Executive Chef Govind Armstrong, The Lobster, Santa Monica Part 2

0:00Hi, I'm Andy Harris of the SoCal Restaurant Show. For award-winning wine country cuisine with a neighborhood vibe, visit the winery restaurant in Wine Bar and Newport Beach, a personal favorite. It's a spot you'll want to return to, more at the wineryrestrons.com. And welcome back, kid. It is the SoCal Restaurant Show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until 12 noon right here on AM830KLA, the home of Angels Baseball. And you can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app and streaming through the website at AM830.net. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. And we're proudly presented each and every week by our friends at Melissa's World Variety Produce. We are returning to Santa Monica and specifically the lobster adjacent to the historic Santa Monica Pier. And we are speaking with their long-time executive chef, Govind Armstrong.

1:03Govind, welcome back. Now Govind, earlier in your career, one of the first places that you did some work was for Wolfgang Puck. Where with our audience, Govind, if you will, how old you were at that point? And what your primary duties were because this is kind of fascinating. RC, yeah. That was the jumpstarting career way back then. Yeah, I started my first apprenticeship this summer that I turned 13. So we had some of these to love to entertain and have folks over to the house. And I would always, as it's been time with her in the kitchen, it's one of those stories, you know, of these sort of grew up in the kitchen with your mom. Cooking, she was a great cook, never really loved it. She was more the heart and soul and the party and loved just loved speaking with people, loved engaging and whatnot. And, you know, it's after a while I took over and one of these little parties that my

2:07mom had, one of the women's curious is to who catered this event. And I was like, no, no, no, it's Govind. We've been doing all the cooking. She couldn't believe it came in the kitchen and was sort of shocked. Not just the mess that I was making, but the food that I was putting out and the passion that I had at such a young age and she was explaining to me about this restaurant that and just opened and she then the lead server there for a while and the chef is, you know, this incredible, man with this incredible history and mentions his name. And Puccine, I was not, you know, really familiar with who that was at that point. But she went back and told Wolfgang all about me and he's like, I really want to meet this kid. So she set up this whole meeting and I think it's a couple of weekends later. My mom dropped me off. I had this book of handwritten recipes and polarity pictures of food and this, that,

3:08you know, the other one. And, you know, Wolfgang took time out of his day and as you can imagine, the opening of Spago back in the 80s was, you know, quite, you know, it was just a complete hustle every day there. But took time out, Wolfgang just sat and talked with me and asked why I was so passionate about food, what I loved cooking and who I was cooking for all these things and all, you know, different techniques and showed, you know, took me on a tour of the kitchen and then ultimately he offered me an apprenticeship to, you know, work in the summer while I was still in junior high school essentially. Govind unbelievable. Now, let's go back to September of 2026 and you'd mentioned a very popular attraction at the lobster is your happy hour program. Tell us about the hours, but I believe on Friday it's all day. So that's kind of a good introduction to the lobster for people that may not, you know,

4:12quite be sure if they want to, you know, throw the switch on the whole experience. Exactly. Yeah, we have, again, it's just a really fun bar program. We do have the hour every day from three to six and then as you mentioned on Friday we go all day. And it's just really fun to be able to come into a, when the establishment like that. And, you know, the menu so reasonably priced, you know, really great wines by the class are around $10 a piece. Do incredible handcrafted cocktails and the same thing there in the range of $10. And then our happy hour menu is ever changing. It's smaller versions of what we do on our regular all a cart menu plus some specialty items that will only do in the bar and at certain times. So it's always changing. It's always always something fun and interesting on there. And it's really a good time.

5:13And so offer it up, you know, all day on Friday is something that no one really does, especially where we're located. It just makes sense. There's so many people that are getting off the density in Santa Monica. There people want to unwind, people want to prepare for the weekend and why not get started on a Friday afternoon. I love it. I think it's a great idea. Now, go but one of your specialties on all menus is, you know, you have a gentle touch with oysters. Just very briefly tell us about your oyster program because you know, it's funny, you know, and oysters seem to be in the last few years very popular. And I get a kick out of restaurants that have the raw oysters, but it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of what they do. Obviously oysters definitely have a place to see food restaurant. Yeah, it's funny. You say that because I, you know, I know I sent you out some and it's not that there's

6:13that we're doing much, you know, we're sucking them in perfectly as we can and trying to keep the oyster intact. You want to keep them chilled, you know, so that when you do eat them, they're like fresh and violent and delicious. You know, so there's obviously some technique involved, but literally we're not doing a thing to this little creature aside from, you know, handling it with care. But obviously then it goes to the accrued from all that we serve it with. And I think you did try our hot sauce. Oh, no, no, no. And that was a definite and I wasn't going to let you get out of this without talking about just so our listeners understand the efforts that you go to on your menu. You know, there are a lot of good hot sauces that are out there, but you make your own hot sauce from scratch. So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I think it makes a huge difference, you know, to be, and for that application, you know, oysters are very delicate at the same time. You know, they can be very robust. They can have a high level of salinity this time. And the other.

