Jar - Los Angeles, CA

if you watch top chef masters than you've probably seen suzanne tracht posing outside of it arms crossed, trying to look hard, as they do a bio. still dont know who she is? doesnt matter. what is jar known for? their braised pot roast, and award winning french fries. award winning french fries! these fries are officially cooler than me.

what are award winning french fries? when i was young and listened to everything on tv i thought mcdonalds had the best fries. but at jar they basically just toss them in garlic and parsley, id say they had some sort of coat on them, but nothing fancy but SO GOOD. the server also suggested we eat them with lobster sauce, im not sure about you, but ive never said no to lobster sauce. when you're eating at a nice restaurant, and fries are one of the highlights of the meal that means the fries are pretty dang good.

as we continue to look at the menu i see duck fried rice. i have a few rules in life, and one of them is: if you see duck fried rice on a menu, you order it. i honestly dont know if there is a better kind fried rice, duck fried rice generally gets cooked in duck fat, and loaded with pieces of duck itself so its one of the most flavorful types of fried rice. we basically scarfed it down and ordered another one. kish is now also a believer in rule #3 always order duck fried rice on a menu. i could go back to jar, have 3 orders of this, and that would be an awesome meal. that and some fries.

for entrees we were pretty indecisive so we just decided to get three entrees and split them all. dont judge us...for being so awesome that we'll do this. ended up with the signature pot roast, char shiu pork chop, and ribeye. and its not a rule a live by, but if you cant decide, just order extra and take the rest home, except we didnt really have anything to take home. the pot roast is what i expected, tender, slow cooked beef, the comfort-food yet refined staple. ribeye was ribeye, cooked perf and delicious like ribeyes tend to be. the pork chop was flavorful, and still tender, the char shiu (chinese bbq marinade) is an awesome prep for a pork chop. entrees were solid - we didnt really order anything that had any wow factor, but what we got was solid, what i expect, and up to par.

what's hot right now: get the duck fried rice and garlic fries and supersize it