Ludobites at home

Described by chef/creator Ludo Lefebvre as a "guerilla style pop-up restaurant," LudoBites is a restaurant-within-a-restaurant concept that pairs Ludo and his team with establishments that offer only breakfast and lunch service, creating a dinnertime event that drives brand awareness for both parties. The end goal of this marriage is to serve haute cuisine at affordable prices by keeping overhead to a minimum, to create a "bistronomy" of sorts that offers Michelin-level food at Claim Jumper costs. LudoBites is designed to move every few months, not unlike an artist's exhibition, and this current engagement.

At LudoBites the food is Michelin level but the surrounding, decoration, tableware, etc... are kept minimal to keep the cost down so that Ludo can spend every cents towards the food. Here at home, I hope that my cooking will do justice to Ludo's standard but I upgraded the decoration by bringing out crystal glassware, fine china and Linen for a more luxurious feel, simply because I want to make it a special event.

Fried soft shell crab is served in a sesame tuile cone, drizzled with spicy mayonnaise (mayo + srirasha), pureed Mango, and reduced balsamic syrup. To make it fun and whimsical the dish was paired with corona granite (shaved ice) on the side.

The soft shell crab and tuile is excellent and pairing it with a icy cold corona granite is playful and the granite was able to conveyed the essence of beer.

This is Ludo comment on this dish: "to give my customers a taste of my days at Bastide, I began borrowing dishes to serve at LudoBites, like this old favorite: a crispy sesame tuile shaped into a cone filled with crunchy fries soft shell crab and perked up with a little spicy mayo, mango puree, and balsamic syrup. On the side, a granite made from corona beer. I didn't just want to lay the cone on the plate: it's a cone - it should stand up!"

Here the oatmeal are cooked like risotto then mixed with bright green parsley puree, served with sautéed escargot and a frothy and light as a feather garlic sauce.

To start with this dish is really beautiful to look at!
Love the oatmeal with the lightly crisp escargot sautéed in butter ad tied together with a light garlic frothy sauce.

When you think of escargot you think of the classic escargot the Bourgogne but here Ludo was able to create a dish that show case the escargot in a delicious way.

3- Foie Gras croquette served on a bed of blueberries sautéed in butter and brown sugar.

Ludo served this dish with apricot and saffron but I changed it to blueberries because I know for sure that blueberries work very well with Foie Gras.

When you bite into the croquette you get a crispy outer layer and the a soft center oozing out into your mouth.

I spent hours making this dish and even though it is very good it is probably a one time deal.

Of course Phuc, our sommelier extraordinaire paired the foie gras with the best sauternes: a 1990 Chateau Guiraud, 1er cru - SO GOOD!

This bottle is really incredible...we drank it to last drop between the 12 of us and we had to tell everybody to make it last since we have 2 foie gras dishes tonight. We all got 2 glasses per person but if we could definitely drink more...

Well, I told you all the dishes tonight are from LudoBites cookbook but actually this dish is from Chris Cosentino, the famous chef in San Fancisco dubbed the "offal king".

This dish is really amazing! Chris is a genius for creating this dish. We all fell in love with the combination of pan seared foie gras, the sweet corn, and the charred onion which elevated this dish to a new dimension.

This is how Chris describes this dish: "Foie Gras and corn are made for each other: the richness of the foie gras pairs perfectly with natural sweetness of the kernels. I paint each serving bowl with a swoosh of onion charcoal, which gives the corn kernels and the corn pudding a subtle grilled taste without the corn ever getting near the fire."

Beautiful isn't it? I am very happy about the presentation - like they say we eat with our eyes first!

5-Wagyu culotte de boeuf, escargot, red wine butter, shallot jam, roasted eggplant served with carrot slaw.

This dish has so many components so there are a lot of preparation to put it together. Ludo uses flank steak but I replaced it with Wagyu culotte.

This is how Ludo described this dish: "Beef bourguignon is in my blood. This dish is from Burgundy, like me, and I just love it: the tender meat, the red wine- It tastes like home. All the lovely components are here, just refigured. Instead of slowly cooked meat, I grilled the beef and served it pink in the middle. I highlight the texture of the carrots by serving them raw in a slaw, another American preparation that I'd never heard of before I arrive here but that I can't get enough of today. The red wine infused butter gets added richness from a dose of bone marrow and texture from the escargots-though don't they sound much more delicious when referred to in my native tongue?"

For the sauce a whole bottle of wine was reduced to yield about 1/2 cup so the flavor of the wine is concentrated!

Also surprising is that Ludo paired the steak with escargot which is pretty unlikely but the combination works well.

The Wagyu culotte was so tender, flavorful and Phuc grilled it to my liking - medium rare!

A tropézinne is a brioche filled with custard. It is more like a cream bun and not a tart at all like the name might suggested.

Here are Ludo comments on this dessert: " I love taking an iconic dish, breaking it apart, and putting it back together again - often upside down or inside out. Yet for this dish I returned to my roots and set about faithfully re-creating the celebrated dessert from Saint Tropez, brioche sandwiching cream. I barely put a spin on it. Nothing creative (except the lavender), nothing froufrou, and certainly nothing molecular. This is not intellectual food - it's just plain good."

This Ludo comments on this dessert: "This is two desserts in one, a merging of Escoffier's famous creation for opera singer Nellie Melba and the French classic vacherin, which brings the chewy crunch of meringue. The addition of lavender was inspired by Alain Giraud, the chef before me at Bastide, who served a simple vacherin with vanilla ice cream and lavender that is among the finest desserts I've ever eaten."

We ended our meal with two really delicious desserts! Overall this was a very successful meal. All the dishes turned to be pretty memorable and unique.

Before we moved on to what is going on in the kitchen I would like for you to take a look at Trois Mec, Fall 2014- 60 second tasting Menu - Click on LINK to see video.

The meal I served is not the same as Trois Mec but I hope I was able to capture the essence of LuboBites.