7:13So you really want to find that balance with whatever, you know, with all the condiments that you're serving with it so that the focus can always be on the oyster itself. So that hot sauce is, you know, sounds simple, but it's, you know, four different types of chili. You know, there's a little bit of garlic and onion and vinegar. We don't ferment it. You know, we definitely keep this one fresh and vibrant. For us, it's a matter of keeping that balanced towards not going to be too smoky. It's not going to be too fiery hot to our, all you can taste is, you know, that scratchy heat. You're throwing it back to your throat and you miss the oyster itself. So it's a really fun, really nice, delicate sauce that takes you right up to the edge and then just sort of keeps you, you know, hovering there overlooking. Govin, great description. Now let's jump to the cured King salmon appetizer that you have because that really was a big winner. Yeah, that is a fun dish. It's again, pretty simple, very straightforward.

8:14We do a really nice cure on the salmon fillets when they come in. And it's about seven to eight days, depending on the size of the fillets that we're taking in. It's salt sugar, you know, a little bit of dough and some other aromatics. We have a coriander, white black and pink peppercorn. We'll do a little bit of weight on that. And then once it's done, we give it a rinse at a dry and recoded with fresh, fresh dill. So similar to a Gravelocks preparation, but just a little different, different nuances here and there. And that served with a simple taper. Also, very day we have some pickles, fresh, no chilies, a little bit of white. And then we have some parotta and some charred bread. So it also comes together really nicely on the palate, the creamy of the parotta and the nice tender creaminess of the salmon just go really well with the crisp bread. And then obviously the salsa there, they're adding that. That nice little top in there of falsiness and blindness to match the salmon.

9:18All good. Now, is we're starting to run short on time. Of course, the lobster is known for lobster. So seasonally, kind of anything and everything, but we're getting into the Pacific Spiny Lobster season. Those are not quite in yet at the lobster, but I had some incredible grilled Florida Spiny Lobster. Kind of give us the overview on that. And just so our listeners know, if you go to our Instagram or our Facebook feed, we have a video of that particular dish. It will amplify what Govins is about to tell us. Yeah. And some just some great vendors that have been with us for a while. I've brought on quite a few vendors that are shipping directly to us. If it's not something that we're getting locally, it's still going to be the freshest product available. So out of water for as little time as possible, those Florida Spiny Lobster are pretty

10:19incredible. It's like all Spiny Lobster do come from slightly warmer waters, particularly times of the year. That one is coming from the Keys, so pretty down. Obviously it's very far down south and Florida there. And it's just a really fun product to work with. Again, we're getting them flown in a few times a week. They're live and beautiful. And they have the, like I think I'm done here what you think about it. And the texture was just really, it had a really nice mouth feel to it. It wasn't too firm. It still had a little bit of bounce to it, but it still had a really nice chew. And just again, it's just not too salty. It was really subtle and delicious. And then our Spiny Lobster coming from Santa Barbara, that season is going to be starting up in early October. So literally just around the corner. And people lighten the line up at the door for these things. We get fresh pretty much every day of the week.

11:19And they come in and they're just beautiful. It's just, it's always fun. Everyone at the restaurant gets so excited when that Spiny Lobster season starts up. So hopefully we'll see you again there soon. Oh, you know, right? Gov and you're an aftasme twice. And yes, the Florida, it has a firm texture to it. And just a little on the sweet side, definitely just a lot of flavor there. For some people that think lobster has no taste unless you drown it and butter, no, you need to taste this and you'll know. Gov and is we're out of time. The one thing that we haven't done is is everybody knows where the Santa Monica peer is. And you're right adjacent to that at the entrance. But what's the website so they can have all the information about everything we've been talking about? Yeah, it's the lobster.com. Really straightforward. Yeah, we're right at the top of the peer right at Colorado and ocean there. Tent misses. It's funny though, but a lot of people do. It's like, you know, I've been here, you know, it's my first time here with me.

12:20Los Angeles, my whole life. I've driven by it. Never stopped in. You got to stop in. Well, Gov and I think we've given them a reason. Ladies and gentlemen, long time executive chef at the lobster in Santa Monica, chef Gov and Armstrong. And you want that seafood experience and get that extra view at no extra cost. Lopster should be high on your list. It is the Socao restaurant show when we're return. We're talking about Manhattan Beach food and wine. It is the Socao restaurant show we're proudly presented by Melissa's world variety produce coming back.