A few weeks ago, I attended a media-comped dinner at Mohawk Bend in Echo Park in order to sample some of the seasonal items creeping up on the menu. It was a cold, rainy night, and being plopped down next to the restaurant’s roaring fireplace was kind of the best thing ever. Luckily, the food was good too. After the jump, check out some (grainy, blurry) pics of what we tasted…
Two of the fall cocktails on the menu. I could tell you about them, but Mohawk Bend has such a big, beautiful beer selection. Stick to the beer.
With a vegan-friendly menu, Mohawk Bend is a place to find strong veggie dishes. This one is no exception. It’s beets (roasted and pickled) with arugula, apples, sunchoke puree, hazelnuts, and pickled beet vinaigrette.
Beer & chestnut pate. A little different than the norm, but good nonetheless.
You can’t go wrong with goat cheese — unless you’re lactose intolerant and/or have a fear of goats. But for the rest of us, this pan-fried goat cheese with mixed greens and cranberry relish was a great option on a cold, rainy night.
Another healthy option: endive salad with pickled Asian pears, kale, pomegranate, red quinoa, pecans, and persimmon vinaigrette. Tasty.
Poutine.
One of the restaurant’s many pizzas.
Shello! Bacon-covered dates. An oldie but goodie.
Brussels sprouts. ‘Nuff said.
My favorite of the pizzas: mixed mushrooms and mozzarella. Appropriately named the Fun Guy (get it?). Also available with vegan mozzarella, but at that point you might as well put shard of glass on it. Amiright? Amiright?
For dessert, a roving lady with a thermostat of liquid nitrogen came by to make us some instant ice cream, courtesy of NitroDreams. I’d never had this type of ice cream preparation, and I was QUITE intrigued. Plus, I kept expecting a pop star to emerge from the cloud. Maybe Celine Dion? 98 Degrees?
There was plenty of rigorous stirring. It was like an episode of Chopped.
A scoop of fudge joins the party.
Yes, “The Final Countdown” was totally playing in my head during this.
Okay, at this point I was basically just taking pictures of fog.
Four minutes later…
Voila! Caramel almond! The texture wasn’t quite the same as regular ice cream, but the taste was still good. If there’s any complaint to be made, it’s that there were so many nuts, that the ice cream actually got lost a little. Hard to believe. Too many mix-ins.
Same problem with our chocolate chocolate chip. Turns out there is such a thing as too many chocolate chips.
Mohawk Bend
2141 W. Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
213-483-2337
http://mohawk.la/