La Boheme’s Fresh Wave

Seven-Year Switch: Cafe La Boheme has undergone a chef change. After seven years, opening chef Koh Kikuchi has left to open his own restaurant (probably also in West Hollywood). His replacement, Hisashi Yoshiara, comes from Boheme’s sister restaurant, Monsoon Cafe in Santa Monica. Yoshiara is a former partner and chef of Cinnabar, the Cal-Asian restaurant and bar in Glendale. He was also a chef at Bikini, John Sedlar’s shrine to “authentic ethnic” food, as it was called. At Cafe La Boheme, Yoshiara will swing the French menu toward California cuisine. “I’m going to use more vegetable juice and flavored oils,” Yoshiara told us, in place of heavier fats and creams. His new menu debuted Tuesday.

* Cafe La Boheme, 8400 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; (323) 848-2360.

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Beard Bestows: For one night only you can taste California cooking in New York. On May 3, the James Beard Foundation is throwing its 9th annual awards presentation and reception at the New York Marriott Marquis. Twenty-nine chefs from across the country will be cooking for the reception dinner, among them Lee Hefter and Sherry Yard from Spago Beverly Hills, Ludovic Lefebvre of L’Orangerie in L.A. and Tim Goodell of Aubergine in Newport Beach. During the first half of the evening, the Beard Foundation will present awards to chefs, restaurateurs, restaurant designers and cookbook authors. Then comes the dinner, orchestrated by Sarah Stegner, chef of the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Chicago. Tickets, which should be purchased by April 22, are $250 ($200 for James Beard Foundation members, $85 for culinary academy students). Call the box office at (212) 367-9490.

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Chlorophyll-Free Vegetable Dinners: White asparagus is carefully grown under mounds of earth to keep it from the sun. The delicate spears that result have been called the queen of vegetables, and they are only available (almost entirely imported from Europe) for a short time each year.

Rockenwagner in Santa Monica has a special (white and green) asparagus menu (Spargel Karte) with 11 different preparations. You can get dishes like white asparagus soup, seared diver scallops on a tart of leek confit with steamed green asparagus and a cinnamon-Port reduction, and a ragout of spring vegetables and white asparagus in a crisp potato cup from now until late June. Prices range from $9.50 to $28.50 per dish.

* Rockenwagner, 2435 Main St., Santa Monica; (310) 399-6504.

Pangaea Restaurant at Hotel Nikko in L.A. is serving up the Dutch version of non-green asparagus in prix-fixe lunch and dinner menus that include dishes like medallions of roasted veal tenderloin in mushroom ragout over white asparagus and poached white asparagus with sauteed crayfish in a beurre blanc sauce. The prix-fixe menus, which change weekly, will be available from April 22 to May 22.

* Pangaea Restaurant and Bar, 465 S. La Cienega Blvd., L.A.; (310) 246-2100.

Le Chardonnay on Melrose is offering a $58 five-course prix-fixe dinner from April 23 to the end of white asparagus season: white asparagus incorporated into a cold veloute, a lobster salad and a gratin with potato and ham, then the main course of pork chop or sea bass (asparagus on the side), and for dessert caramelized asparagus with orange ice cream. There will also be nightly white asparagus a la carte specials.

* Le Chardonnay, 8284 Melrose Ave., L.A.; (323) 655-8880.

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From Italy, With Food: Campanile is getting a visit from another cookbook author. This time it’s Italian cooking teacher and author Giuliano Bugialli, whose latest book is “Bugialli’s Italy.” He’ll be on hand to sign copies of the book and talk about the dishes created from it in the five-course meal to follow. Reservations can be made for Wednesdsay from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.The tab is $65, and the meal includes dishes like layered pasta with artichokes, Roman-style oxtail and sour cherry torte.

* Campanile, 624 S. La Brea Ave., L.A.; (323) 938-1447.

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Big Old Southern ‘Cue: The Four Seasons Hotel is holding a Southern barbecue dinner Wednesday on the Garden Terrace off the Garden Restaurant. Chow down on baby-back pork ribs with Bourbon barbecue sauce, and grilled Carolina quail and Gulf shrimp skewers with a sweet peach barbecue sauce, among other things. Wines from the Edna Valley Winery on the Central Coast will be served alongside. The price of all food and drink, served buffet style, is $60 plus tax and tip. Reservations can be made from 6:30 to 10 p.m.

* The Four Seasons Hotel, 300 S. Doheny Drive, L.A.; (310) 273-2222.

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The Challenge: Chef Michael Cimarusti of the Water Grill in downtown L.A. has issused the challenge in what is, more or less, a one-man “Iron Chef” competition. He wants his customers to walk into the restaurant and tell him a few of their favorite food items (say, lobster, watercress and truffles). Then his job is to create a six-course meal incorporating those items, which will cost from $80 to $90. If you need inspiration, take a peek at the two tanks in the kitchen from which the chef pulls live seafood every day.

* Water Grill, 544 S. Grand St., L.A.; (213) 891-0900.