Veal Cheeks

Remembrance of a Meal Past

2011-12-24T22:04:00.002-06:00

Remembrance of a Meal Past - Town House - Chilhowie, Virginia

Although I had committed myself to keeping up with my dining experiences, that resolution did not come to pass. So much to eat, so little time to write. In a year such as the one that is about to conclude, such is unfortunate. I have had splendid meals each month. I can hardly imagine a more exciting year of cuisine. This was a year in which the playful, silliness of molecular cuisine morphed into a firm and committed modernist cuisine, and in which even “old-fashioned” chefs shined. So, before describing one of these meals, I pay tribute to honor roll of chefs who are learning from the past, combining technique and ingredients, foraging when necessary, farming when possible, and otherwise selecting well. In 2011 I was based in San Francisco and Chicago, and managed to travel to Barcelona, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Asheville, Washington, and New York. This was the year I finally made it to El Bulli, just before the wire with additional meals at Celler de Can Roca, El Quim, and Cal Pep. In the Bay Area I ate at Coi, Atelier Crenn, Saison, Aziza, Manresa, Benu, Commis, Meadowood, and Manresa, and many others. And returning to Chicago there was Next, El Ideas, One Sister, Blackbird, and L20. And I cannot forget Blaine Wetzel’s breathtaking Noma-inspired cuisine at Willows Inn on Lummi Island off Bellingham, Washington and in the Northwest Canlis, Herbfarm, Castagna, and Le Pigeon. In New York, 11 Madison Park, Jean-Georges, and Marea. Add to this Guy Savoy, Lotus of Siam, Red Medicine, Curate, Kai, and Rhodes (Gary Rhodes restaurant on the Caribbean island of Granada), and it was quite a year.

But a blogger must focus. Excluding the forever memory of Ferran Adria in his now-shuttered redoubt in Roses, the meal that I will most treasure was at Town House in tiny, rural Chilhowie, Virginia. I ate at John and Karen Shields hideaway in 2010 and I was impressed. Many of the dishes represented the highest order of deconstructive cuisine, a lot of small bits on a plate: a busy cuisine. A few of the dishes were truly distinguished, indeed some of the best food of that year.

The meal was of such an order that I traveled four hours back to Chilhowie from my mountain eyrie in Western North Carolina this last August. I expected a fine meal, but nothing as remarkable as what I received. Something clicked in John Shield’s cuisine. It was as if he had figured out how to create dishes with culinary centers. Rather than a lot of happenings, each dish was composed as a dish. The meal in 2010 was among the best meals of the year; the meal in 2011 was among the best meals of my now lengthening life. Here was a chef who was in tune with the techniques of molecular cuisine and the ingredient-focused style of farm-to-table and foraged cuisine, but more than that he owned a personal vision (Karen Shields, his pastry chef and spouse, was on maternity leave, but clearly she had been working as hard in designing desserts: in 2010 the sweets were very fine in a deconstructive way, but this year they were stellar).

The amuse demonstrated how the current focus on foraging has affected cuisine. Chef Shields served rocks with seaweed glaze, adorned with adorable oyster leaves. The dish was sculptural and the flavor oceanic. I had never heard of oyster leaves, and until I tasted the creation I would have been labeled a skeptic. But the dish made clear how many wonders the Creator created. It was amazing amuse, an amusing amaze.

Dinner began by what I consider to be Chef Shields’ signature dish: Minestrone, although it is a signature that has been removed from his regular rotation. In this quiet, almost minimalist, soup, the chef prepares little strips of root vegetables, each separately poached and rolled into gentle cylinders. These jewels are served in a cool herbal broth. Words can not do this dish justice. And if a picture is worth 1000 words, a taste must be worth 1000 pictures. It is as brilliant a dish as I can imagine: not rich, not fatty, but infused with flavor.

The next plate is another triumph of the foraging mind: “flowers,” served with artichoke and a leek emulsion. Clearly Chef Shields has been influenced by the Noma crew but relies upon local ingredients. The colors and textures elevate what is a grounded salad.

We returned to a soup/salad: a “gazpacho” of summer foliage with shiso, green tomato, green bean leaves, pickled coriander, and zucchini. I confess a weakness for shiso; my leg goes all tingly when these leaves appear. This again reminds us of the many flavors we can select if we only took the effort. This was a salad with a bit of liquid: delight on the fork and in the spoon.

Barbequed eggplant with lemon, basil, black garlic and ashes of smoked mussels was the highlight of the meal. It tasted so much better than it reads (barbequed eggplant, ashes of mussels?). It was a triumph of technique, a triumph of the theory of taste. In contrast to most dishes, this plate didn’t appeal to the eye, but fully, dramatically, to the tongue. The idea that eggplant and lemon, garlic and mussel ash might mix was an insight that I would have missed, and I bow to Chef Shields’ vision.

Sweet corn, chicken, and lovage moved us toward protein. Here was a focused, textured, sweet dish, and called for more. It was a dish of the Southern summer. It was a pleasure throughout.

I recall peekytoe crab in brown butter and butter whey with onions, shellfish cream, lime, crisp scallop and pork stock mostly for the textures and the construction. Perhaps the crab could have been more dominant, but the dish was so beautifully composed and so touched with enchantment in each bite that complaints seemed irrelevant.

Turbot with fresh pine and anchovy cream reminds one that some chefs can work with all four culinary senses (sound to the side): vision, texture, smell, and taste. This fish dish scored on each. Perfectly cooked fish with a crispy skin, startlingly arranged with a powerful twist from pine and anchovy. By this time we understood that the meal was so glorious that no quibbling was possible.

Chef Shields is entitled to his little jest: Squid Risotto. Imagine squid cut as Arborio grains, served with the traditional rich cream sauce. It was not my favorite dish last year, but it is now a tradition. Perhaps it plays tribute to the jests of Grant Achatz or Hugh Blumenthal. Aside from the humor, it is ever-so-tender squid served with lots of cream.

Beef cheek (and tongue) . . . Pastoral is served with skim milk, toasted garlic, horseradish, grasses, and hay. A gastronomic tribute to the cow at both ends. Again this is a heroic vision of foraged food, a gorgeous and delicious plate. It is as good a big, land protein as any of the year. Stunning.

I am a sucker for lamb, for beets, and for licorice, and this dish hit the trifecta. Chef Shields served lamb shoulder with beets smoked and dried, licorice, and beet Bolognese. The flavors were so remarkably well matched that I wish that the serving might have been multiplied. Licorice and beets have a certain mystical power that bring out the flavor of all that they touch, and, added to this, here was a dish of technique, so much work to create this little masterpiece.

For our first dessert we were served a liquid chocolate bar with an ice cream of burnt embers, sour yogurt cotton candy, tomato and sugar, I admired how the embers reprised the mussel ashes of the early evening. And unlike the desserts of 2010 this was a more highly focused dessert: a triumph of technique.

My favorite dessert (Of the year? Of my life? Of eternity?) was cantaloupe and toasted faro with wild sassafras and ginger, carrots, turmeric root, and Tonka bean. When one speaks of a dish as a symphony, this dish is what is meant. With the luscious, sensual, sweet late summer melon, Karen Shields’ dish was thoroughly indulgent and passionate. To my pleasure I had an opportunity in October to reprise the dish at a special supper sponsored by the James Beard House in Chicago. It was the best dish of that evening.

Finally there was Broken Marshmallows: cucumber, softly whipped cream, green strawberries and geranium. Like so many dishes before, it was a tribute to the land: farmed and found. An unexpected and wise mixture of tastes and textures.

And so this concluded a profound dinner of a profoundly culinary year. John and Karen Shields are creating a cuisine that builds on that of Trotter, Achatz, and Redzepi, but is transformed through their own vision. This meal was as close to perfection as any that I have eaten in quite a while, and is certainly more than could ever be expected from an exit off Interstate 81 rolling through the verdant hills of southwestern Virginia. But plants are everywhere and genius is to be found in unexpected burgs.

Town House
132 East Main Street
Chilhowie, VA 24319
276-646-8787
http://www.townhouseva.com

Guy Savoy - Modern French in Las Vegas

2011-09-10T23:46:00.002-05:00

I wanted to share some photos from a (mostly) excellent dinner at Guy Savoy at Caesar's Palace. I ordered the six course tasting menu (Menu Elegance), exchanging a Grapefruit Terrine for the Jasmine and Chocolate. Of the dishes four of them were really quite distinguished, revealing that some French chefs (i.e. Guy Savoy) have embraced the modernist chef's love of all things vegetable.

Lobster in Cold Steam, served in a cool steam bath, was superb, the high point of the night. The sweetness of the lobster was echoed in the sweet, crackly, sugary accompaniments. It could have been dessert and a perfect one.

The Roasted John Dory in Basil Crust was, in contrast, a huge disappointment. Although well-cooked, the dish lacked any excitement. The basil "crust" was not much to look at or to taste.

The third course, Artichoke and Black Truffle Soup with squares of parmesan and truffle was intensely, insanely rich. A glorious soup.

Roasted duck with raw and cooked vegetables and spinach puree was a modernist take on duck, avoiding the usual sticky sweet, fruity sauce that is usually paired. Chef Savoy breaks through the stereotype of duck to great effect.

Cantaloupe and cucumber was powerful with its combination of textures and herbaceous flavors. It was more of a palate cleanser than a dessert and gains credit for its awakenings.

The grapefruit terrine was nicely made, but was somewhat dull. It was not a visionary dessert, although it was served with a witty cookie.

While Guy Savoy misses being the best meal of the year, it was, despite its location, a serious restaurant and the most accomplished meal of my four nights in Las Vegas. The restaurant is more sedate than jazzy, and that, too, is to GS's credit.

