Mon 31 Jul 2006
Cafe Ugo: Turn Down the Tiramisu
Posted by Caroline on Crack under Los Angeles, Dining, Sweets -
Back in the ’90s, I used to be a tiramisu reviewer. Not for any special publication or anything. Rather, my friend Bernadette and I would go from Italian restaurant to Italian restaurant just to sample this Tuscan trifle. It was our own unofficial quest for the best one out there. Having not found it yet, the search continues even though it’s been on hiatus for many years.
But last night over a catch-up session with good ol’ Bern, we went to Ugo in Culver City for a light dinner and ended up resurrecting this pastime by picking up the Italian cafe’s “pick-me-up.” Ugo makes great pastas and the restaurant is always busy, even on a Sunday night, so we figure tiramisu here would be good. But I could tell just by looking at the dessert as it sat in its refrigerated case that it wasn’t going to be all that impressive. It looked too cakey and dry.
And unfortunately, I was right. There wasn’t any hint of the coffee and liqueur that’s supposed to permeate the lady fingers. Instead it just tasted like heaps of mascarpone slathered on bits of lady fingers. So much cheese in fact that it left an oily residue on my tongue. Blah!
It might be passable for those who haven’t tasted heaven in their mouths before where the tiramisu is the perfect balance of creamy and cakey and wet and dry but for my discerning tiramisu palate? I couldn’t even finish it. Me. Letting dessert go to waste. Yeah, it was that bad.
3865 Cardiff Avenue
Culver City, California 90232
(310) 204-1222
July 31st, 2006 at 10:22 am
1.) I did this exact same thing in college, only in Boston. And it was for chicken fingers.
2.) Your food photos always look so appetizing, which is a hard thing to do. Mine always look like rabid wolves had their way with the plate beforehand.
July 31st, 2006 at 10:34 am
1) Ha! That was a college thing for me, too! Well, the tiramisu reviewing. I wonder if that’s a characteristic of the college years…exploring our options out there.
2) Aww, thanks! Although I’m not too happy with this tiramisu shot. But I guess to make it delectable-looking would be going against my message.
July 31st, 2006 at 11:19 am
that looks nasty actually…kinda cheese moldy. ick! Ah. alas we are no longer in college…
July 31st, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Thanks, G. :P
July 31st, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I dunno but from what I hear the closest non-human thing to heaven in your mouth is the for real imported from Japan $20 per ounce (6 oz. minimum) Kobe steak at Cut. Wanna split one?
July 31st, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Yikes! $20 per ounce? Where do you get that? But don’t they have mad cow disease in Japan?
July 31st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Actually, I think the cattle being fed beers and having their bodies massaged are quite content. Per Jonathan Gold, here’s the deets:
Cut
Have you ever tasted Kobe beef — not the admittedly decent American wagyu from the same breed of cow, but the real stuff, the $200-a-pound steaks imported from Japan? It’s like something Willy Wonka might make if he were into steak instead of chocolate, a single mouthful of which pumps out flavor after flavor after flavor, every possible sensation of smoke and char and tang and animal richness you can imagine until your teeth have extracted all the juices and the remaining fibers lie limply on your tongue. If you happen to be at Wolfgang Puck’s new steak house, Cut, which at the moment is probably the best steakhouse in the world that doesn’t happen to be in either Tokyo or Buenos Aires, and you happen to have in front of you what would ordinarily be a perfectly splendid corn-fed Nebraska strip steak, aged 35 days, seared at 1,200 degrees then finished over oak to a ruddy, juicy medium rare, and garnished, perhaps with bone marrow, you would take one bite of your neighbor’s Kobe steak and look around for rocks to throw at your own hunk of meat. If you have $120 million to spend on a painting, you might as well buy yourself a Klimt. If you have $120 to spend on a steak, you might want to consider visiting Cut — and splitting the Kobe strip three or four ways, because there is no way you can finish even a small example by yourself. Inserted into a new Richard Meier–designed space in the Regent Beverly Wilshire, in a semicircular all-white room whose angles make you feel as if you’re dining in a mid-’60s Frank Stella painting, Cut is to the other steak houses in town at the moment what Spago was to the pizza parlors back in 1981. Lee Hefter’s warm veal tongue with salsa verde, succulent maple-glazed pork belly, crisp-skinned potato “tart tatin” and pan-roasted Maine lobster with truffle sabayon are quite unlike anything before served in Los Angeles. 9500 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 275-5200. Dinner Mon.–Sat. Full bar. Valet parking a half-block south of Wilshire Blvd. on Rodeo Drive. AE, D, MC, V. California Contemporary. $$$
July 31st, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Dear Caroline,
Have you tried the tiramisu at Cafe Angelino on Third and Robertson? It’s a little piece of heaven, I’m telling ya.
July 31st, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Yeah, Lien? I’ll have to check it out! Thanks for the tip.
August 1st, 2006 at 5:13 am
I remember the tiramisu years! In fact, I was always annoyed not to be invited to the review group.
By the way, mad cow disease is not widespread in Japan. Japan has the disease just like the U.S. has the disease, except that the U.S. is trying to blame Canada. Just like the song says.
August 1st, 2006 at 12:02 pm
I’ve had yummy, creamy tiramisu (plus a pretty good dinner!) at a little Italian restaurant at Venice/Clarington. I can’t remember the name, but it’s in the strip mall on the southeast corner.
They have a $100, fully cooked frozen Wagyu roast at Costco….
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:04 am
Try the original Cafe Ugo on Pico - it’s never crowded! Great food but I agree, the desserts leave something to be desired. You’re better off walking down the street to Cold Stone (both locations are within a block of one).
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:10 am
[…] After patronizing Ford’s Filling Station and nothing else in Culver City for months, I finally opened my eyes wide enough to catch a glimpse of Vinum Populi, a high-tech wine bar located next to Ugo’s. Amazing since I had unwittingly passed by it every time I headed to Ford’s from the public parking garage; and it’s been around since December. But finally I was able to duck in Saturday night. However, since it was crazy-busy and I didn’t have the elbow room to explore or the help of the staff to walk me through this innovative, albeit initially intimidating, setup, I decided to come back on an off-night with Dre in tow. And I’m glad I did because there was so much more to see and learn. […]