loved the carmelized endive with grapefruit. The bitterness of the endive which was mellowed and the bitter acidity of the citrus went really well together. Who would have thought?

Lardo. This was a huge hit with the gang. I couldn't eat it. I know. It's "the best song sung in the key of pig" according to Mario Batali but pure pig fat is a ditty that I can't get myself to hum along to. TheDelicious absolutely loved it though as did Will and my new 1/8 Chinese 1/4 Trinidad and 1/8 something or other friend who is going to learn how to cook ox tail soup from his mom and then challenge TheDelicious' korean ox tail soup. Stay tuned.

You know I love me my fish and this was again perfection!

Will told me that he had never had an over or undercooked piece of fish or meat from Chef Ludo with the reason being that Chef Ludo had been taught to cook through the precise control of time. In other words, he never touches a piece of food to test how well cooked it is. Not one piece of fish or steak or whatever gets tapped or prodded with a probing questioning finger. Crazy, huh? The force is strong in this one, no doubt.

The pork belly caused a severe breakdown in dining etiquette at our table with each man cutting a fat chunk off for themselves. It was every man for himself and I was no exception. We all loved it and sang its praises.

We got three orders of the fried chicken. There was no blasphemous reference to "Honey's Kettle". I loved the polenta and the boneless snacker like pieces. I'm sure this dish was to some degree inspired by Chef Ludo's wife's love of fried chicken. I can't wait to see if Chef Ludo tackles a CPK style pizza to please Krissy's palate. I bet it'd be good.

We all loved the mole which brought an earthy essence of its own to the chicken party.

The exotic fruits and the guacamole.

I loved this blue cheese tart with beet stained pear. The pastry was flaky and light and wonderful and the blue cheese was just sharp enough to make its point. Wonderful.

And so, at the end of another long evening, Chef Ludo and his wife Kristine Lefebvre stood under the "In Bed Together" sign. I look forward to the next chapter in the LudoBites novel having had again such wonderful dining experiences and conversations and food at Royal-T thanks to the Lefebvres.