Restaurant Guy Savoy
Caesars Palace
3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
702-731-SAVOY
http://caesarspalace.com

Manresa: Six Degrees of Inspiration

2011-06-25T22:36:00.002-05:00

Some pictures from my latest dinner at Manresa: my most recent, this week. There is a grace and lightness to David Kinch, a love of the garden and an elegance. The meals sometimes substantial in length are never heavy. The star of this line of dishes was the Spring Lamb, Pickled Tongue, Smoked Date with Cumin Seed, Roasted Carrots, and Braised Letter. Also a wonderful Black Bass and Octopus with Clam Juice perfumed with Coriander and Leek. It is hard to classify David Kinch who brings together all of the streams that influence contemporary cuisine: modern French (a la Michel Bras), Catalan, Japanese, Garden to Table, and Tail to Snout. But the dishes never seem forced, but inspired. And, best of all, every time I have eaten at Manresa, Chef David Kinch has been in the kitchen cooking. Let us hope that Las Vegas never comes calling.

Manresa has expanded its dining room, and in the process have become more distinctive and architecturally interesting. Even my photos look better. They have a most creative cocktail menu.

An amuse from Manresa's Love Apple Farm:

Manresa's iconic elemental poached oyster: all of the flavor, none of the slime:

A reprise of the Abalone and Raw Milk Panna Cotta from an early meal:

A vegetarian dish of spring: Pea and Strawberry medley:

The late spring version of "Into the Vegetable Garden," now with nasturtium. Sweeter than the winter version:

A splendid and elegant aquatic dish: Black bass with octopus, clam juice, perfumed with coriander and leek and young squash shoots:

The best dish of the evening was spring lamb, its pickled tongue, smoked date with cumin seed, roasted carrots, and braised lettuce. One of Chef Kinch's most creative creations. An inspiring composition:

Our intermezzo was Acai granita, Lemon Cream Soup, and Yogurt sorbet. Cool and sweet:

Finally dessert, a continuation of the intermezzo: Yogurt mousse and passion fruit curd, poached rhubarb with strawberry sorbet:

The Challenge of Dining

2011-06-19T20:38:00.002-05:00

The Challenge – Restaurant at Meadowood – St. Helena, CA

The most memorable mignardise that I shall ever taste was served on June 15, 2011 by Chef Christopher Kostow, the inspired and mischievous chef of the Michelin Three Star restaurant at the ultra-luxe Meadowood resort in St. Helena, California. One does not image that a chef cooking at a resort that might easily get away with a Cal-Ital version of Surf’n’Turf would serve a “sweet” that might as easily been a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. This tiny bite was a slight Oreo-like cookie (so slight that I didn’t even think to take a photo) with a mint filling. But what a mint-filling! In most instances a mint filling is little more than a sugar delivery system. But suppose one excised all sugar. The innocent, dream cookie was a mouthful of Scope. Pure, unabridged mintiness.

I have often wondered, even speculated in print, whether dishes, like sculptures, need to be welcoming to be artistic. Today I realize that even at the highest of the high-end resorts, at least one chef will utter uh-uh. Admittedly of the fourteen dishes served only two (an amuse and a mignardise) were challenging. But still the gesture reflected the subtle rebalancing of the relationship between chef and diner. And I was proud to have been a victim.

Both the décor – a high-ceiling, open space – and the service – very cheery, slightly nervy - was as one expected at a top Left Coast restaurant. Everything polished, wooden, white and light.

The first amuse was as precious as could be: a small crackly pillow filled with liquid goat cheese, garnished with a tiny flower from the restaurant’s garden. This latter was to be a theme of the evening; we almost ate a bouquet. The bite was luxuriant, because of its jewel-like quality, and it was surely a mouth opener.

Amuse followed amuse. The second dish, equally memorable, contained a few micro-carrots and radishes hidden in a snow drift of fromage blanc ice. I have never seen a dish to compare, and had the vegetables been any smaller they would have had to been served with a magnifying glass. The dish, only a few bites, was quite ingenious. It was a creation unlike any other.

Geoduck clams in beer batter, wrapped in lettuce with lemon zest and served on bread crumbs, was Amuse 3.0. Less showy than the ice, it was simple and delicious.

The final amuse was another poke in the eye: Goat yogurt custard with salty pickled plum (Japanese umeboshi) with nut rocks and shiso. When I tasted it I was convinced that some poor ill-starred stage on her final day in the industry had dropped a shaker of salt in the mix. The dish was on the edge of inedibility, and for several hours I felt great compassion for Chef Kostow. He was the star chef at a RESORT for chrissake! The plating was so perfect that it was a crime that the dish tasted so. Finally after several delightful dishes I inquired about the misbegotten plums, only to be assured – and assured several times! – that the taste was quite intentional. It was, our server asserted, designed to awaken our tongue. No salt had been added, it was all the salted plum. But for me, as with the later mint cookie, it raised the issue of whether food needed to be delicious to be worth serving. Richard Serra’s sculptures on the plate. The umeboshi certainly made me sit up, take notice, and beg for relief. It revealed that Kostow is nothing if not brave, but I’m grateful that it was only in the freebies – the amuse and the mignardises - that he tested us.

The first dish of the nine-course tasting menu was an artistically displayed Geoduck Clam Grilled over Grape Wood with Avocado, Osetra Caviar, and Shaved Almond. Served on a slab of wood taken from a wine carton, it was a smooth and elegant presentation. While the dish had the modernist foible of lacking a true center, the components were beautifully prepared, especially the geoduck reprise.

The second offering was the flavorful star of the night: Foie Gras Enrobed in Licorice with Wild Fennel, Glazed Pickled Cherries and Black Walnuts. I have lost some enthusiasm for foie gras, often used to demonstrate that the meal was worth its price, but thanks to the licorice this was a superb use of the duck’s liver, reminiscent of a salmon and licorice dish once served at the Fat Duck. The slightly bitter licorice cut through the unctuousness of the foie gras. It was a truly distinguished dish.

The third plate was a composition of Cucumbers of Sea and Land with Borage, Sorrels, and Frozen Herbs. Given the dangers of cooking with sea cucumbers, the texture was spot on, and, as I prepare to leave California, it reminds me of how much I will miss the bounty of Bay Area farms.

Live Scallop Roasted in its Shell with Caraway, Seaweed, and Cauliflower was brought to table covered by the top shell, removed with a dramatic flourish. The scallop and accompaniments were matched to excellent effect. Kostow has a gift for understanding which flavors, colors, and shapes match. The caraway was a wry addition.

I have recently noticed that California chefs often select duck for their big protein. It is not that they have used the liver and do not wish the rest of the bird to go to waste. But duck has a gaminess that chicken lacks and a lightness of being that one doesn’t find in cow. Chef Kostow served his duck (breast and confit) rubbed with Chermoula spices (a North African spice marinate, often including lemon, pepper, cumin, and garlic) with Raw Rhubarb, Mustard Seeds, and Celery Leaf. The dish was beautifully presented and tasty, although I felt that it was less distinctive than some of his other creations.

Tête de Porc was quite a surprise, given that it was served on a tasting menu at a prime resort. Chef Kostow should be grateful that he has all of those Michelin stars to protect him. Not many chefs are willing to serve pig’s ear, head cheese, brined tongue, and pork cheek to well-heeled diners (along with peas, smoked potato and horseradish). Still fewer would get away with it. But it truly was a brilliant modernist dish with each component adding the proper texture. What was chewy was never too chewy. The display, reminiscent of the geoduck clams – a horizontal culinary poem – was a display of robust genius.

Our cheese course (Le Jeune Austise, a Verbena ash cheese from the Loire) was served with textures of Apricot and dashes of Sassafras Honey. As a break, it was very pleasurable.

As a palate cleanser we were served Rose Sorbet with fresh botanicals and an elderflower veil. The mixture of rose and elderflower was inspired, and again it was beautifully composed.

With some brio (and Chef Kostow is filled with brio), dessert was named “To Quicken the Heart”: flavors of umami, red cedar, and butter popcorn, and brown butter dacquoise. While the cedar might have been more pronounced, it was an impressive sweet that edged toward a very high-end modernist pudding.

And then among the mignardises was the mint cookie.

Meadowood is one of the most illustrious American restaurants. Of the Bay Area restaurants it holds it own with French Laundry, Coi, and Manresa: each a renowned culinary treasure. To think that I almost missed Meadowood, imagining that it might be resort dining at its best, but Chef Kostow is up to something else: creating a distinctively Californian, distinctively modern, and distinctively challenging cuisine. It is a triumph.

The Restaurant at Meadowood
900 Meadowood Lane
St. Helena, CA 94574
800-458-8080
http://www.meadowood.com/wine-and-cuisine/the-restaurant/

2011-06-04T21:34:00.002-05:00

Mlle. Proust in Cow Hollow - Atelier Crenn – San Francisco

Often young chefs find a horsey-style and ride it, but not so Dominique Crenn who is working with flair to harness her own vision. She has been in the industry for some 23 years, and perhaps “young” is a matter less of chronology than the fact that she only reached wide gastronomic notice in 2008 when she became chef at San Francisco’s Luce, received a Michelin star, and was named Esquire’s chef of the year. She has since triumphed on Iron Chef, which might or might not testify to her vision, but certainly to her culinary chops.

Although she had worked with Jeremiah Tower at Stars according to her bio, she does not have the golden resume of some colleagues. Perhaps she is not self-taught, but she is not a sponge of others’ visions. This past year, Crenn branched out on her own, opening Atelier Crenn, a workshop for her own “Poetic Culinaria.” For those who hope that their chef is not only a creator of the idea of dishes, but also an overseer. She is a working chef, working the kitchen and the dining room both. Perhaps in a few years, this will not be so, but it is clear that neither she nor her food is set in amber. Having a chef visit one’s table is, perhaps, worth a third of a star alone.

