Son of a Gun

8370 W 3rd St.
Los Angeles, CA, 90048

An important part of making sure you always have something yummy in your belly is to stay informed. We do so by maintaining a diverse and extensive blog roll. In this week's readings, we found this exciting news. So we immediately set the Sunday alarm clock for 2:00 PM to make sure we were the first to call to get a seating. Unfortunately, there were quite a few others who had the same idea, leaving us without a reserved space. However, half the restaurant is reserved for walk-ins, so we made sure to be there as the doors opened at 6:00 PM. We arrived 10 minutes late and were fortunate to secure two seats at their communal table.

What's up with the name Son of a Gun? Says Dotolo: "On boats, the space between the guns was used as a semi-private place for trysts with prostitutes and wives, which sometimes led to the birth of children with disputed parentage. Another claim is that the origin the term resulted from firing a ship's guns to hasten a difficult birth." Interesting explanation, but that still doesn't shed much light on why the guys from one of our favorite restaurants, Animal (1) (2) (3), decided to use the term for their new restaurant concept, Son of a Gun. Perhaps the connection to boats and the sea were enough, as the new restaurant is centered primarily around seafood.


1. smoked mahi fish dip, celery, radish, crackers - Most of us have cracked open a can of tuna, added a spoonful of mayo and spooned the results on some toast or crackers. This is pretty much that same dish done right. The mahi has a bit more weight than your average canned tuna. They didn't overdue it with the dressing and the veggies added texture and freshness. The club crackers were a nice foundation for the fish.


2. linguine and clams, uni-oglio-olio, breadcrumbs - Always a fan of clams and linguine. But it's the finer details that puts a dish over the top. The pasta was cooked to a perfect al-dente. The breadcrumbs were a surprisingly pleasant addition, providing a greater depth through texture and aroma. The clams were meaty and flavorful. One slight downfall was that the dish was aggressively salted - too much so.


3. lobster roll, celery, lemon aioli - This photo may be a bit deceiving as the entire thing fits easily in the palm of your hand. Although it doesn't come close in size with it's New York counterpart, big flavors can come in small packages. The brioche bun was a very nice touch. The mayo dressing wasn't overpowering and the lobster meat had the consistency of freshly cooked crustacean.


4. benton's country ham, honey butter, corn bread - Sigh...it is dishes like this that confirm our belief that Jon and Vinny are geniuses. It's just bread, meat and butter. Each on their own is tasty, but when they're all experienced together, something truly yummy occurs. The honey butter adds a bit of fat and flavor, the cornbread is sweet and the ham - salty. Definitely something we'll try at home. Fingers crossed that it tastes even close to being as good as this.


5. alligator schnitzel, heart of palm, orange - Schnitzel is a traditional Austrian dish. I highly doubt alligators exists in all of Austria unless they are in zoos or urban legend (and that's "Austria", not "Australia" - and no there aren't any alligators in Australia either - those are crocodiles). Again, Chef Shook and Chef Dotolo do a great job of balancing their dishes. The alligator is deep fried to a light crispiness. The hearts of palm, along with the citrus glaze, contributed nice counterbalance. Along with the hearts of palm and oranges were greens that were very reminiscent of those atop a hot bowl of pho. A strange combination but still worked well together.

6. pink grouper, pho fumet, herbs, lime, bok choy - Funny that the last two dishes of the night both had the pho profile. This version more so from the "fumet" (simply broth) than the herbs. Again, much like all the other seafood, the grouper tasted very fresh. It had great texture, definitely prepared by someone who knew what they were doing. However, the broth was probably the best part. Heavy hints of lime and lemongrass. The grouper seems to compliment the broth and not vice versa.

Chef Shook and Chef Dotolo have yet to let us down. We were very excited to see what their new venture had to offer and we were not disappointed. The question will undoubtedly arise as to which of their restaurants we like better. After only one visit to Son of a Gun compared to over five at Animal, we're going to wait until after a few more visits to make that decision. And yes, there will be many more visits to this yummy establishment in the future.