So we had a fairly quiet day yesterday just checking out a few sights of Downtown LA such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). The highlight of the day was however the dinner at Nick + Stef’s.
Nick and Stefs (http://www.patinagroup.com/restaurant.php?restaurants_id=6) has been voted the best steakhouse in LA and with good reason! It is part of the Patina group which owns a heap of higher end restaurants across the United States. Nick & Stef’s specialty is dry aged steak. It is aged for 28 days in a temperature and humidity controlled room, which you can actually go and look at. It’s amazing to see the colour difference between the newer and older steaks. The older ones have shrunk considerably and you can see how all the flavours and condensed into the steak. Taste wise it is absolutely amazing, pure, rich, melt in your mouth flavour.
I also tried a couple more US beers. First up was Deschutes (http://www.deschutesbrewery.com) Brewery Mirror Pond Pale Ale, which is brewed in Bend, Oregon. This brewery is actually on a list of the 25 best micro-breweries in the USA so I was keen to try it and it did not disappoint! It’s brewed with Cascade hops in an American Pale Ale Style so it has just a tiny bit of sweetness and virtually no bitterness on the palate. If you ever get a chance to try this you have to, it’s now in my top 10 beers of all time and even Chrissy liked it which is saying something!
Next up was a Napa Smith Pilsener (http://www.napasmithbrewery.com/). It’s made in a Czech style and has the signature taste of a slight bubble-gum flavour. They served this with the steak, but I think an ale would have gone better cause it was a bit sweet with the steak.
After dinner I had a New Belgium Somersault ale (http://www.newbelgium.com). Nothing outstanding here, but as the name implies it was a Belgian style ale so had a slight berry flavour to it.
I’ve now had 5 different US microbrews and I must say that contrary to opinion that American beers are shite, there are some amazing little breweries out there in the USA.
