It's kinda hard to label yourself.

You call yourself an artist and

all of a sudden you sound like an asshole, or

you know, pretentious.

But I like to think that to have some maybe

slightly interesting skill sets, and at

the end of the day, I'm just trying to make food

that has an emotional connection to myself.

And something that is you know, beautiful so

you can take that however you want.

[MUSIC]

[SOUND].

[MUSIC]

My name is Jordan Kahn.

I'm the chef/owner of Red Medicine Restaurant in

Beverly Hills.

It's a modern, progressive restaurant.

We try to make our food as beautiful as we can.

And taking natural ingredients, and

turning them into things that, you know,

are really spectacular.

[MUSIC]

This is our newest edition to

the dessert menu.

I've actually been

a pastry chef my whole career.

Red Medicine is the first time I've

actually done savory professionally.

I mean, I've been cooking since I was very young.

My first cooking idol was Thomas Keller, for sure.

I got a copy of the French Laundry Cookbook

for Christmas one year when I

was in high school and that pretty much was

the day when everything changed for me.

Right when I went to culinary school I

wrote Thomas Keller a letter.

It was like an absurd, like,

eight-page letter professing my great love

for him and you know, all of these things.

Man, if I had a copy of that right now I

bet it would be hysterical.

He responded through email

like six months later.

When I opened my email that day,

like, that was a big freak-out moment.

I started there at the French Laundry when I

was 17.

I'm sure there's probably some nine-year-old

prodigy in there today, but it certainly,

at the time, what I was told by the chefs then is

that I was the youngest to start there.

This is actually

the second course on the tasty menu.

The base of it is a custard.

This is walnut marzipan, cuz we don't have

enough pastry techniques in our food already, and

we are rolling them in purple cabbage powder.

Color was always a big inspiration.

There's a lot of times when I want a certain

flavor or an ingredient or a texture in

a dish but I am not happy with the color so

I will change the color of it.

A walnut is not supposed to be purple.

A brown walnut didn't make sense in

the dish aesthetically so we made it purple so

that it would fit and

also you know, it bridges the taste as well.

This is the first course on our tasting menu.

It's based on trout roe.

You're eating raw snap peas with the trout roe.

The dual texture of the two sort of

spheres are kind of neat.

Because these are crunchy and these pop as well.

These are sort of pickled onion petals.

This is lemon curds.

So we're just gonna take our mineral oil,

all the area in there we just worked so hard for.

We're gonna cover it up,

try to make sure that everything is layered.

When you look at a Jackson Pollock painting,

probably the most fascinating parts of it

is, is the layering.

And like, you know that the first,

second, third, fourth,

and all the layers in-between that have the,

same amount of care put into it as

the final layer.

Which is the you know,

the one that's most in your face.

So we kind of try to make it similar where

you know, even though we're covering it up,

we don't just, we still care about

placing everything really properly.

That's the first course.

Next is a dish of mushrooms.

The finished dish version of this is actually gets

a glass close over it so

it actually looks like a living terrarium.

Nature certainly is a theme in our dishes.

When we first opened, my sous chef and I would go

to the farmers markets in Santa Monica, when we

were driving by it's like, holy shit, look at

that whole hillside is covered in you know,

fennel or, or nasturtiums or whatever it is.

And so we'd get out, we'd pick some, bring it back,

and then eventually we'd spend more

time picking and less time at the markets.

And then eventually we just cut out the markets

altogether and we just went foraging.

It's kind of a show-stopper, I suppose,

at the table when it drops cuz a lot of

people will just continue with their conversation,

whatever, which is totally fine.

But this one generally stops, so whatever.

[MUSIC]

>> You guys ready?

>> Yes, hey!

>> Oh, hey, what's up!

>> [LAUGH] >> How's it going?

Gloria and Mike

are really great to go out with.

Gloria is my girlfriend,

she's a sommelier at Spago.

Mike, oh man, he's a ball of fun.

It's kind of impossible to not fall in

love with Mike

the first five minutes that you meet him.

