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"Like a truly beautiful woman, Beacon is a place that doesn’t readily call attention to itself. Beacon’s like an exotic flower that blooms ever so slightly, and when it does, you notice its wonder, its fragrance, and pure simple elegance."
// Mary McGrath, "Culver City Restaurant Review: Beacon"
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"Culver City has been an epicenter of filmmaking from the silent era through the present, with Sony Studios a major resident of the area, but in recent years a vibrant redevelopment has turned this area into a star attraction of galleries, theaters, shops and many of L.A.'s hottest restaurants."
// Katherine Tulich , "Redevelopment turns area into a foodies' haven"
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"Beacon fuses Asian flavors with California cuisine in dishes such as the seared albacore BLT; foodies whisper that it's half-pound burger rivals that of nearby Father's Office 2."
// Riley Carter, "Close-up on Culver"
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Vicki Fan, of Beacon restaurant and The Point in Culver City, is making a persimmon salad for Thanksgiving. She is using the hard Fuyu variety of persimmon in a salad. She slices up the persimmon, adds a blue cheese, candied pecans, lettuce blend and duck confit. She does a simple dressing of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and olive oil. If you don't have duck confit, you can add bacon, pancetta or speck instead or you can leave it out.
listen >>
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"...Fitted into an old commercial laundry in the Helms Bakery complex, Beacon was the first major restaurant of the new Culver City renaissance and the triumphant return to form of Kazuto Matsusaka, who was chef for almost a decade at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois in the ’80s. The hanger steak with wasabi is so successful, that you might wonder why it took so long for somebody to come up with the combination..."
// Jonathan Gold, "Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants"
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"The budino at Pizzeria Mozza started a modest resurgence of butterscotch-based desserts in restaurants. While the heavenly pudding deserves all the accolades in the world, pound for pound, Rochelle’s version at the Point delivers more punch in terms of burnt-buttery, caramelized-sugary flavor. Luckily, this Culver City lunch spot stocks its refrigerator with its most popular dessert, in servings packed to go. The portable plastic cup is hardly elegant, but the grab-and-go convenience gives us something better: instant gratification."
link >> [click the 4th thumbnail]
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"CULVER CITY: Add this to the "secret menu" list: Usually only served at lunch, Beacon's bruger is available by special request in the evenings, as well. It's a half-pounder with caramelized onions, Nueske bacon, gruyere cheese and sweet soy glaze, which kind of sounds like an Asian-inspired version of Father's Office burger just a hop and a skip away, but here you can probably say "no onions."
// Lesley Balla
link>>
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Watch Kazuto in the kitchen as he prepares these Beacon favorites:
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"Today, Culver City is the unlikely home of one of the country's most explosive dining scenes and is drawing eaters from all over Los Angeles."
"Beacon serves the vibrant fusion food of legendary chef Kazuto Matsusaka, who has just opened a takeout place, The Point."
// Oliver Schwaner-Albright, "Culver City—From Back Lot to Boomtown"
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"Located in Culver City’s fashionable Design District, Beacon has been dazzling customers for the past three years under the direction of husband-and-wife team Chef Kazuto Matsusaka and Manager Vicki Fan."
// Ron Bernthal, "And the Winner Is..."
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"Chefs Kazuto Matsusaka and Vicki Fan offer an intriguing array of traditional Asian dishes, spiked with the freshest contemporary ingredients. To my delight, every offering- from the Tasmanian Salmon Trout with stone ground grits and Chinese black beans to the Coconut Rice & Mango Brulee, boasted a rare, authentic ingredient or unique approach to a standard recipes."
// Alyssa Lloyd, "Brilliance at Beacon"
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Top 7 SoCal restaurants owned by couples
"Beacon, an Asian café in Culver City, has Chef Kazuto manning the back.
'And his wife Vicki sort of does split duty, part-time in the kitchen helping out as a chef and then the other part of the time is general manager, front of the house,' says de Lis.
'It's a difficult business, but when you have your spouse there, it's somebody to share the great times with, and then if you have a hard day, it's somebody to talk to," says Vicki Fan. "Plus, we see each other much more than if we both had separate jobs, I think.'"
watch the video >>
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Laura Avery chats with Vicki Fan, chef-owner of Beacon, about cooking with silk squash (Chinese sing gua). On October 8, Vicki will be opening a new grab-and-go, healthy food eatery, The Point, in Culver City.
RECIPE: Sing Gua Salad with Ginger, Garlic and Redwood Hill Feta Cheese
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"Beacon Restaurant chef-owners Kazuto Matsusaka and Vicki Fan share a recipe for copper river salmon with sorrel sauce (a lemony French herb sauce), steamed veggies, and Weiser Farm potatoes. The sorrel sauce recipe is very simple: pureed vegetable stock, onions, garlic, and ginger.
