The Dining Room: Michael Voltaggio comes out to play

Michael Voltaggio. Reality TV hype or the real thing? Well … both actually.

During the Television Critics Press Tour in January, my two worlds — entertainment reporting and food blogging — collided like Betty White getting bodychecked. I got a last-minute invitation to eat at The Dining Room with fellow reporters Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kate Aurthur of The Daily Beast, Denise Martin of the LA Times and Jace Lacob the Televisionary.

I had planned on going to the gym instead, but hey, this was almost as healthy, right?

It’s easy to get a little jaded after covering the entertainment industry. Oh, you talked to Tori Spelling again? Yawn.

But there are those few who actually get us excited. It’s a purely personal thing. Ask me about having Optimus Prime record my outgoing phone message sometime. I was bragging about that for weeks. Hell, I still am. And Julie Andrews? She complimented my name once. Mary Effin’ Poppins thought it was pretty!

Voltaggio doesn’t exactly hold the same sentimental value for me, but I won’t lie: He and his brother Bryan made this past season of “Top Chef” one of the most fun and competitive ever. Kevin too! (Musn’t forget red-bearded Santa) So yeah, it was a little exciting and surreal to walk in and taste food from a guy whose concoctions made Natalie Portman giggle with glee.

Even before we sat down, a lovely flute of non-vintage sparkling wine was waiting at each place setting. Okay, if you insist, Voltaggio.

If any of us had low self-esteem, it would have been eradicated by meal’s end. I mean, the service was ridiculously attentive. They even ran up to dab my lips and burp me when necessary. There was just so much care and forethought put into the service.

We met the PR rep, Josh the sommelier and a fleet of servers who’d emerge from the kitchen en masse and then place our food down in union. I admit that sometimes I’d linger just a little longer than usual sopping up sauce, taking pictures or whatnot to mess up the timing a bit. Yes, handbasket to hell for me.

And the breads! There were two bread services, accompanied by two different butters each time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite understand our knowledgeable bread man well, so I can’t ID everything. I know my first roll had bacon in it. I think one butter came from Cozumel, one from the Central Valley of Butter-onia and eh, that’s all I got.

Is it time for our meal yet? Nope. Amuse bouche time. I love amuse bouches. They’re just so bonus-y, and M. Volt definitely had fun with this one.

The sesame “bagel” was a small innertube of soft creamy cheesiness with two powders: horseradish and salmon. Our whole table was grinning so much, we could barely get our spoons past our smiling teeth. The salmon powder was especially baffling to my tongue. This is such “Jetsons” food!

And that piece of slate with depressions for the glass and the spoon aren’t things you can just pick up at any Ikea.

Ah, finally the first of the five-course chef’s tasting menu. A yielding langoustine atop mushroom lasagna with young fennel. Extra nice touch: They gave us each a spoon in case we wanted to sip the bouillabaisse. I did.

Another fun tableau: Autumn Harvest. Gail’s shellfish allergy meant that this had to be subbed in for her first course. So texturally exciting to me, especially the cardamom “soil” on the plate.

Delicate skate wing with brown butter powder up top, scrambled cauliflower and caper powder below. I wanted more fish. This dish was such a tease. Obviously the meal will progress to heavier things though. There is a plan!

We also splurged on a bottle of wine that Josh so kindly picked out for us. Our only parameters: red and good. We are such amateur oenophiles. Well, despite our unsophisticated lingo, he did indeed deliver a very good red wine.

The Muxagat Douro 2004 from Portugal. I don’t have the vocabulary for this, but I keep thinking of “round.” Does that make sense? Whatever. Just write it down and have it at your next party.

See those little cubes? That was the star of this dish. The pastrami pigeon with puffed Swiss cheese and a rye jus was nice enough, but we were smitten most by the brussels sprout gelatin squares. Yeah, we didn’t believe either.

I could eat a bowl full of those cubes. Can you imagine what this could do to the hospital food industry?