Even if her culinary history does not reveal many mentors, she is a public figure with a biography. Crenn is apparently the adopted daughter of a prominent French politician, although I have been unable to discover which one (one hopes not the other Dominique: the ill-starred Strauss-Kahn). She was raised in Versailles, and after her mother took ill when she was nine, she determined to cook for the family. She and her papa and his friend, a prominent food critic, would visit the high-end boîtes of Paris. Much of her professional cooking has been in California, particularly in the Bay Area. She is edging ever closer to becoming a celebrity chef, and one of the relatively few female chefs who are in serious and sustained dialogue with modernist cuisine.

The menu includes a moving (and somewhat ambiguous) letter to her father, talking about pain and sun, surf and sweat. As with so much poetry, readers have much to read in, but one can hardly imagine a male chef making the claim that his cuisine is such a personal and private expression, a way of reliving the past, whether troubled or happy.

Ultimately reviews are about the food. Critics are often asked, reasonably, how good was it? Asking that of Crenn is a bit like asking that of, say, Eva Hesse or Robert Rauschenberg: they don’t easily fit on a 30-point scale. They are important artists with a vision that might or might not appeal and techniques that might or might not be proficient. The most obvious limitation of Crenn (and for that matter Rauschenberg) is that her dishes are not noted for their precision. If you admire Thomas Keller’s perfection on a plate, this falls short of that standard. Perhaps Crenn doesn’t have the staff, but I think she doesn’t have the desire. Memory doesn’t work like that. She is attempting to produce remembrance and reverie. Whether she succeeds is as much a function of the diner as of the cook.

We four diners ordered all eight of the dishes on the savory menu (all the photos are to be found on my Flickr account page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391789@N00/with/5796811013/. But I realized that having a bite didn’t do justice to a plate that was designed to be savored and to be considered. So I focus on the dishes that I ordered.

We began with a quite lovely and evocative amuse: a spoonful of freeze-dried split pea soup, a bloody-dried beet “kiss,” an intense bit of fungal broth, and an non-edible boulder. It was quite a stunning composition: possibly Freudian, but perhaps freeze-dried split pea soup is simply freeze-dried split pea soup. The consommé was properly intense, the beet was deeply flavored – a root with a zing. The bright freeze dried pea soup didn’t wow my tongue. The crumbly texture added little to the enjoyment of the flavor, but distracted a bit.

My opening course (diners can choose any three dishes from the savory portion of the menu) was a “Walk in the Forest,” a composition of textures and aromas of the wild. I imagined that it was going to be similar to David Kinch’s iconic “Into the Vegetable Garden” salad, a bowl of local surprises. It wasn’t quite. The plate was coated with a pine paste (a surprisingly sticky and sweet paste, more keeping with dessert), covered with various forms of mushrooms, the raw and the cooked and the pickled: a delicious black trumpet mushroom paper, picked and pickled morels, champignons, added were hazelnuts, chestnuts, tiny lettuces, toasted pumpernickel, and sorrel oil. I was glad to have selected the dish and I surely will remember it, but I don’t quite know what to make of it. As a culinary matter, it was somewhat too sweet and too pickled (Crenn seems to enjoy the tang of pickling). The plate was remarkably creative as an idea, and just a bit off as culinary practice.

My second plate was poetically entitled, “The Sea, An Interpretation of Aquatic Flavors: Mussels, Oysters, and Arctic Char.” As I have previously suggested, the modernist style of dessert is to present the diner with a mix of preparations. The Sea, not so sweet as the previous dish, had this same decentered quality. Crenn prepared abalone, smoked oyster, char, mussels, squid ink meringue, and dehydrated lemon foam. It was quite charming in its ingredients and preparations and beautiful in its presentation. However, not having lived Crenn’s life, I wondered about the poetic imagery of the dehydrated foam. What might it signify? Still, it was a very worthy dish: a collection of satisfactions.

My main protein was more standard: Duck with crispy skin, spring garlic, strawberry, rhubarb and smoked buckwheat. I recently ate a magnificent duck entree at Coi; Crenn’s was more exuberant and less precise. Still, it was an excellent use of big protein. I particularly admired how she sprinkled toasted buckwheat on the plate as if buckwheat was salt. It stood in contrast to Patterson’s carefully composed accompaniment of radish and wheatberries. Crenn’s duck was a special preparation, well within the modernist canon.

Finally dessert (from pastry chef Juan Contreras) was a witty trompe l’oeil: a carrot cake with spring pea cream. The joke was that the cake was within the hunky frosted “carrot” with tiny carrots and frozen peas as accompaniments. Perhaps the cake itself tasted no better than a routine carrot cake and the cream was more clever than wondrous, but still it was a pleasurable ending to a most distinctive meal.

Michael Bauer, the lead critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, awarded Atelier Crenn a disappointing two-and-a-half stars in April, complaining not about ideas, but execution (and an average wine list). My meal (and those of my companions) in June deserved more credit, even if the cooking of ingredients is not quite at the level of the best of the San Francisco restaurants. Still, when a chef is still at work in the kitchen and the ideas are bubbling and bouncing, Atelier Crenn stands a good chance of being a better restaurant in December than it was in June. Even now, it is a restaurant that is always thought-provoking and vibrant. Chef Crenn, trying to capture her past and to share it, has a distinctive, potentially influential, gastronomic voice even if not all the songs are lullabies.

Atelier Crenn
3127 Fillmore Street (at Filbert)
San Francisco
415-440-0460
http://www.ateliercrenn.com

2011-05-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

A Night of Sparkling Forage – Coi – San Francisco

I begin my sermon by reciting the eleven (plus two) course tasting menu at Coi in full, chef Daniel Patterson’s own record of a virtuoso meal: cracker, beet rose, clam, tart, crayfish, asparagus, allium, morel, duck, carrot/coffee, strawberry, unrefined sugar, chocolate paper. This is almost a haiku. Talk about letting your dishes do the talking!

In the fall I dined at Coi, and had a sterling meal. Some great courses, some just missing the mark. The evening made me wish to return, and I waited until shoots and leaves began to appear in the woods and fields and streams and tidal pools of Northern California. Along with Copenhagen’s Noma, Coi is labeled an outpost of the “New Naturalism” – the desire to create gastronomic wonders with found ingredients, foraged food. In practice it owes much to farm-to-table gastronomy. Chef Patterson likes to source his ingredients from within 300 miles. I don’t mind this conceit, which serves mostly to focus the mind of a chef who might otherwise have too many choices: placing limits on Culinary Future Shock.

We were informed that we would receive a list of dishes as we left (ahem!), and my notes were not as elaborate as they might have been, but I did jot here and there. But these dishes deserve perfection in description as well as perfection in composition. In the former case, the words will at times cry out for errata. I am abashed and you will be, at times, misguided. So it is.

The dinner was bookended with two crackers: a savory one and a chocolate one (described as chocolate paper). While neither was a remarkable contribution in itself, they did turn the evening into a gastronomic sandwich.

The first substantial course was deeply remarkable. One of the first garnishes that an aspiring cooking student is taught is to take a peeler and circle a tomato, skinning it. This slight slight-of-hand produces a tomato rose (even I can perform the task). Naïve diners are startled and impressed. Our first course, played on this naivety, as Chef Patterson created a beet rose with each petal separately carved. This floral sculpture was set upon a bit of yogurt, and surrounded by shaved/chopped ice infused with the delicate perfume of rose extract. The idea was cute, but had the flavors and textures and temperatures not matched, it would have been little more than a cook’s trick. But the marriage was for the years, and the dish one of the finest, most creative opening dishes I have had, an amalgam of root and petal.

The second course is titled “clam.” It might have been labeled “calm.” Coi’s label is true enough without doing full justice to the luscious take on pasta and clam sauce. With geoduck, Manila clams, and Squid Ink pasta, nudged to one side of a bowl (reprised subsequently with morels and popcorn), it provided a symphony of textures. The bivalves were lightly chewy without being gummi. Quick and fresh, it was Pacific found cuisine and excellent in all respects.

Although plate three is described as “tart,” this four-letter word misses its grandeur. Here the sauce transcends: a lime green wheatgrass sauce that was devilishly overpowering. The aroma wafted from across the room. Yes, there was fennel, a buckwheat biscuit, a balsamic sauce (I think), and fromage blanc to create a modern Napoleon, but it was the take-no-prisoners sauce that conquered.

Ah, how beautiful was bowl four with its foraged flowers and leaves. Chef Patterson insisted that we never forgot that the land – and then the sea – is magical. Here were crayfish, May peas, and seasonal Watsonville artichokes. Astonishment and delight. Beautifully composed, complex, and yet simple in its focus.

The next plate pays ironic tribute to those chefs now experimenting with paleo-cuisine. Ash as condiment. Two stalks of local spring asparagus, cooked in their own juice, were dusted with seaweed powder and fermented anchovy paste, and served on a bright, buttery, lemony sauce. If the dish was not brazen, its insight revealed a chef who was fully vegetating.

And then arrived Allium soup: a dish that bowed to alliums everywhere: chive, garlic, onion, leek – the band of brothers – with a cheesy base. It was lush, and a reminder of how close we are and how far we have come from French onion soup. That classic is grand; this new classic reminds us of how much the frontier of cuisine has advanced.

Morels and popcorn are not a typical match. Even I (whose book Morel Tales pays tribute to the cracked passions of fungal collectors) was startled. When we learned that the morels and popcorn were served in a popcorn reduction (!!!), what was there to say? Only that this dish, presented mirroring the placement of the clam dish, was poppin’ good and that a few surprises remain in a post-molecular age.

