It’s good to know that food can still surprise us. Providence, an aspirational Los Angeles fine dining restaurant from chef Michael Cimarusti and front of house partner Donato Poto. During a recent dineL.A. Restaurant Week preview dinner in their restaurant’s private dining room, I experienced a delicious shell game.

My servers just finished presenting spoonfuls of ravioli bursting with molten foie gras, Parmesan, 50-year balsamic and Australian black truffle. Poto then brought out cigar boxes. I’m not a cigar smoker, but the gesture still piqued my interest. After serving a course involving truffles, many fine dining restaurants show off by presenting truffles in their full form. Thankfully, Providence avoided that ostentatious pitfall and opted for something more playful.

Poto instead peeled back the lids on each cigar box, revealing braised Wagyu beef “cigars” with unctuous shredded beef baked in delicate feuilles de brick that looked eerily like a cigar. They planted each “cigar” in tart, vivid ume sauce with enlightening celery leaf. The boxed “plate” looked like a marble slab set atop beaded bubu arare (Japanese rice crackers).

This showmanship didn’t match the time when a Manhattan street hustler relieved my childhood friend Dave Good of $80 in a game of three-card Monty, and that’s for the best.