The wagyu short ribs were sous vide for 48 hours in masala and butter. You betcha Sarah Palin that this was tender. Also, smoked potato tots, nantes carrots and white ketchup, which tasted a lot like regular ketchup to me. Not a ketchup fan.

From “The Jetsons” to cryogenically frozen sweets. This raspberry yuzu “pre-dessert” looked suspiciously like Dippin’ Dots. As a palate cleanser, it did its job, but we had to eat it fast because the heat of our gazes made the dots melt very quickly.

The Fool’s Gold dessert had enough salt to make me happy: Chocolate, salty hazelnut praline, salty caramel ganache and a milk sorbet. Oh, and don’t forget the gold on top. Disco on a plate.

The sticky toffee pudding wasn’t a bad accompaniment. Jasmine “rice cream” with dates, caramel a lime foam (my favorite part since I don’t really love sweet) and banana custard in that twisty shape you see there. Obviously, given my banana issues, I skipped that part, but I hear it was good.

Pre-dessert, dessert … now are we done? Not quite. How about a trio of mignardise? I found the lemon curd to be overly sweet, but I appreciated the chocolate “pop” culinary pun. We were promised a surprise in the pops, so after an initial taste we all fell silent to puzzle it out. That’s when we felt and heard the surprise: popping in our mouths with that Pop Rocks-style crackle.

I also enjoyed the passion fruit and fennel pollen candy in the melting rice wrapper (reminding me of those Botan rice candies that used to have toys in the box but now only have lame stickers).

We were invited in to the kitchen to meet the Chef de Cuisine himself, so looking our most haggard after the non-stop Press Tour madness, we filed in and tried to fold ourselves up like Decepticon lawn chairs to take up as little space as possible. I felt like such an interloper in that busy kitchen. I had fears of somehow getting in the way and having bits of pigeon and brussels sprout jello cubes go flying.

Nevertheless, Voltaggio took time to talk to us, asked Denise to make sure LA Times restaurant critic S.Irene Virbila visited The Dining Room soon and condescended to take pictures with Gail and then me.

And for all the ladies who’d like to know: Michael Voltaggio is a total charmer in person.

He also remembered (with my prompting) that he had told me in a previous interview that he was going to get a tattoo of poker chips to commemorate his “Top Chef: Las Vegas” win. Not only that, but apparently, big bro Bryan will get a matching tat. Looks like Jo of MyLastBite.com will have more tattoo photography in her future.

Like the Scarecrow leaving Oz, we were each presented with rolled up paperwork to mark our accomplishments for the evening, a menu of what we consumed. I guess they weren’t that impressed with my frantic and increasingly illegible note-taking. Neither was I.

Michael Voltaggio and his food definitely lives up to the reputation, keeping in mind that The Dining Room had received some prestigious awards and recognition before the “Top Chef” nonsense started.

Lately, I’ve had several discussions about this type of molecular gastronomy fine dining versus heartier, simpler food. I don’t see why it has to be a question of choosing one over another. This is a dining experience, not an everyday meal. My craving for a steaming bowl of tonkotsu ramen will not be satisfied here. Nor would I expect it to be.

That’s not the point though is it? Yes, the food has to taste good, and for the most part it did (although with my voracious appetite, I definitely wanted bigger portions, but that would have created a disturbance in the Force for sure). But there’s also artful experimentation going on here. Not just visually, but conceptually.

Not everybody wants their food to have concepts, though, which is fair enough. But as with Ludo Bites 3.0, this food at The Dining Room sometimes delighted, sometimes confused but overall intrigued me. I do like pausing and thinking about food as much as I enjoy eating it. Why else have a food blog otherwise?

This is the grown up way to play with your food, and I definitely appreciate the effort.

The Dining Room
Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa
1401 South Oak Knoll Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91106

Also read:

Televisionary’s Food Porn: My Night at ‘Top Chef’ Michael Voltaggio’s Restaurant

Tagged as: fine dining, hotel, molecular gastronomy, Review, Top Chef