Our major protein was a duck consommé (not pictured), served with soft spring redwood shoots and followed closely by duck breast, redwood oil, duck leg confit, radish, and wheat berries. Many modernist chefs find big proteins challenging. Meat squats on a plate lumpishly. And this was a chuck o’ duck. But with the redwood oil (recapitulating the broth), the crispy top, and the pungent radish, the duck breathed life.

Carrots with coffee beans might not seem the most traditional combination (and I must assume – although I didn’t ask – that the beans were imported from afar). The combination with crème fraiche was among the most stirring wake-up-calls and palate cleansers that I have encountered. Chef Patterson demanded that I reconsider these ingredients.

Our first dessert was a lovely sorrel ice cream with ripe strawberries, nestled in foam (I neglected to note the foamy flavor). It was very fine in all regards, although perhaps less stunning than its predecessors.

Finally, a medley of unrefined sugar. The plate reflected the now-canonical modernist dessert – multiple movable parts - but tonight with a recognizable theme: molasses, sorghum, raw brown sugar, gingerbread. Each unrefined taste gave the dish a richness and suppleness that white sugar lacks. The sweet dessert was almost savory. Coi reasserted the philosophy of naturalism that had been thematic throughout the long and glorious evening.

This May dinner at Coi will be among my most treasured dinners. Nothing was wrong, everything was right; much was fantastic, some was staggering. When I first dined at Coi, I found an excellent restaurant; this night I discovered a shattering one.

Coi
373 Broadway (North Beach)
San Francisco
(415) 393-9000
http://www.coirestaurant.com

2011-05-28T22:32:00.002-05:00

The Burden of Critique – Benu – San Francisco

A dispiriting requirement for any food critic is the responsibility to write critical notices of restaurants that shoulda, coulda been better. Even with a looming deadline, these are painful to write. For those of us without deadlines perhaps another week might make things easier. Few critics enjoy a sad review. Our task is something other than writerly sadism.

Very few restaurants are actively, in-your-face bad, and we need to treasure those. Often the failure is embodied in a few errors and fewer astonishments. When one writes about a restaurant based on a single evening, there must be much room for excuse.

I pen this in prologue to my dinner at Benu, a restaurant that has received genuine and enthusiastic praise from many in the Bay Area. Chef Corey Lee decamped from The French Laundry, and set up shop in the spritely, developing area South of Market. His goal, it has been claimed, to produce food of Kellerian perfection but with an Asian sensibility. Benu is sometimes called “The Chinese Laundry.”

I give Chef Lee high marks for intention (and for congeniality), but, based on one meal, not fully on execution. Neither the service nor the dishes were marked by perfection. I generally give the service a pass when it is good-natured, but this night there were enough minor errors of service and of molasses timing that made us realize that we were not in Napa. Thanks to my dining companions, the seven hours passed quickly. Many the dishes were thoughtful, but slippages dominate my memory. Chef Lee is a gifted Imperfectionist.

But I begin with one stunningly grand dish from a fifteen-course tasting menu. A dish from the blessed past: a tribute to Chrono-Cuisine. We ordered as a special addition to the tasting menu, Poularde Cuit en Vessie, the classic French preparation of Chicken poached in a Pig’s Bladder. What is not to adore? I found Chef Lee’s Breast, Celery, Black Trumpets, Green Almonds, and Dates to be splendid. While my dining companions found the dish over-celeried, I fully embraced the modesty of the celery, and treasured the celery glaze that covered the chicken. No thin sauces please. What was so special was how simple it seemed, even while being a fully complex dish. The green almonds and dates added their special sour, nutty, sweetness to the plate. It was among the greatest dishes that I have had in 2011, and I only wish that every dish that Chef Lee prepared had this power and vision. But alas.

When one orders Vessie, the bird does double-duty. A second course was poularde leg with peas and spring onion bulb and a shrimp roe sauce. And once again the chicken was as moist and flavorful as heaven, but here the accompaniments were off. The shrimp roe sauce overpowered the bird, even though the English peas and onion were congenial. It was an effectively composed dish, a work of art in a black bowl, but missed greatness. Still, we were all gratified to be able to treasure such a wonderful chick, and through the interactive ability to shuffle my plate, I could minimize the sauce, while voiding the chef’s salty vision.

Our meal opened with Thousand Year Old Quail Egg, Ginger, Potage and a Ginger-Almond Foam. Lee’s dishes often read as braver than they taste. I loved the Ginger-Almond Foam, and the textures were sublime, but the dish lacked the kick than I expected from an egg of such antiquity. It launched the meal, but was not the glorious blowout of Tom Keller’s pearls.

This starter was followed by an amusingly light dish of Caviar and Bone Marrow with a Lobster Crisp. Imagine a lobster pork rind. It was a two-bite wonder. Chips ahoy. We were having fun.

While my companions slurped a stunning homemade tofu, abalone, chrysanthemum soup, I was served sautéed abalone Grenobloise – floured and served with lemon and capers. I suspect that Chef Lee lacked a second stunning abalone dish in his quiver. This was a sturdy, if somewhat unremarkable, presentation. I was less enthused with my plate than my companions were with their bowls.

I soon returned to the main road: oyster, cabbage, pork belly, and fermented Korean pepper (gojuchang) gelee. On this small plate the gelee was the star. But we agreed that the balance was off. Not enough cabbage to contain the pork and oyster: here was Atkins Cuisine. Everything that the gelee touched was rosy, but such a tiny dish seemed heavy.

The next dish altered my perceptions. We were served a pair of lovely-looking Xiao long bao (Chinese dumplings): one filled with foie gras, the second with shrimp and black truffle: A-list ingredients. But how could dumplings go so wrong. Gummy and starchy and not entirely cooked: if this is an indication, Benu needs a Chinese grandma at the stove. Perhaps this Saturday was the opening night for a newbie stage, but these lumps didn’t come close. With a perfect dinner, one error reminds us how perfect the dinner is, but that wasn’t the case at Benu. The inners were silky smooth, but Silk and Gum lacks the cachet of Oysters and Pearls. Fortunately no other dish was so down-and-dirty.

There followed a small plate of unagi (freshwater eel), crème fraiche, lime and a small stick of feuille de brick (phyllo). For a small serving it was a pleasant interlude, but the lime and unagi could have been more pronounced.

Lucky seven. Our seventh dish was a star turn, a subtle and savory classic: monkfish liver torchon, turnip, cucumber, salted plum, and a small slice of toasted brioche. Here was a dish worthy of calling Benu “The Asian Tiffany.” In its simple complexity, its confident play of flavors, and its willingness to combine musky liver, picked turnip, salty plum in an elegant presentation it revealed Chef Lee’s genius. I would love a reprise.

White sausage, black bread, and XO sauce seems so modest, and in some way the presentation was. The fish sausage was rather spongy, lacking subtle notes, and, as my dining companion pointed out, the house-made XO sauce lacked the textural complexity of the store-bought version: only in America. I objected to the velvet sheen of the sauce less than an expert XO taster, but aside from the impressive crispy squid ink wafer, I found the dish rather pedestrian in composition and flavor.

Finally Shark Fin Soup, or perhaps more prudently “Shark Fin” Soup. Fee Fie Faux Fumble. The soup was subtle, filled with delicious crab and rich truffle, which surely would have been sufficient without a Mad Man’s claim of shark’s fin. Perhaps the chewy consistency recapitulated shark fin, but why make the claim if you cannot carry it through.

After two courses of Poularde Cuit en Vessie, we were solidly landed on land protein. We were served a loin of lamb stuffed with lamb mousse and fennel-scented lamb sausage. While the asparagus was as fresh as spring, the remainder of the dish, properly cooked in a bountiful broth, was somewhat old. The protein never sang. It was technically satisfying, but not a dish of any particular achievement.

I am a sucker for lily bulbs, and so sprinkling lily buds on ketchup or Twinkies satisfies me. This beef braised in pear, lily bulb, celery, and shiitake was a far superior dish to the previous lamb. The celery proved a nice reprise of the Poularde breast. Here was a cut of cow that sparkled, and was one of the strongest creations of the evening. Pear and celery might seem in conflict, but the fruity, herbal mixture was a pleasure.

Then followed two desserts. Neither was really remarkable. Fennel sorbet with rhubarb, sesame, and meringue was saved from catastrophe by the wondrous fennel sorbet, an ice of genius, but the other contributions were textually challenged. Too gooey for an adult palate.

Banana ice cream, burnt acorn (custard, praline, and bread pudding), ginger gelee and foam was a typical modernist dessert: a bit of this, a bit of that, lacking a center: the kitchen sink approach. It was not a failure, but nothing really sang, and I learned that burnt acorn will not make my Baskin-Robbins list of 31. It was a brave effort, but an effort nonetheless.

And so the meal ended. The greatest problem with Benu is its buzz. Corey Lee does show moments of genius and of gastronomic power, but his menu has not fully developed and his cooking is not always assured. To compare this meal, filled with deadends and with inspiration to the French Laundry is to do this young chef a disservice. The poularde was memorable – and Chef Lee is to be commended for his attempt to retrieve and reconstruct the greatest culinary triumphs of the past. The monkfish torchon was astonishing, and the beef and lily bulbs inspiring. But these were matched my dishes that were bland, doughy, or gooey. Critics often end their remarks suggesting that they will or will not return. In my case, let time be my judge. Benu may become the Chinese Laundry, but tonight it was just too close to dry cleaning.

Benu
22 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco CA 94105
415-685-4860
http://www.benusf.com

2011-05-07T21:40:00.002-05:00

San Fran Hip - Flour + Water

As I think of my year in the Bay Area, I have discovered that San Francisco restaurants are adept at producing stylish, creative cuisine at prices that 20-somethings can afford. Yes, there are some extravagant restaurants and, frankly, some rotten ones, but SF has a mid-budget culinary swagger that few cities can match. Perhaps this is a function of the fact that SF is a youthful, vibrant city and a city where people dine out: seven meals at $150/per is more Silicon Valley than Noe Valley.

