Boa Steakhouse on Sunset Blvd

Every once in a while I decide it's time for a food extravaganza, and Brian and I talk about what restaurant we'd like to empty our pockets at for the evening. This time, we decided we were in the mood for steak, so we headed over to Boa on Sunset Blvd.

Boa has reached that point in its life cycle where it still looks hip on the surface, but the cool crowd has moved on to something newer and better, leaving behind the Sunset second string. The greasy guys, the boob-job-ed divorcees, the parents, the tourists... it's not the place I remembered from several years ago, and the Dodd Mitchell-designed room certainly outcools the clientele. I guess all formerly trendy restaurants reach this point sooner or later, and fortunately for Boa, the food is still good.

When Boa was Balboa, they stuck to the more basic dishes... crabcakes, caesar salad and the like. Now that they're Boa, they've added some more adventurous menu items. Sometimes you see things on a menu that you can't NOT order. For example, Truffled Nachos:

Truffled nachos sounds totally awesome IN THEORY... but let me assure you friends, they are anything but awesome. The major problem seems to be the chips, which are homemade yukon gold potato chips - great on their own, but the flavor completely overpowers any possible hint of black truffle in the cheese. The second downside is the cheese itself - much too runny for proper nachos, it had a consistency more like ranch dressing. When you taste the cheese on its own, you can certainly locate the truffle essence, but all together, it's a bit of a gooey, discombobulated mess. Great concept, flawed execution.

Despite the truffled nacho lowlight, there was one major highlight of the evening: a special for tonight only, real Kobe beef from Japan. When the waiter informed us they had Kobe beef I was skeptical. "So, is it Wagyu beef raised in the states?" "From Japanese seed cattle?" and various other snobby foodist questions. The waiter passed the test and assured me that this was indeed REAL Kobe beef - the cow had been flown in from Kobe, Japan the day prior, a connection with the owners and some friends in Japan, or something. Do Kobe cows fly first class, I wondered? I assume the cow was dead... but at $13 an ounce (another sign it was possibly real Kobe), I have to wonder if even a slab of it was seated in business class, receiving a posthumous beer massage.

I had real Kobe once before at Sugiyama in New York, and this tasted much like I remembered - very raw, very buttery, very rich. If you've had excellent toro, the texture is very similar to Kobe, with a similar rich-but-mildly-flavorful taste that melts in the mouth. I have to admit, I don't think Kobe is so amazing that it's worth $60 for a few bites. It's a novelty, and an expensive one at that. But sometimes it's fun to try things just because they're there.

Each of these is a one ounce cube - about one square inch:

It's always served seared, because to cook it is to detract from that which makes it special: the marbling, which is best observed extra rare. Kobe served medium or medium-rare tastes just like regular steak... I've heard.

After tasting Kobe, you wonder if your main event steak will pale by comparison. This bone-in Kansas City filet (Brian had the same), certainly stood up to the test. Rich, tender, surprisingly flavorful for filet... it must have been the bone:


I don't have much else to say about Boa - I liked it before, I will continue to like it.

On another note, sorry the photos are so hard to see. I'm looking for a new camera that takes good low-light pictures... anyone have any suggestions?

Boa Steakhouse
8462 W. Sunset Blvd. (inside the Grafton Hotel)
West Hollywood, CA
323-650-8383
Hours: Sun-Thurs, 7-11PM, Fri-Sat, 7-midnight