Red Medicine or Son of a Gun?

Question

I will be in LA dining in a party of 4. Trying to decide, we are all adventurous, and enjoy inventive food. 
Which of these will give a better dining experience?

Also, is there a good way to share (perhaps the entire menu) between 4 people at Son of a Gun?
Other recommendations under $100/person?

Answer

RM. SoG is great and worth your time, but I'd save it for another time. RM first.

Answer

Wow, I guess this is pretty one sided. I have made my reservation for Red Medicine and will plan on asking for the tasting menu.
Thanks, I will report back after diner.

Answer

This may be a little late for your particular trip, but I'd read so many nice reviews of Red Medicine that I finally decided to head up to LA and give it a try. 

I'll start by saying that I had a really fabulous cocktail- gin and lime with thai basil, citrusy and herbal, which generally tends to be my favorite. I only regret that I had to drive and could not have more than one. 

Unfortunately, from there, I found the food to be wholly disappointing. Every dish I had was covered in sugar and acid, and was completely without balancing herb or spice that could have transformed the dishes into something more palatable. Textures were maimed and often did not complement one another within a dish, and plates often had large pieces for decoration which made dishes unwieldy and added little to their flavors. 

My first dish was one of 'barbecued' leeks in a yuzu buttermilk sauce with charred ash. When the leeks arrived, they had clearly been boiled out of their misery, soaked in some form of sweet acid, and then supposedly grilled, though they did not have the caramelized smoky flavor one might expect from the fire. The leeks were plated whole, but had lost almost all structural integrity after being cooked for so long and were nearly unrecognizable-- except for the internal ribbing, which made them long, stringy, and difficult to cut through with the butter knife they gave me. 

On top of the leeks was some kind of fennel or anise, served raw in 4in+ stems, again almost impossible to manage. The yuzu and the acid soaked leeks paired, in my opinion, poorly with the buttermilk, the charred leek ash was sparse, and the fennel too large to manage with a bite of anything else. At one point I even wondered if the chef had ever tasted his own food, and if so how in the world had he eaten the blasted thing?? 

From there I moved on to a dish of whole miniature eggplant, fresh pea puree, radishes, charred panko breadcrumb ‘dirt’, pea tendrils with flowers, and sunchoke chips. Individually, the pea puree, the panko dirt, and the fried sunchoke skins were interesting, but as a dish, the components did not marry with one another, the eggplant were again soaked in an overwhelming sweet vinegar, and pieces were once more so large and unmanageable that it was nearly impossible to have bites of two separate ingredients at the same time. 

The dish LOOKED so beautiful, and there were certainly some promising elements, but it seemed that taste had been sacrificed to appearance, and that the dish had been put together with no thought for balance of flavor. The entire plate seemed so tragic, as a small amount of chili, shiso, thai basil, or for crying out loud, even black pepper would have brightened the dish, pulled back the inescapable and nearly painful sweet acid, and forced the different elements of the dish to interact a little more.

Finally, I finished with the pork belly served with rhubarb 4 ways and roasted alliums. Again, portions of the dish had little flavor but sweet acid, though the savory pork belly did a much better job of holding its own against acidic flavors. But then pork belly is somewhat difficult to ruin especially with the combination of fat and acid. 

Alliums again seemed to have been boiled or steamed far past their prime, then thrown on the grill, and while marginally better than the leeks, it made me sad to see vegetables so texturally abused and mushy on the inside, then paired with giant stems of unknown raw leaves and long, rambling beet chips that once again looked lovely but added little to the flavors.

In short, I found the experience extremely disappointing, especially after seeing such universally positive reviews on chow. I rarely write completely negative reviews anywhere online, but I found the food to be so far off that I would be embarrassed to serve those dishes in my own home, and thought it was important to post a counterpoint to all the raves.

I hope for the restaurant’s sake that someone can vouch that my experience is an anomaly, and that others will have better dinners than my own.

With regrets, 
Bekah

Answer

Bummer. Red Medicine is not in the same league as Son of a Gun or Animal for anyone who values food over everything else.

Answer

animal is adventurous and you can skate out under $100. vinny dotolo is running both now. a young, aventurer to say the least, and he's on fire!

Answer

Went back tonight. It's as good as ever. Our guest from Madrid was astounded by the cuisine and commented no less than 4 times how amazing the aubergine (eggplant) was. He remarked how much talent it takes to combine such daring flavors and work such magic with vegetables. I agree completely. 

We had:

-Brussel sprouts with fish sauce. Again, the deep flavors here created by using fish sauce exceeds any pork laced version in town. Crispy in texture, highlighted by the mint.

-Dutch white asparagus with almond milk, black sesame paste and meringue of onion and sake lees. I love white asparagus. The herbs added a touch of bitterness. Everything was delicious. Then you mix it with the black sesame paste and another completely different dimension of richness and flavor comes forth.

-Charred uni on cauliflower custard, chinese sausage. As delicious as it sounds. But then you taste the fried seaweed, and notice there are bits of roasted sweet potatoes in the chinese sausage. Sweet, brine, toasted seaweed, salty sausage, and caramelized sweet potato. The layers and depth of are much more than meets the eye.

-Indian eggplant with spring peas and sunchoke skins. Sounds simple enough unless you try counting all the ingredients in the dish. The herbs, the malt and garlic bits that taste like bits of meat, the radish rolled in chicory (I think) to mimic dirt. There are fried sweet potato chips, pea puree dusted with green tea, and guacamole puree. There are delicious pea leaves scattered throughout. The most complex and delicious salad in town. Wait a minute, sweet potato chips and guacamole puree...is this a tongue in cheek chip and dip?

-Raw diver scallops with radish, rambutan, and whey. Initially, just very nice raw scallops. But if you eat it with the slightly acidic radish disks, everything changes.

-Heritage pork belly. An amazing glorious slab of tender pork. The skin portion in contact with the griddle was crispy and caramelized. Those looking for something substantial and for something to sink their teeth into need look no further than this dish.

-Beef Brisket. I had asked for a portion in advance when making the reservation on Opentable. They were so busy this week they sold out and when they went through the reservation notes this afternoon, realized it, called to apologize profusely and then made one in the same fashion with some remaining portions of brisket and some lamb. This was complimentary. A tremendous gesture and above and beyond what was expected.

-Coconut bavarois. Always delicious for those that like their dessert a bit sweeter but not too sweet. 

-Green gage plum. As you can see by the photos, a completely different rendition from last year. I asked about the interesting "crust" surrounding the dessert. I thought it was marzipan, my sister thought it was graham cracker. It tasted like a combination of both but was neither. We were told it was yellow clover and a technique discovered/invented by the chef during his French Laundry days. It is beyond my comprehension. All I can say is that it is delicious.

The cuisine here is like fine art, music, or poetry. You think you know it until you try it again. Each time it's slightly different. You think you understand it and then realize there is something much deeper. Red Medicine is truly special.

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Red Medicine or Son of a Gun?

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