Several restaurants might be named as fitting this category: Delfina, Zuni Café, among others. But as I managed to snare a rare reservation at Flour + Water, a sophisticated modern Italian restaurant in the Mission District - a restaurant that is Pizza-plus – F+W is my text. Flour + Water charges $17 for pasta, $16 for pizza, and $21-24 for their secondi. The restaurant is well-priced and always filled. It is the Eternal Seating.

My companion and I ordered a pair of antipasti, two pasta, and a secondi, and were, in general, quite impressed: three of the five were distinguished. Pork belly with broccoli salsa gribiche, asparagus, sofritto, and fresh coriander was marred by a small and overly crispy pork belly. It was pretty, but not truly delicious. In contrast, the halibut crudo with strawberries, favas, and fennel blossoms was a cool tribute to spring. The fish was sweet and the accompaniments added layers of textures. The tasting notes were just right.

The path of pasta diverged. One was fabulous, the other sounded fabulous when read on the menu. Less successful (and not a choice that our server recommended when asked for pasta advice) was Aleppo Spaghetti with Ink Braised Squid, Mint and Chili Oil. Aleppo is a mild Syrian pepper. While the pasta was properly cooked, the plate with its black and brown tones was not inspiring and the flavors, presumably intended, seemed a bit off. Mint and chili did not match well. Braised squid was not as pleasing as the grilled version.

In contrast, the Taleggio Scarpinocc with Rosemary and Aceto Balsamico (which our server enthusiastically admired) was stunning in its simplicity. These oddly shaped raviolis (shaped like wooden shoes) were luscious, and were as fine a filled pasta as any I have had for months. The cheese was astonishingly tangy.

The secondi – slow cooked cod with artichokes, spring onion, asparagus, pounded herbs, and fennel – was lovingly prepared, elegantly presented, and carefree. If it was not as savory as some main courses, its subtlety carried the night. The lightness of the fish made it float away.

With Flour + Water only a few blocks from Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream, a post-modern ice-creamery (Brown Butter Ice Cream and Malted Dulce de Leche), we didn’t test the F+W desserts.

We left F + W with wallets only slightly lightened and hearts greatly so.

Flour + Water
2401 Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-826-7000
http://www.flourandwater.com

2011-04-30T22:38:00.002-05:00

Out of the Way – Pacific’s Edge – Carmel, California

Some restaurants are so fortuitously sited that the wisest thing that a chef can do is to stand out of the way, not blocking the diner’s line of sight. This is the challenge of Chef Matt Bolton at Pacific’s Edge.

The Pacific’s Edge restaurant, located in the Hyatt Highlands Resort in Carmel-by-the-Sea, has an astonishing view. It was named as one of the ten best restaurants with a view by USA Today in 2006. The award is deserved. Looking out over, yes, the Pacific, the restaurant remind us just how fortunately those living on the coasts can be, and with its high perch even a tsunami would not diminish the romance of dining. All tables have a view of the Pacific, but some are nestled up against the windows, awarded on a first-come/first-served basis. We were grateful to have been informed of this policy, allowing us to snag a 6:00 p.m. reservation and a window view. The sunset was not as glorious as some, but was superb none-the-less.

Pacific’s Edge serves well-prepared, if somewhat conventional, modern cuisine. A four-course “tasting menu” ($99/person) is not overly adventurous, but is quite successful, never failing to please.

We began with an Asparagus Vichyssoise with a luscious Truffle Pecorino Grilled Cheese petit-four, crispy spring onions, and prosciutto de parma. While the soup was delightful, the two-bite sandwich was ideal.

The Wild King Salmon with Olive Oil Poached Artichoke, Oven Roasted Tomato, and Chanterelle was a pleasant, properly cooked piece of fish, if a bit minimalist.

Our main course was a well-conceived, evocative Pan-Seared Breast of Sonoma Duck with a five-spice pastilla (fried duck confit basket), English Peas and Shoots, and Duck Jus. The pastilla was unfortunately greasy, but the rest of the dish was sturdy and warmly evocative of a California April.

Dessert was a Meyer Lemon Semolina Cake with Pine Nut Sable and a sparkling Raspberry-Rosemary Sorbet. While this was not an elaborate creation, it was creatively presented and flawless.

It is perhaps unfair to note that the food at Pacific’s Edge is not among California’s best. That may be true, but it doesn’t mean that the evening isn’t as pleasing as any. Pacific’s Edge is a restaurant to see and to sea.

Pacific’s Edge
Hyatt Highlands Inn
120 Highlands Drive
Carmel, California
831-622-5445
http://www.pacificsedge.com/

2011-04-10T00:17:00.002-05:00

Crab Crab Crab Duck – Yum’s Bistro – Fremont, California

Few things can be more depressing for an ecstatic lover of ecstatic food that to dine at a Chinese restaurant alone. So many possibilities, so little to share. From a list of hundreds of dishes, the lone diner plays the lottery.

Without a large network, I have been Chinese-cuisine-deprived during my year in the Bay Area. But not entirely. On a quiet Tuesday an email popped into my inbox announcing a “chowdown,” sponsored by the San Francisco branch of Chowhound. In contrast to the LTH community in Chicago, these invitations are rare and rather select: twelve diners sitting around a table. It is a tough reservation to snag. And so I jumped at the invitation.

One of the favored restaurants of the Bay Area foodie community is Yum’s Bistro, located in a suburban shopping mall in Fremont (in the East Bay, across the Dumbarton Bridge from Palo Alto). The diners of SF Chowhound had previously held their New Year’s Feast at Yum’s, a restaurant that is Cantonese, broadly speaking. The chef had previously cooked in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Hong Kong and in large Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, but had retired. But retirement is not all that it is cracked up to be, and he decided to open a modest “bistro” in Fremont (although the Chinese meaning of bistro is somewhat obscure). The menu advertises their “exquisite crab dishes.” April is edging towards the end of Dungeness crab season on the West Coast, and my colleagues speculated that the sweet crab was from Washington State or beyond, but none the worse for its travel.

The organizer of the event is the estimable Melanie Wong, San Francisco’s answer to Cathy2, and she has been involved in the local chow community for so long that she recalled the breakup of LTH and Chowhound, casually referring to our Chicagoland rebels as “the Boys” (sorry, Cathy, I am just the reporter). As usual the group that gathered was congenial and bright. Aside from the fact that these gatherings are rarer in the Bay Area than in Chicagoland, what struck me most was a greater seriousness of attention to wine culture. Perhaps a dozen bottles of local and international wines were opened, and diners brought their own glasses (like chefs and their knives; the restaurant doesn’t supply wine glasses). The whole evening was good fun.

We began with a very flavorful soup, ordered special: watercress, dried scallops, and duck gizzards in a rich liquid. I was particularly impressed with the savory broth. It was supple and subtle, poultry and seafood, as sterling as a French bistro consommé.

Now followed our three Dungeness crab dishes, served in sequence, each competing for attention:

Soy sauce and garlic crab (a special preparation for our group).

Hunan crab served in a Clay Pot with hot peppers

Jakarta Chili Crab with curry and coconut milk.

I admired them all. The spice was not excessively intense, but still I preferred the Garlic Crab and the Jakarta Crab for the symphony of flavors. Although one thinks of crab as having a delicate flavor, certainly true, it does stand up impressively to spice. Crab and chili can be a beautiful marriage.

The trio of crab was followed by another specially prepared dish. Stuffed duck, fried and braised, with ham, barley, and nuts. The quality of the duck was not impressive, and the accompaniments didn’t sing either. Despite the impressive presentation, it is not a dish I plan to try again.

Shifting to the end of the night, we were served Ong Choi, hollowed hearted Chinese greens, sautéed with garlic. It is a green and bright change from protein. Our noodle dish, another special, was Longlife noodles with abalone and mushrooms (one twirls the noodles uncut or one’s life is shortened). The noodles were perfectly chewy and the abalone sauce was delicious.

Desserts included peach buns (a roll filled with sweet bean curd) and a tapioca soup. The peach buns were witty and sweet. The tapioca soup was properly made but overly thick for the end of an evening.

I was grateful to meet new friends and to learn that culinary friendship is not (quite) a Chicago monopoly.

Yum’s Bistro
4906 Paseo Padre Parkway
Fremont, CA 94555 (closed Tuesdays)
510-745-8866
http://www.crusa.biz/yum

2011-04-02T22:33:00.000-05:00

Delfina, Delfina – San Francisco

Some restaurants, modest though they seem, are just about perfect. Their humility hides their brio. In San Francisco I can think of no better example than Delfina, a lovely, sunny, airy Italianate restaurant set in the somewhat scruffy Mission District. There is little showy about the space, although it is pleasing and airy, but the plates are modestly priced show-stoppers.

I ordered Warm Ceringola Olives, meaty, green nuggets swimming in rustic olive oil, served with warm crusty bread (perhaps baked by the iconic Tartine Bakery next door?). Tonight San Francisco revealed its Mediterranean climate which these olives matched degree for degree.

The olives were followed by a creamy cauliflower soup with paprika oil drizzled on top and cumin-scented croutons. The soup was redolent of flowerets, but needed the kick that the paprika and cumin provided. It was an exceptionally pretty bowl.

Delfina’s Hay and Straw Tagliarini with English Peas, Pecorino, Raw Egg Yolk, and a touch of Pancetta (or its moral equivalent) was as lush as one might imagine a spring plate could be. The green and white pasta was nettles and spinach (?). The richness of the cheese, cream, and egg played perfectly with the peas, creating a modernist carbonara.

