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As seen in issue 53 of Closer Magazine, published on 2008-07-20 in the "Restaurants" section.
Saucemonsters
A Tempestuous affair with Lola's on Harrison
By: Thom Debord
I can’t quite bring myself to love Lola’s on Harrison, and I blame the foodies who have slathered this little restaurant with praise since its opening last summer. To the foodie, the only thing better than a great meal is a great meal covered with extraneous stuff. Lola’s empathic bond with her demographic is so great that she’ll often deliver the stuff and forget the meal.
Lola’s Salmon Tartar ($10) has the makings of a perfectly fine dish: fresh fish, inventive ingredients to spice it up, pretty presentation. But in a rational world, one orders a thing like Salmon Tartar because one enjoys the taste of, you know, salmon. Since the fish comes, not accented by, but drenched in sesame-lemon vinaigrette and “jalapeno chile oil,” “salmon” is at best an overtone here. What you get is a pungent little stack of tangy/salty/spiciness whose flavor would be overwhelming if it weren’t for some crispy, mellow cassava crackers. The crackers take the bite out of Lola’s tartar, but nothing can put the salmon back in.
To be fair, the factual Lola has nothing to do with this restaurant. In fact, the factual Lola is chef/owner Michael Wagner’s late grandma, and her namesake establishment might learn a thing if her shade haunted its kitchen. Older people generally know that simplicity, and even humility, are any cook’s best friends. A steak needs only so much steak sauce, even if it is “homemade” and classily drizzled across your plate.
Despite the excesses in Lola’s kitchen, you may find yourself initially won over by the hyper-trendy aesthetic at the heart of both Lola’s grub and her restaurant — especially after dark. At night, Lola’s is a warm nest of right angles, shadows, and sauce-mad foodies happily conversing. But what is a charming chic bistro in the cool of the evening is gray and cold in the sunlight. All the chic rectangles and straight lines in the world can only, at best, make Lola’s gray-on-gray dining room resemble an abnormally hip Soviet Army mess hall.
The service, too, is initially endearing. The staff are friendly, and they know a great deal about the ingredients on Lola’s big American fusion menu. But their quirks are serious ones. They argued amongst themselves over whether to give us free drinks (as they do before 6:30 p.m.) or 15% off the $35 prix fixe menu (as they sometimes do out of the kindness of their hearts), and they for some reason talked us out of trying their “Wine Flight” wine tasting.
This is how it works at Lola’s: good ideas and great intentions that should add up to a stellar dining experience ever so subtly sullied by uncertain execution. If I were to go again, I’d order the Coca Cola BBQ Beef Ribs ($23), because a big, intentionally souped-up dish like that one ought to make a good foil for chef Wagner’s sauce-o-philia. Or I’d order the gnocchi ($20, or $10 for a half portion) with ricotta, a wild mushroom cream sauce and white truffle oil, which is mild enough to withstand any excess (nobody’s ever complained about too much ricotta in anything).
I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, order the Grilled Skirt Steak ($23). It’s a big hunk of meat, blackened in spots and tender everywhere else, served with fine potatoes au gratin and sautéed broccolini (which is a lot like broccoli, but sweeter), but lost at sea in huge tidal splashes of sweet brown liquid, which tasted quite like gussied-up cocktail sauce. The steak was fine once we gave it a thorough cleaning, but nobody goes to dinner in the hopes of washing their beef.
Equally disappointing was the red-hued goo on Lola’s Pan Roasted Turkey Tenderloin ($19). They call it “pomegranate-sundried cherry gravy,” but the flavor is primarily cherry, and it easily overwhelms the modest earthiness of the turkey. The best thing about the tenderloin was its accompaniment: a delicately (!) caramelized bunch of brussels sprouts and some heavenly, creamy polenta. If they had lied and told me they were out of turkey on the night I went, and had brought me a heaping plate of these classily understated sides as compensation, this would be a far more favorable review.
Sadly, that’s not what happened. Lola killed that turkey and desecrated its carcass with her silly sauce, and that makes it hard to surrender to all the nice things one can say about the place.
And there are plenty of those. Chef Wagner’s hyperactive imagination does serve him well with his Oyster Shooters ($5 per). These slimy little critters are fresh-shucked and they taste it, though only for a second: they share a shotglass with sake, ginger, citrus ponzu sauce and “cilantro scallions,” and the ingredients’ flavors whiz across the palate almost too quickly to catalogue. As with any good oyster shooter, eating one is a combination of culinary exercise and extreme sport.
Purple Potato Skins ($9 for three) are lovely as well, though it’s a qualified loveliness. They are topped with sundried tomato crème fraiche, shards of bacon, chives, and a dollop of sturgeon caviar, and they’re delicious — but they taste very similar to the similar dish you might order at TGI Friday’s.
There is nothing wrong with that, nor with Lola’s large and willfully eclectic beer menu, which helpfully lists the alcohol content of every brew beside its size and price. Nor with Lola’s trans-continental wine menu, nor with her well-mixed saketinis (the “Bloody Mary Saketini” would be a great eye-opener of a breakfast drink, but Lola doesn’t do brekkies). And you cannot complain about her aromatic and rich risotto, and you cannot help but love her raspberry crème brulee — nicely caramelized on top, and full of sweet/tart creaminess so sensual you wanna bathe your tongue in the stuff.
All of which adds up to one inescapable and rather dull conclusion: Chef Wagner is at his best when he’s keeping it simple, doing the obvious thing, and sticking to the kind of common-sense culinary convention that he might have learned from grandma. Since Lola’s menu seems to change often, I look forward to getting back there in three or six months to see if he’s replaced some of his sauce with substance.
Lola’s on Harrison
2032 Harrison Street, Hollywood
954-927-9851
lolasonharrison.com
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