Fig Restaurant (Santa Monica)

My lovely boyfriend Jon treated me birthday dinner at FIG, a new restaurant located at the inside of the Fairmont Miramar hotel in Santa Monica. Headed by Ray Garcia who used to work at Cyrus (see my entry) and French Laundry, FIG is a bistro emphasizes on using local, seasonal and organic ingredients for simple but interesting dishes. I really like their concept and it’s great that they’re taking advantages of being close to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market.

They gave you fresh homemade bread (in the brown bag) and incredibly delicious arugula butter. We couldn’t stop eating the bread because of the arugula butter, it was really really good.

Amuse bouche: fresh heirloom tomatos
With just a little bit of salt and pepper it’s already tasty. Sweet and refreshing.

We both got salad for 1st course, Jon got the Apple and Butter Lettuce salad ($10)
I got the Tsoi Sim with Khadrawy Dates and Marconas ($11) salad which taste very Chinese. I grew up eating Tsoi Sim (or better known as Choi sum) steamed with oyster sauce, so it’s interesting to eat Tsoi Sim as salad. Though the crunchiness in texture made them taste more like Kai-Lan than Tsoi Sim. The sauce is good, perhaps a light vingarette? The dates and marcona almonds were tasty.

For main course, Jon got the Venison with Cavalo Nero, Kohlrabi ($29)
He said it’s really good. The venison meat was tender and juicy, seared on the outside, raw on the inside, a nice combo of textures. The dish went really well with the carafe of Syrah we got.

I got the Duck Magret with Farro, Three Orange Salad, Walnuts ($26).
Really really good. The duck was well cooked and love the three orange salad, it balance the richness of the duck well and the farro compliments the rest of the dish too.

Dessert: Meyer Lemon Curd and Raspberry Meringue ($8)
Simple but good!

The food was fantastic and the service was superb. It was a very satisfying meal from beginning to finish. The only thing I would complain is that I find the ambience to be so-so. They aimed to be a “neighbourhood restaurant” but it’s really hard for me to see it that way as it’s located at a nice hotel. I find the decor to be kind of dated and it looks like a typical hotel restaurant. I think a more rustic modern type of design with lots of wood would suit the concept of this restaurant much more. But these are just minor issues, what’s important is the food and FIG definitely delivers that really well.

FIG Restaurant
101 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica CA, 90401

Tags: Duck, French, Organic, romantic