They also serve a superior Blood Orange Prosecco.

All in all, a splendid moderately priced spring meal. Bravo.

Delfina
3621 18th St
San Francisco, California 94110
(415) 552-4055
http://www.delfinasf.com

2011-03-12T22:45:00.002-06:00

White Light – Commis – Oakland, CA

For some obscure reason, this evening I decided to review some food pictures from the past few months. I realized that I had not described my January dinner at Commis, Chef James Syhabout’s modern cuisine restaurant on Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue. Commis has a space next to Bay Wolf, one of the most important restaurants of post-fusion cuisine of the high-energy 1980s. Bay Wolf was a temple of combinatory creativity, but as I looked at Wolf’s menu I realized how far we have come in technique and in ingredients. Children, can you remember when your fruits, vegetables, and proteins lacked a provenance?

Commis is hip to the new millennium. Of all of the restaurants striving for modernist cuisine, Commis is the most Zen of all. It is so white, so placid, so restrained that for an instant I felt that I had stumbled upon a Methodist heaven or a Jewish hell. It is neither quite: it is architecture filtered through the light of the East.

My wife and I sat at the smooth wood kitchen counter, and were pleasantly ignored, as we ate our four-course tasting menus (two choices for each course for a mere $68, which for this level of cooking is a bargain of epic proportions). Often in such circumstances one communes with the staff, chattering, chatting, and, always, gossiping. Not at Commis. These cooks worked in a focused fugue. We weren’t dismissed, just unseen. The hard-working cooks became objects of observation, not friends. That’s OK, but perhaps it led to a feeling that there was to be no Commis family. Every restaurant has its style, and focus is Commis’s. Chef Syhabout was there, murmuring to his staff. Anthony Bourdain he will never be. He’s a dish whisperer.

Chef Syhabout is a sterling chef, very much in the style of David Kinch, one of his mentors. In this, he is a synthesizer, incorporating styles, techniques and ingredient often with great aplomb. The meal was distinguished with some dishes that were remarkable, and a few that were less so. His cuisine is surely appealing enough to try again. Perhaps the atmosphere overwhelmed with its serenity. (“Serenity Now!”, sayeth Frank Costanza), but the foods had sparks and flash to balance the silence and the white light.

The Amuse: Egg Yolk, Creamy Onion Soup, Majool Date Puree, Granola. Very clever start, and totally delicious. This start represents the best impulses of a cuisine of astonishment: Cuisine Agape. This bowl builds on molecular techniques and a commitment to flavor.

Oysters and Fresh Cider in Sunchoke Cream, Ginger and Radish. An impressively composed dish with challenging and fascinating flavors, with an Asian sensibility. A profound appetizer.

Coastal Heirloom Beans in Onion Consomme, Raisins with Warm Spices. This appetizer matched its sibling in its intelligence commitment to texture and agriculture. A very successful dish in all ways. A lovely soup with surprises peeking everywhere.

Atlantic Haddock with Smoked Mussel Vinaigrette, Herbs and Cabbage. Dishes like this have become fairly standard in modern cuisine. It hasn't become cliched, but it wasn't astonishing.

Leeks and Celeriac Cooked with Anise, Citric Crab Emulsion, Wild Lettuce. Along with the amuse, this was probably the most startlingly successful dish of the evening. The crab and anise merged so well with the greens. A quietly triumphant plate.

Slow Cooked Lamb with Horseradish Yogurt, Quince and Winter Greens. Well-cooked if somewhat fatty lamb but with enough interest with the accompaniments.

Pressed Guinea Fowl, Young and Braised Garlic with Potato. This was the least effective dish of the evening. It was somewhat bland, perhaps it was too much of a classic throwback.

Chocolate Gianduja, Green Apple, Hazelnut, Absinthe Ice Cream. I enjoyed the Absinthe Ice Cream, but this dish lacked a focal center - a bit of this and that.

Panna Cotta Scented with Winter Citrus, Pomegranate, Coriander. A very pleasant modern dessert. The two desserts had less interest than the appetizers, as so often is the case.

Commis
3859 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA
510-653-3902
http://www.commisrestaurant.com/index.php

2011-03-05T22:29:00.002-06:00

The Citrus Mind – Manresa – Los Gatos, California

David Kinch, the esteemed chef at Manresa, is perhaps the most accomplished shape-shifter in American cuisine. But maybe I am the one who has been unable to pin his butterfly wings. I have found French, Catalan, molecular, and Japanese nods in his preparations. Two weeks ago some friends and I attended the nine course Citrus Modernista that he and his friends at Love Apple Farms prepare annually with the crucial contribution of Gene Lester and his citrus orchards above Monterey Bay.

It was a very impressive evening throughout – and surprising. Walking through the doors I expected that it would be citrus all the way down – tangerines, pomelo, and Buddha’s hand. A symphony of pastel. Indeed, there was a lot of citrus: wekiwa tangelo, meyer lemon, etrog citron, Mandarins, bergamot, poorman orange. Still with all this variety, I was startled in that in most dishes Chef Kinch used citrus delicately and supplely.

My wife and I used to amuse ourselves by preparing meals with one ingredient to be found in every dish, the more bizarre the better: the best was the banana meal, the worst, the liver meal. This foolishness is, of course, the conceit of Iron Chef. But when we played the game the goal was that the ingredient would be front and center. This is not Kinch’s style.

Once one overcame the surprise of subtlety, the meal was filled with wonder. The theme of these dishes emphasized Kinch’s love of gathering, of modest ingredients. More than previous dinners it was a meal that paid tribute to the New Naturalism. It was not exclusively found foods (foie gras does not lay about), but the connection of kitchen and ground was evident. The dishes pulled back from the drama of a cuisine of astonishment to reveal the power of a cuisine of consideration.

Perhaps I was more struck by the lengthy Japanese tasting menu I was served last year, but Citrus Modernista was a tour de force, particularly as it is a one-off, never to be tasted again. And perhaps it speaks of Chef Kinch’s desire to cook food, rather than to cook theory.

Foie Gras and Buckwheat Crisps, Marmalade Bouquet de Fleurs. A pungent beginning to the meal. Perhaps it was a twist on a cliche - with foie gras replacing the expected caviar - but none the worse for that.

Garden Leaves, Shoots and Flowers, Roasted Meyer Lemon Mustard with Apple, Spot Prawns with their Head Juices. Two of Chef Kinch's passions combined: greens and local spot prawns with a subtle bit of meyer lemon.

Mackerel Marinated in Sake Lees, Charcoal Grilled with Seafood Salsa Verde , Assorted Clams with Sampson Tangelo, Salted Butter. I felt that this composition was the best dish of the night. It was a wonderful combination of textures and tastes, well-considered. Another of the increasingly popular mackerel dishes.

Scallop Shards and Dungeness Crab, Kyoto Miso with Etrog Citron. This was another fine and considered collection of tastes.

Black Cod, jus of bones and Beef Skin, Brassicas and Flowers with Ginger, Dill and Kabuso Citrus. This was another splendid dish, one of the more beautiful of the night, and the dish most gathered. It had just the right mix of flavors.

Roast Guinea Hen Jelly, Assorted Mandarins with Pickled Cucumber and Roast Peanuts, Bitter Chocolate with Bergamot Orange. Not the prettiest dish of the night, but the flavors were fine and the guinea hen was remarkably tender.

Hot Spring Egg and pure Akaushi Beef Sirloin, Black Tea and Dried Tuna Bouillon, Chestnut with Bergamot Orange. This was my least favorite dish, although it was fine. Chef Kinch likes to mix beef and veal with tuna and tea. The orange was quite subtle, but it couldn't have been more prominent without throwing the dish off.

Ginger Ice Cream and Poorman Orange Sorbet. Here was a well-made paired palate cleanser. Both scoops were luscious.

Yuzu Souffle Cake with Herb Sorbet, Exotic Citrus with Honey and Spice, Olive Oil and Almond Crumble. This was the most sustained and deep tribute to citrus with a nod to molecular cuisine. It was one of the strongest dishes of the night, and sent us into the street with a tangy fruity glow.

Manresa
320 Village Lane
Los Gatos, CA
408-354-4330
[url]http://www.manresarestaurant.com[/url]

2011-02-26T22:44:00.002-06:00

In Hiding – Baumé – Palo Alto

Looking at the field of cuisine, it is impossible to escape the reality that molecular cuisine has run its course. Heston Blumenthal and Grant Achatz are mining the past. Ferran Adria and Joan Roca are bowing to classicism. But in Palo Alto, California, Chef Bruno Chemel is producing food as if it is still 2008. How odd.

I have long wondered what would happen if Claude Monet returned to Musee d’Orsay and insisted on dabbing a few more haystacks. Would he be turned out of doors? Is style a moving train that is gone once it leaves the station? And in cuisine, can a chef – having opened a restaurant a year ago – make a go of molecular cuisine.

Chemel is a fine and creative chef, but seems of two minds. One the one hand, he shows no desire to escape the molecular canon. However, he advertises his cuisine as “French Cuisine Moderne.” If a diner wanders in thinking that this is L’Arpege or Chemel is Guy Savoy, there will be heck to pay. His professional lineage is Catalan.

Baumé is an enjoyable restaurant, very pleasant to eat in with its private corners. Perhaps Chemel is not quite the chemical engineer as Dufresne (WD-50) or Cantu (Moto), but he has mastered the techniques. This is second-generation molecular, and not bad for that.

