Last week, my big sis Marian treated me to a very belated (but better than never) birthday dinner! YAY! Thanks big sis!! She took me to Lost At Sea in Pasadena. This restaurant has been here for a while now and I have always been meaning to try it and finally did!! The food here has a general theme as you can guess from the restaurant name. It was all the animals of the sea!
The restaurant wasn’t as themed with the blue ocean as I thought it would be, but it still gave a casual yet classy ambience. I liked every single fishy dish that we ordered and the service was superb! Our waitress was very attentive, nice and even sweet!
We almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves on a random weekday dinner. I’m surprised this restaurant isn’t more crowded! The food is so good!
We each get a special knife to accompany our utensils from the start. Now let the sea festivities begin! And the first dish we ordered was the BEST DISH EVER!
CAULIFLOWER PANNA COTTA, uni, trout roe, citrus brown butter. This appetizer resembles like the panna cotta dessert. What a creative way to turn a dessert style dish into a savory appetizer one! This was my absolute favorite dish from the start. The presentation is just so visually appealing. It reminds me of the coral reef with all of the abundance of colors of life (plants and sea animals). The texture of the panna cotta is a smooth jello like substance that is mild but serves as the perfect medium with the savory trout roe and the fresh uni. This dish was just such a delight to eat!
CROSTINO octopus, boudin noir, fresno chile, almond romesco. This darken crostino can easily food your hungry eyes and stomach. The crostini was a lot more savory and delicious than it looked. The bread was perfectly toasty with the baby crunch, yet not too hard to hurt the roof of my mouth with each bite. The octopus was very flaky and light in texture AND SO SAVORY!! I loved the air-y texture of the bread and the octopus toppings.
SMELT labne, chile ancho, lime. This was so fun to eat! The smelt was crispy and crunchy! It was like a plate of fries but fishy version! Just pick up a fish, smear it with some of the spread and eat! Yum, yum, yum.
OCTOPUS mole, strawberry gel, sesame tuile, green strawberry. This tentacle of an octopus looked so appetizing. I like the contrast of savory octopus to sweet strawberry gel. There were even white strawberries in the dish! I’ve never had strawberries in that color before!
MARKET FISH potato, favas, asparagus, hearty greens, tarragon fumet, prosciutto. Ohh shame on me for forgetting which fish they served!!! Marian should remember.. I only recall that it was my first time trying this type of fish. The fish was very flaky and soft. I liked the bed of vegetables and sauce it laid on. The flavor of the sauce reminded me of a thicker version of comforting chicken noodle soup.
GNOCCHI Main lobster, asparagus, fava, herbs, chile. Our last main entree for the day! I LOOOVEEEE gnocchi! I just like the chewy potato! I love potato and I love chewy and I love pasta. And with yummy lobster? This dish was a tad bit too mild for me, but it was a break from the more savory dishes we had earlier.
Okay.. so for dessert, we couldn’t make up our minds! We had narrowed it down to 2 of the 3 desserts offered.. we checked yelp.. we studied the ingredients.. but we both couldn’t make up our minds! It was so hard! So we gave in and asked our waitress to just surprise us! And she sure did!!! She gave us both!! One for one the house for my birthday! WHAT A SWEETIE! She was so sweet 🙂 So then we were able to try both! YAYYYY!
BUTTERMILK PANNA COTTA pistachio, berry chile. Whoa! What a sweet version of our appetizer panna cotta from earlier! Not as visually appealing but it tastes better than it looks! With that mild sweet, there was just so much fun and minty in this dish that I loved!
POT DE CREME butterscotch, cajeta. This dessert is totally the complete opposite of the panna cotta. I am so grateful Marian said let’s eat the other one first because this one was so overwhelmingly sweet!! SOOOOO SWEET. It was so good but damn, way too sweet!!!!
Thanks again big sis for the birthday dinner!! There is no better present for me than food! I love you!!! 🙂 Our next foodie adventure (minus the small meals in between) will probably be dineLA next month! MARK YOUR CALENDARS! It’s from July 13-27! <3
