Providence Nabs Three Full Stars, J. Gold Hits Jae Bu Do

1) Providence: Today the threespot goes out to chef Michael Cimarusti and Providence. Right off the bat SIV gushes over decadent seafood and meat lollipops, with “round squid sitting on a cube of dark red chorizo.” Cimarusti, known for his meticulous seafood preparations, has a “carefully cultivated” list of longterm providers including “scallops from the East Coast, sea trout from Tasmania, wild John Dory from New Zealand, turbot from Brittany, rouget from the Mediterranean...he brings a formidable arsenal of techniques to bear on his raw material.” Nonetheless, what's a girl to eat? SIV’s main dilemma is whether she should order the tasting menu-short or long- or go a la carte. Her pick is the short tasting menu and she suggests not to read it beforehand. Just let the surprises come as they come, “each few bites a revelation that stand out in memory.” And the praise keeps on coming: "At five years, Providence has come into its own, driven by Cimarusti's sensitive and exacting cooking. Almost 15 miles inland, the kitchen at Providence is consistently turning out the best seafood cooking in Los Angeles — and some of the best in the country." [LAT]

2) Jae Bu Do: What a title: "Ode to the Slimy Hagfish," nice. This week The Goldster lands at Jae Bu Do, “a seafood grill on the outer edge of Koreatown...you leave feeling as if you have escaped from a battlefield: bone-sore, stinking, your shirt speckled with tiny, burnt holes. Every item of clothing you wear will undoubtedly be saturated with the various exudations of the sea; the scent of smoldering charcoal, from the pit in the middle of each table, will survive your costliest shampoo." Always the adventurous eater, Gold samples hagfish, "a wormlike creature, neither vertebrate nor invertebrate, that survives by secreting a special kind of fibrous slime that effectively closes up attackers' gills...nothing about hagfish may be quite so alarming as watching a mess of them, skinned and gutted, thrown onto a charcoal grill. The long, eel-like filets writhe, they contort, they twist around one another like the serpents on Asclepius' staff, before shrinking into tiny bicycle tires on the grate. The hagfish are painted with sweet chile sauce and cut into 2-inch lengths. You wrap them in gaennip leaves with sliced chiles and raw garlic cloves, which help to kill the taste but not the awful cartilaginous crunch...The hagfish is whisked away. Sweet potatoes are buried in the embers to roast, like mickeys. A giant bowl of noodles makes it to the table, long and fresh and chewy, simmering in a peppery clam broth. The hagfish is long forgotten." [LAW]

The Elsewhere: The Find hits Tom Yum Koong, Gastronomy dines at Thiên Ân Bò 7 Món, Diana Takes a bite at Terroni’s bar, My Last Bite discusses Tres, and Food Je T'Aime picks The Apple Pan.