Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/724773
3 0 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t THE SPICY TABLE "ASIAN FUSION" HAS BEEN AROUND for a long time, at least in Los Angeles. In 1983—33 years ago—Wolfgang Puck opened Chinois on Main, a bus- tling, eclectic Santa Monica restaurant that blended Chinese ingredients with French culinary techniques. The formula worked, and the restaurant has been continually popular for more than three decades. In the ensuing time, Asian Fusion restaurants have proliferated. All across the country, practitioners have sprung up, some successful, some truly awful. Perhaps the purest and most impressive expression of the genre opened in June of last year, also in Santa Monica. It's called Cassia, and the Chef is young Bryant Ng. The blend, this time, is Southeast Asian— mostly Vietnamese—and French. Ng and his wife Kim had a popular small restau- rant in Downtown L.A. called Spice Table. Thanks to eminent domain, the place had to close two years ago; the building had been commandeered for subway construction. Ng's resumé includes stints at Roland Passot's La Folie in San Francisco and Nancy Silverton's ultra-pizzeria, Mozza. For this new venture, he has partnered with Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan, proprietors of Rustic Canyon, Milo & Olive and Huckleberry—all in Santa Monica. The space, in an Art Deco building on 7th Street, is cavernous but still plenty loud. If you want to talk to your companions, you're probably better off grabbing a table on the patio. There's a lively bar along one wall purveying well-made cocktails. There's even a small counter near the back where you can sit and watch the cooks manning the stoves. The dish that epitomizes the restaurant is the pot- au-feu, an archetypal French bourgeois dish of beef, vegetables and broth. Ng's version is pretty classic— he trained in Paris, after all—but he adds star anise and a bunch of Vietnamese herbs to the mix, giving the whole dish a slightly Asian spin without modify- ing its traditional warming appeal. Other fusion-y dishes include a creamy chicken salad made interesting by the addition of chewy strips of jellyfish. There's also a magnificent roasted pig's tail. You strip the richly glazed meat off the bone, wrap it in a lettuce leaf and then dip the whole package into Vietnamese fish sauce. OMG, it's sublime. The ultra-spicy wontons will set your mouth on fire, but the flavors and texture make them worth it. The silky custard topped with fresh uni is Ng's ver- sion of Japanese chawanmushi, and his Singaporean laksa noodles are in a dense soup that is thickened with coconut milk and flavored with mysteriously funky Asian spices. Flatbread—which can be ac- companied by curried snails, chickpea spread or rich chicken liver paté—is superb and reflects Ng's time spent making pizza at Mozza. When Cassia first opened, there was a white pep- per crab on the menu. It was a creditably authentic homage to the great black pepper crab served at the wonderful seaside restaurants in Singapore. There were problems however. The crab was too much work—digging the meat out of the shell was a chore—it was too messy—the sauce got on every- thing—and it was too expensive. The $60 price sent the wrong message for a restaurant featuring food that is closer to street food than haute cuisine. But there are very few missteps here. Cassia is the poster child for the 33-year-old movement that seems to have found its perfect expression in this wonderful and extremely successful restaurant. A charcuterie platter with a Dirty Martini. (center) Chef Ng's whole grilled sea bass. Cassia's fried cauliflower, laksa and kaya toast. Asian Fusion Comes of Age AT CASSIA IN SANTA MONICA, CA, CHEF BRYANT NG SHOWCASES HIS ASIAN HERITAGE AND FRENCH TRAINING by Anthony Dias Blue ■cr PHOTO: KIM LUU-NG PHOTOS: RICK POON Chef Bryant Ng of Cassia in Santa Monica, CA.