Each dish had its twist: Saketini with freeze dried raspberry ice cream, Asparagus with leek ash, 62 degree egg, daikon mousse, foie gras with apple foam, lemon smoke, paired bonbons – savory (lime miso) and sweet (lime caramel), and frozen snow. Each was worthy – delicious - in its own right. My favorite was the perfectly cooked halibut with Meyer lemon citrus zabaglione and butternut squash puree, a dish that I loved as much for the intense flavors as for the citrus zabaglione. Least successful was the Mont Blanc Thaw – the texture of snow wasn’t quite right, but it was a very distinct and memorable dish, worth the experiment.

Saketini with Freeze Dried Raspberry Ice Cream - better as it melted

Sponge Bread with Creamy Butter - Bread Service

Asparagus, Aioli, Trout Roe, Leek Ash - The leek ash was a creative touch, a nice mix of flavors.

Slow-cooked egg with sunchoke - this old style of egg preparation. Filled with flavor and with texture.

Foie Gras Two ways (old and new) with apple gelee and foam.

Vegetable Bisque, Daikon Mousse, Dungeness Crab - Modernist soup with a daikon mousse focus

Halibut, Curry, Leeks. The most balanced and lustful dish of the evening. Perfectly executed with excellent Meyer lemon zabaglione.

Lemon Smoke Cleanser. Pure molecular.

Grass Fed Beef, Bergamot Saveur with Carrot Flan: Very tasty flan and fine citrus combination.

Gruyere, Beets, Watercress - Nicely composed cheese plate

Mont Blanc Thaw, Madeleine, Warm Ganache with Exotic Citrus Ice Cream. Interesting in conception as dessert snow. The texture was too "snowy" after a few bites

Candied Raspberry Sphere with Chocolate Base

I plan to return to Baumé for their spring, despite their identity confusion. This is a restaurant that really takes you back, even if time machine is set in months, not in years. The San Francisco Bay Area does not have a true molecular restaurant other than Baumé. It deserves attention, despite its own imagined claims.

Baumé
201 South California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA
650-328-8899
http://www.baumerestaurant.com

2011-02-19T22:29:00.002-06:00

The "End" of Astonishment - El Bulli's Classicism and a World of Pleasure - Roses, Spain

Every art movement has its lifecycle, a fact that is as applicable to culinary movements as to other aesthetic domains. The middle of the first decade of the Twenty-First century will be remembered as a time of triumph for the Molecular Movement, a trend that I termed Agape Cuisine for its carnal desire to astonish through the creation of new techniques of preparation that taken together had the goal of astonishment. This was the El Bulli moment, a moment that was supported and extended by world-class restaurants such as the Fat Duck and Alinea and El Celler de Can Roca and WD-50 and Moto. But where are we today? What is left after the nitrogenated dust has settled?

Such a question is properly asked in the dawning of this new decade because of El Bulli’s recently announced closure, the new directions (and restaurants) of Heston Blumenthal (in Dinner) and Grant Achatz (in Next) and the incorporationist movement of other chefs and the prominence of some restaurants (Noma, Coi) such as those that some bloggers have termed the New Naturals with chefs as hunter and gatherers and others, such as Chef Josh Skanes at San Francisco’s Saison or Chef John Shields at Virginia’s Town House, experimenting with cooking in ash. It’s back to the future.

Ultimately all art worlds (and the world of high-end cuisine must be conceived of as an art world) have their styles and fashions, and these styles and fashions can be analogized to scientific fashions, as discussed within the sociology of knowledge. When old techniques stop working or stop appealing to an audience, there is a space for a change. We are always looking out for the “next new thing.” We hope to be first movers, revealing what is hot and what is cool. This was brought home to me in a recent visit to Barcelona to dine at two of the world’s great restaurants, the estimable El Celler de Can Roca (in Girona) and “the restaurant at the end of the universe” El Bulli (in Roses).

I was fortunate to dine at El Celler de Can Roca two years ago and, although I was an EB virgin, I dined with a multiple-time diner at El Bulli. Neither chef (Chef Joan Roca or Chef Ferran Adria) has forgotten the techniques that he had pioneered and that brought fame. Both meals were filled with creative nummies. But each seemed to recognize that cuisine is built on a classical foundation. Perhaps this is not Escoffier’s Paris 1906 as Grant Achatz will replicate in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, but it recognizes that new techniques take us only so far, they need to be integrated into the canons of taste. Sauces are there for the rediscovery.

A view of photos from El Bulli reveals distinctive and joyous dishes, but nothing from a different universe, and this is not bad. Adria’s shrimp on a tortilla, wonderful and distinctive, was not mad. The other shrimp dishes were even more classical. Perhaps woodcock is not typically served with guanabana, but it doesn’t take a chemist to figure out how to do so. The San Felicienne cheese blini was as classic and as buttery as could be requested. The quails with escabeche, wonderful and precise, were remarkable in a way that is within the canon of classic cuisine (even if perhaps cooked sous vide). Even the olive oil chip relied on one of Adria’s old-new techniques. Some surprises remained, but nothing that demanded a new vision.

The same should be said of the meal at El Celler de Can Roca. The caramelized olives were wonderful, as was the herbal green colourology dessert, the mullets with stew, the steak tartare with mustard ice cream, and the oysters with cava. All of this was definitely modern cuisine in its best sense, but it no longer seemed straining for effect. Three years ago I was startled and amazed; this year I enjoyed.

So at this moment we seem to be at the ending of a phase of an aesthetic revolution in which chefs – the best ones and the new ones – are rethinking what needs to be saved and what jettisoned to produce delightful dishes.

There is a necessary and joyous tension – a dialogue – between cuisines based on simplicity and nature (the new naturals, “snout to tail dining” and “farm to table” cuisine) and those based upon novel elaborations and techniques (the family of molecular cuisine). With the attention that has been given to new methods, there is a recognition that the past has virtues as well. And so we find Chrono-cuisine, as chefs like Grant Achatz (at Next) and Heston Blumenthal (at Dinner) mine the past, remembering the forgotten.

Chefs are at an inflection point. Molecular cuisine is yesterday. And Yesterday is tomorrow.

And to the El Bulli meal (photos of El Celler de Can Roca on on the previous post). We were served 42 courses in this last year of El Bulli on a menu that emphasized winter provisions, such as black truffles and game (hare and woodcock). I was impressed in examining Josh's photos and from comments by those who had dined at El Bulli before that the meal was less experiment, but almost restrained. It was not that there were no molecular dishes, but some of the striving for the new was less evident. Yes, this was a version of "cuisine agape," a cuisine of amazement, but simultaneously it spoke to traditions in cuisine. Even Adria's new found classicism is not Escoffier's as Grant Achatz may soon demonstrate. Actually I have come to prefer dishes that are astonishingly simply, rather than those that strive for aerial acrobatics. Of the 42 courses, I would not wish to taste all again (there tofu tiramisu I could do without and the sugar cane was less than compelling), but other dishes were evocative and will live as long as I do in my memory. Ferran Adria is one of the few true geniuses in the culinary world (Grant Achatz is another), even when his ideas do not pan out.

With forty-two courses the meal permitted sets of courses, creating musical variations on a theme: we had a set of mojito courses, a set of shrimp courses. nut courses, truffle courses, Mexican courses, and game courses. And sometimes we would revisit a theme. I have had better courses, but with a very, very exceptions, never a better meal. With fifty cooks, twenty-five servers, and fifty diners, service was splendid. One of the eight of us could not eat raw fish or shellfish, meat, or liquor. For many restaurants this would be a problem. But her forty-two courses (about half were different) were just as proficient as ours. As is evident, Adria is not a star when it comes to plating - only a few dishes are beautiful on the plate and some are (perhaps deliberately) sloppy - he cares about the theory of taste, the idea of the gustatory senses. In that he is the master.

Even with 42 courses and 6 bottles of wine (for seven of us), we were not stuffed after five hours (but no pizza on the way home)

Here is the man himself greeting his guests

Ginger and Lime Candi. An elegant start to the mojito theme.

A warm and minty mojito

Mojito 3.0 - a mojito sandwich (mojito and apple flute), very playful

Moving from mojito to nuts with the almond fizz with amarena.

Nori Seaweed with Lemon. A beautiful dish using ingredients that would challenge other chefs.

The olive oil chip was masterful. So was the parmesan macaron. It could be found nowhere but El Bulli.

Peanut and honey roll. An early dessert - and an ode to nuts

Hibiscus and Peanut. Tropical and inviting. More nuts, and the start of the Latin theme.

Pistachio ravioli. As good a ravioli as I have had. Nuts!

Shrimp torilla. One of Adria's best dishes. Simple and so clever and so shrimpy. Beautiful. I won't forget this, ever.

Classic shrimp.

The third (and fourth) shrimp - a prawn with an intense "soup"

Quails with Carrot Escabeche. Another amazing and simple dish. Four dabs of carrot and one dab of peppery carrot (it is number four). Wonderful.

Tomato Tartare. A pure palate cleanser

Soya Tiramisu. My least favorite - a bit of a mess, and not pretty. There has to be one worst dish. It just didn't sing.

Soya Matches. A much better use of soy, each bite had a distinct taste: how did he do this?

Ferran at his most playful: caviar with hazelnut cream. Hazelnut caviar with caviar cream. A very Fat Duck/Moto playful dish. A laugh riot. I wouldn't have it again, but I will talk about it endlessly.

Liquid Hazelnut Porra. Very pleasant "bread" stick, hazelnut style.

Truffle cake. Wow. As truffly as things get. The texture matched the dark intensity of the fungus. A great and extravagant use of the black truffle.

Endive in Papillote 50%. A play on fish cuisine with endive. A good and light dish.

Foie Cake. In contrast to the above dish, an uber-rich cake.

San Felicienne (cheese) Blini. Simple. Classic. And as good as cheese gets in the hands of a master.

Steamed eels. Fun as a quicky. I prefer eels more robustly prepared, but it was an aquatic palate cleanser.

