The Los Angeles Times Coast To Coast tasting event returned for the third year, bringing L.A. and NYC together for a night of legendary eateries. The event featured award winning chefs and restaurants from both cities serving up a couple of their famous dishes for guests to sample. (Portions at each booth were actually quite generous!) Hosted by The LA Times Food section staff, the all-inclusive event took place in the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers on May 9th; needless to say, the views of the Hudson River from the tables that guests got to eat at were breathtaking and just the “icing on the cake”!
Representing L.A. was an assortment of chefs and restaurants featured in The Times’ 101 Best Restaurants list:
- Pizzeria Mozza, Nancy Silverton
- Anajak Thai, Justin Pichetrungsi, recipient of the 2022 L.A. Times Restaurant of the Year award
- Damian, Enrique Olvera
- Heritage Barbecue, Daniel Castillo
- Ka’teen and Angry Egret Dinette, Wes Avila
- Mini Kabob, Armen Martirosyan
Representing NYC was this amazing lineup:
- Cosme, Enrique Olvera
- Fish Cheeks, Dustin Everett
- Koloman, Markus Glocker
- Lady Wong, Seleste Tan and Mogan Anthony
- Lafayette, Andrew Carmellini
- Mari, Sungchul Shim
- Mŏkbar, Esther Choi
- Rezdôra, Stefano Secchi
- Rules of Thirds, JT Vuong
- Singapura, Salil Mehta
- Win Son, Trigg Brown
One of my favorite (if not my very favorite) savory items was the Pastrami Tri-Tip Taco served by LA’s Heritage BBQ. This booth mixed four different cuisines for their two items served to guests: Classic Deli, American BBQ, Southern Italian and Mexican. There was always a line at this table due to their gorgeous hot plate of meats on display!
I love Asian food of all types and had been wanting to try NYC’s Singapura for the past couple of months. They hands down had the best chicken dish (Hainanese Chicken) at the event thanks to the juiciness of the “skin on” poached chicken slices and explosive chili pepper flakes tamed slightly by a little fresh cilantro, ginger and soy sauce. The rice was delicious as it seemed to be steeped in chicken stock! I probably could have eaten six plates of this!
My favorite sweet of the evening is something from NYC’s Bakery Lafayette that I have wanted to try for over a year now. I have seen this flying saucers of poet goodness all over Instagram for about a year and did not know their name! I just knew that they came in all sorts of flavors and looked rather large and flashy (which is how I like my desserts)! This is called a Pain Au Chocolat Supreme and if you look closely at the photo above, you can see the tips of the wonderful pistachio coated eclairs also served at this booth. They served small loaves of their classic French bread (Pain De Campagne) with imported French Echire butter which was simply divine as well.
My vote for favorite Italian dish went to Rezdora NYC who served an incredibly soft homemade Bufala mozzarella with wild mushrooms, asparagus and amazing super deep green EVOO. This may be a simple dish but it packed a tremendous amount of flavor. Needless to say, the staff had to keep restocking the table. I ate three of these!
There was a tremendous amount of wine served at the Coast To Coast event but I was thrilled to find a healthy all natural soda brand called United Sodas of America which has only 30 calories and six grams of sugar per serving. The Very Peachy flavor blew me away so I will be buying a case for everyday use.
Here is the amazing view at sundown while I was eating at the rear end of the Lighthouse space. You can’t beat this as far as great NYC views go. I will be back at Coast To Coast next year—and I hope to be able to do this on the Left Coast someday as well!