He's like a professional eater and

he likes to think of himself as a,

as a chef, but he's not a chef.

>> I'm a professional third wheel.

>> He even wore his button down shirt today.

>> It's a little too small [LAUGH].

It looks good.

>> No it's true.

But it. >> Powder blue is

a nice touch.

[MUSIC]

>> All right, so what's the plan for tonight?

Where we going?

>> First place is La Cevicheria.

Mike, I'm gonna order a special dish for

you called Bloody Clams.

Tastes like somebody microplaned pennies over

the clams.

>> Why would you want to eat that dish?

>> Some people love them.

>> Some people think they're amazing.

>> I like blood.

>> You may be one of those people.

>> Is it clam with like blood?

Seems like

there's something wrong with that clam.

>> Something like we should throw these away.

These are the people that save all those clams.

>> All the rejects.

>> All the discarded, rejected clams.

Who's ready for some blood?

>> Oh, they're closed.

Oh, they're open.

>> They're open.

[MUSIC]

We started with La Cevicheria and I chose to

go there because it's a small restaurant,

literally mom and pop.

It's owned by a husband and

wife, Catalina and Julio.

They're really, really sweet people, and

beyond that, the food is really delicious.

They don't make anything bad.

Everything there's really good and dishes that

you can't really get at most places.

>> My restaurant, La Cevicheria is open

since since 2002.

We opened at the end of the year.

And we've been you know, rocking all these years.

>> Are you ready to order?

>> Yes.

I want the la [INAUDIBLE].

As well as the shrimp tacos.

We're also gonna get fish tacos.

>> We're gonna get an order of

fish tacos for everybody.

We're gonna do an order of the bloody clams.

>> The half shell or the ceviche?

>> You want a half shell or ceviche?

>> Ceviche.

>> When Jordan comes to the restaurant he orders

the mariscala, which is New Zealand mussels,

shrimp, and calamari and in the sauce.

>> This reminds me of like my childhood.

My grandmother used to make Cuban seafood

>> Are you Cuban?

>> Yeah. >> I didn't know that.

>> You didn't know that?

>> I did not.

>> HIs mother's side.

You know, it's not like this is

like sitting back there in a, in a pot.

You know, everything takes time.

Because she does, she makes everything fresh.

>> [CROSSTALK] Oh, you can tell.

It's very, very good.

>> Oh, this is really good.

I've never had this.

>> Very good shrimp.

Really good.

>> Delicious, right?

>> Are you supposed to peel it?

>> Mm-hm. >> Are you sure?

I ate the peel and it's fantastic.

>> This is the bloody clam.

Meat and tomatoes and onions, a little bit

of ketchup, little bit of English sauce.

I don't, I can't tell the name.

It's Worcestershire, something like that.

I cannot say the name exactly of

that English sauce.

This is a very popular dish.

This is like our signature dish.

This is, wow.

How are you, Gloria?

>> Good, how are you?

>> Fine, thank you!

Hi! So nice to see you.

>> Good to see you.

>> This is the bloody clams ceviche.

>> Do you see that? That is a lot,

that's a lot of blood.

>> Go for it.

>> [LAUGH] Tiniest bite.

[LAUGH].

[MUSIC]

>> How is it?

>> Not bad at all.

Good.

They might want to change the name of

the dish, though.

>> To?

>> Juicy clams.

It's just like a half-shell and a,

a bloody clam inside.

>> And they're pure form.

>> Can I get one on the half-shell?

>> You can ask her.

>> I feel like >> Here you go, sir.

>> Oh, thank you.

Oh, beautiful.

Thank you.

>> Wonderful.

>> Okay, so now I can get the full experience.

So this is just how they come out?

Nothing to them.

It doesn't, like, drown in its own blood?

There's so much blood?

[INAUDIBLE].

>> Stop procrastinating.

>> Okay.

>> He's trying to buy himself time.

>> [LAUGH].

>> That's like, their own, their ink.

>> I prefer ink.

Ink is rare.

>> To ink yeah, to blood.

[MUSIC]

[CROSSTALK