Be it exploiting Japanese culture with Geisha House or typecasting male business professionals at the Boardroom in Texas, this team of hospitality gurus certainly strives to be equal opportunity offenders.
Take their recent endeavor, Ketchup, a restaurant in West Hollywood, on Sunset where twinkly lights lining the street make you weary of Paris Hilton sneaking up and attacking you and every car driving by has a three-figure price tag. The chilling affluence is almost enough to make you hop back into your Honda and flee to Troy Burger.
The neighborhood, however, is not the repulsive part about this place. Neither was the food, which was some of the best I’ve had in Hollywood. No, what I can’t seem to shake from my feminist conscience are the menu headings. One side, dedicated to seafood dishes, bore the title of “Leading Ladies,” while the other side boasting steak and pork chops flew the banner of “Leading Men.” I’m sorry, but what decade is this?
If you aren’t offended yet, have a look at the “Threesome” appetizer, “Deliverance” pork chop glazed with bourbon and served with cheddar grits and apple sauce, or the “Naw Leans” shrimp pasta in a cajun brandy cream sauce.
There were not, however, a mess of ketchup-themed drinks on the bar menu—sorry, bloody marys, but you have no place in West Hollywood. The drinks we ordered in the inventively classic-American cocktail lounge featured the likes of Yoo-Hoo and Grape Kool-Aid.
Once seated, we cut to the chase—five different ketchups, a parmesan onion ring tower, Cajun, sweet potato and parmesan garlic fries. Ketchup varietals included maple, chipotle, wasabi, ranch and mango—mango and wasabi were big disappointments. The best part of this was mixing and matching to find the best combos, and sweet potato fries in maple ketchup competed with a chipotle-parmesan-garlic combo for the top spot.
One such classic was the rib dish, glazed with ketchup BBQ sauce. These were delicious, but it was hard to focus on the side of the plate they occupied when the other side featured something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about ever since. White truffle Dungeness crab mac ‘n’ cheese. Hallelujah, there is a god. With the perfect marriage of crunchy top, oozing center and surprisingly unique flavor, this is hands down the best thing Ketchup has to offer. Sorry, Kraft, but this is the cheesiest, not to mention the best mac ‘n’ cheese I’ve ever tasted.
Perhaps the chefs blew their load designing the dinner dishes and left no creative juices for dessert, but nothing on the final menu appealed to me. Maybe American-themed desserts are just not that titillating—perhaps that’s something we ought to leave to the French. Either way, classic sundaes, ding dongs, shortcakes and pies bored me—where’s the Ketchup cheesecake, guys?
My table opted to share the ice cream sandwich, a decision I gave thanks for between licks of the plate it came on. This is what an ice cream sandwich is supposed to taste like—are you taking notes, Diddy Reese? The cookie must have literally just emerged from the oven and somehow managed to stay warm the whole time, despite being surrounded by swathes of frozen silky vanilla. I probably had chocolate chips melting down my face, but I didn’t care.
Menu & Prices available at www.dolcegroup.com/ketchup.
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