Matsusaka and Fan will be opening their new restaurant, The Point, in Culver City this October. It will feature to-go salads with Farmers' Market ingredients."
listen >>
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Next Stop, Culver City
"Spago veteran Kazuto Matsusaka prepares comfort food such as a ahi-tuna pizza and green-tea soba noodles."
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Culver City Dining Scene Heats Up
Several years ago, Culver City committed itself (no doubt with the help of Sony Studios) to renovate its worn-down Downtown. As soon as high profile Beacon moved into the Helms Bakery (and Trader Joe's moved in nearby), momentum began – helped by low rents, easy parking, convenient freeway access and large spaces (great for outdoor patios). It's been a long time coming, but the Culver City dining scene has finally arrived.
read more >>
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"Vicki Fan, co-chef at Beacon, shows Chinese greens to their best advantage with a swirl and a sizzle.
RECIPE: Ru yi cai
'As you wish' vegetables
RECIPE: Stir-fried baby bok choy
RECIPE: Fu yu ong choy
Stir-fried water spinach with spicy fermented tofu
RECIPE: Scrambled eggs with garlic chives
// Amy Scattergood, "A dazzle of jade in the wok"
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"Lauded for its focus and simplicity, Beacon in Los Angeles is a good example of everything that's right with fusion."
// Gina LaVecchia, "East Meets West"
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Gourmet 2005 Restaurant Guide : West Coast :
Los Angeles
"The master Chef [Kazuto] has also returned to his roots with vegetable nabes and shrimp and green-tea soba noodles that distill the harmony and delicacy of Japanese cooking."
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"Chef Kazuto...Now serving some of the city’s best Asian fusion food..."
// Kate Krader, "Where to Go Next – Best New Asian Restaurants"
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"Once you've had Otafuku's soba, there's no sense going anyplace else," says Kazuto Matsusaka, chef at Culver City's booming Beacon restaurant. Matsusaka, who was chef at Chinois on Main for 10 years, says he and his wife Vicki Fan used to make regular pilgrimages to Otafuku before their restaurant got so busy.
"We'd go to exercise, then head down to Marukai to go shopping," he says. "And we'd stop at Otafuku for lunch. We'd do that two or three times a month. I really like it for dinner, too, when he makes all those special small plates to go with the noodles.
"Now because of running this restaurant, I haven't been in a couple of months," he says wistfully. "They really are the best."
RECIPE: Green tea soba salad with grilled shrimp
// Russ Parsons, "Art of the Noodle "
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"Kazuto's cooking
is fresh and modern, casual and inviting"
"The food at BEACON is a thrilling
combination of Japanese and California cuisine,
with occasional touches from Thailand or
China"
"Indecently good food for the price"
// S. Irene Virbila, "Asian Bold"
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"Now he (Kazuto)
and his wife, Vicki Fan, are back in Los
Angeles with Beacon, a casual, easygoing
place...."
"...green tea soba noodles shot through
with shaved vegetables and grilled shrimp;
a vegetable nabe with yam noodles and snowy
tofu pillows in a finely calibrated dashi
broth celebrate the harmony and delicacy
of Japanese cooking."
"When Matsusaka distills the experiences
of a lifetime, his clean, intelligent
cooking raises the bar for Asian-fusion chefs everywhere."
// Caroline Bates, "When Tokyo
Met Lyon, or the Rise and Rise of Asian
Fusion"
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"The kaki fry
chef Kazuto does at this stylish pan-Asian
spot is worth a special trip..."
// Leslee Komaiko
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"[Beacon] is
the kind of place one can happily return
time and time again, which is the ultimate
compliment for a Pan-Pacific restaurant
in fickle L.A."
// Roger Grody
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"At Beacon,
Kazuto Matsusaka finds the balance between
the sensation he created then and the food
he wants to cook now."
" ...one of California's most influential chefs has come home."
// Russ Parsons
[ read
entire article >>]
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"Formidable
and intent, he [Kazuto] is crafting a formula
wherein the prices are low while the quality
is stunningly high."
// Patric Kuh
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"BEACON seemed
to arrive on the L.A. restaurant scene
when the city needed it the most...Chef
Kazuto Matsusaka delivers simple, clean
dishes in the stylishly refurbished Helms
Bakery building."
// Andrew Knowlton
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"Kazuto Matsusaka
and his wife, Vicki Fan, have an instant
hit on their hand....The food’s
Asian accents are subtle but unmistakable."
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"BEACON marks
the triumphant return to form of Kazuto
Matsusaka..."
"Matsusaka has moved his cooking back toward Japan, but toward a kind of
Japanese cuisine inflected by the clean lines, big flavors and relaxed cross-cultural
inclusiveness of the best California cooking."
// Jonathan Gold
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"Kazuto Matsusaka
is a cooking legend."
"BEACON is casual and fun, the two qualities everybody seems to want in
a restaurant lately. It also has delicious, moderately priced food from a chef
who knows what he is doing...I’d say it’s a slam dunk."
// S. Irene Virbila
[ read
entire article >>]
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