Lulo Ceviche and Mollusk. A dish of sublime complexity. Part of the Latin sequence

What a beautiful dish. Iced gazpacho with prime olive oil. Adria removes all of the color (how?), but leaves in all of the taste. It would be the best dish in July, and pretty amazing in February.

Hare Bunuelo. The bridge between the Latin courses and the game courses. A bite size treasure.

Game Meat Capuccino. Soup Starbucks style - finally foam. Note the absence of form (and other oddities) in the rest of the meal.

Peas Two Ways. A vegetable dish for a diner who didn't eat meat. I just thought it was so pretty - but not a great photo. (It wasn't part of the game sequence)

Woodcock and fruit (with a Latin twist with soursop): lovely dish. The best of the game offerings.

Blackberry Risotto with Game Meat Sauce. Another fruit and game special. A strong dish as well.

Hare Ravioli with Bolonesa (and Blood). Very intense dish. A fine taste of the wild. Traditional, but also El Bulli style

Hare Cocktail with Raspberry. Another in the set of game "soups" with fruit.

Hare Chestnut with Liver Puree. Finally game and nuts - wrapped up in a delicious package. Perfect for snacking.

Pandang Ice Cream with Coconut Water. Another treat and trick. One of the jelly beans is salty: a reprise of the quail dish. The best dessert.

Sugar Cubes with Lime Whiskey Sour. OK. A palate cleanser. A mojito reprise.

Rum Sugar Cane. A second palate cleanser.

Mini-Donuts with 97% Pure Chocolate. Powerfully bitter and sweet. Can chocolate taste so intense?

Coca de Vidre - Crystal Cake - Coconut and Pine nuts. A very enjoyable sweet. It went down easily and quickly

Gold Leaves in Coffee-Chocolate Soil. A strong way to wrap up, reminding us that despite the nods to classicism, Chef Adria created much of modern cuisine that we take for granted.

The finale! The box! The freeze dried strawberries were particularly notable as was the passionfruit-yogurt sponge

El Bulli
Roses, Spain

2011-02-19T22:02:00.002-06:00

Photos from my February 2011 Dinner at El Celler de Can Roca. For discussion of this dinner and dinner at El Bulli, see the next post,The End of Astonishment. While not all of the dishes have a classic aspect, I was startled - and pleased - at the incorporation of the Great Tradition of Haute Cuisine into Chef Joan Roca's modernist cuisine. The meal was far less molecular than the meal that I had in 2008. It perhaps was less startling, but lovely, poetic, and evocative.

El Celler has a clean, modern, linear feel.

Caramelized olives (picked off the tree!) were as delicious a bar snack as one could imagine. It is a counter-point with Ferran Adria's liquified olives (now available to 41 Degree)/

A liquified Bellini bonbon, a tradition in molecular cuisine. It was fine.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391789@N00/5444143314/][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5220/5444143314_30996ca08e.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391789@N00/5444143314/]El Celler de Can Roca - Girona - February 2011 - Bellini Bombon[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/52391789@N00/]garyalanfine[/url], on Flickr

Sardine bones - snacks just right for gobbling when watching Barca win at football.

Chips and Chicken Cracker. I remember this snack less well, but it was tasty.

Truffled Brioche and Pot au Feu Broth. Very classic in conception, and very filled with flavor: splendid broth.

Smoked herring-caviar omlette and pigeon parfait. Two effective bites in the modern tradition.

Oysters with Agusti Torello Cava, apple compote. An elegant and smooth oyster bite with a lot of flavors. Splendid.

Escalivada with Anchovies and Smoke of Ember (Eggplant, Pepper, Onion and Tomato). Although the smoke is a molecular touch, but the escalivada is a classic preparation. A marriage of old and new.

Artichoke, Foie Gras, Orange and Truffled Oil. A frighteningly good meld of flavor in a modern cuisine vein. This is how foie gras should be done.

Charcoal-grilled King Prawn with Acidulated Mushroom Juice. A classic presentation although with acidulated mushroom juice. Classic up front, molecular behind.

Crespia Walnuts, and Comte Cheese (with onion soup). Very powerful cheese and soup course. Lovely textures and a delightful vision.

Sole, Olive Oil and Mediterranean Flavors. Each bite is a different taste. Perfectly prepared sole, although some sauces were more intriguing than others.

The fun continues. Onion rocks with perfectly tender squid.

Red Mullets with Suquet (Catalan Seafood Stew) and Lard. Very classic and traditional dish in composition, including the lard. We almost felt we were dining in Catalonia!

Steak Tartare with Mustard Ice Cream. The most molecular dish of the evening. It works. Much flavor mixing that with mustard ice cream is on the edge.

Lamb with Sweet Potato and Tangerine. Mainstream modernism. Good, but in a somewhat convention way in light of the canons of contemporary taste. Fruit and meat is a cliche - admittedly a happy cliche.

Lightly-smoked pigeon with Anchovies, Truffles and Blackberries. Another fruit and meat (game) composition. Successful and somewhat more interesting than the lamb.

Green Colourology. An incredibly beautiful composition of sweet and herbal and fruity flavors. A glorious opening to dessert.

Lemon-distillate Sorbet. A nice palate cleanser. Sharp and clean flavor.

Vanilla, Caramel, Licorice, and Caramelized Black Olives. A modernist dessert with a wide range of tastes that do come together effectively.

El Celler de Can Roca
Can Sunyer 48
Girona, Spain
972-22-21-57
http://www.cellercanroca.com/inici.php?secc=presentacion&lang=uk

2011-02-11T22:57:00.002-06:00

Soon I hope to post about my dinner at El Bulli (and Celler de Can Roca), but today I want to start with the new cocktail bar that Ferran and his his brother Albert Adria have opened in Barcelona, 41 Degrees (the latitude of Barcelona). They will follow the cocktail bar with Tickets, a tapas restaurant next door. As El Bulli closes 41 Degrees and Tickets will keep alive some of the classic tastes (if one can call food at El Bulli classic - perhaps classic, but not classical).

41 Degrees is a very stylist space - cool, glassy, and aqua. Not at all retro (and of course Spain did not suffer through Prohibition - suffering through Franco's fascism was quite sufficient).

Most of the drinks currently available on the menu at 41 Degrees are classical cocktails: Negroni, Aviator, Cosmopolitan. However, the 'tenders will make a drink if asked. I love Manhattans, but also was intrigued by the Aviator, and so received an astonishing cocktail that mysteriously combined the two. It has no name, but it deserves on: I'll call it the LaGuardia: it was a mix of single malt vodka, bourbon, creme de violette, peychauds bitters, honey and orange juice. Perhaps it was my jet lag, but I was flying. It was a beautiful mix of sweet, bitter, caramel, and flowers. That this concoction was newly minted was quite astonishing.

Along with drinks one can order oysters as well a dozen El Bulli-inspired bar snacks (although using El Bulli and bar snack in the same sentence seems sacrilegious). I selected Adria's powerful spherical olive, pure olive liquid in a gel sac; a parmesan ice cream sandwich (intense cheesy ice cream and crackers), robust lime marshmallows, and pistachio embedded in sugared yogurt (sweet and pretty). Soon going to Barcelona will require seeing monuments Gaudi, Dali, and Adria. Degree 41 is a good place to experience (a bit of) the Adria magic.

I was able to peek into the construction of Tickets, the Adria brothers tapas bar, which, as everything the brothers touch, bears watching.

41 Degrees
164 Paral.lel
Barcelona

2010-12-25T22:12:00.003-06:00

Pop-Up Gourmet - Ludobites 6.0 – Sherman Oaks

Perhaps we should blame the housing bubble, perhaps the remaining high rents in the beau monde, or perhaps the lack of commitment of a generation of slackers. Whatever the cause, a hot trend in contemporary dining is the restaurant that is not, truly, a restaurant: a restaurant of the eye blink. A restaurant that is less a piece of real estate than a place of mind. Sometimes this alternative style is known as underground dining, which has the allure of a dining party consisting of people that you never wish to meet again. These gatherings are frequently one-offs, sometimes held in an apartment or an industrial venue, although some establish weekly or monthly schedules. One senses something of Tom Wolfe’s nostalgie de la boue – a loving admiration for dirt and depravity – that makes these occasional festivities fascinating, but with health departments not invited.

However, even in occasional dining there are status distinctions. Some prominent chefs are satisfied to cook for awhile, and then go fallow, only to sprout again. In my hometown of Chicago the best known example was Patrick Chabert’s occasional meals at Berutti’s in Buffalo Grove. Chabert was for many years sous chef at Le Francais, and some of that glory sticks to him still.

At present the star of the pop-up is surely Los Angeles’s admired chef and food trucker extraordinaire (Keep on Truckin’) Ludo Lefebvre, a chef with all the proper Parisian credentials (L’Arpege and Gagnaire) and with a stint of fine restaurant chefing under his toque at Bastide and l’Orangerie. Chef Ludo has received honors of various weight, including warmly admiring media attention.

Today Chef Ludo fashions himself as an occasional chef. Yes, he has a food truck, purveying what I am led to believe is sturdy fried chicken, found on the streets of Los Angeles if one is on his Tweet-list, but he has no permanent restaurant home. What he has, in contrast, are pop-up sites. He will rent a restaurant space and then will devise a fairly set menu for some six weeks. In our digital age, these spottings are labeled 1.0, 2.0, until the current iteration, Ludobites 6.0, open (and now closed) at Max’s, a modest but pleasant restaurant space in Sherman Oaks, located in “The (San Fernando) Valley,” along Ventura Boulevard.

From a friend who has eaten at five of these pops, I understand that Chef Ludo’s style changes with the iteration, creating disparate culinary selves. Sometimes his menu owes much to classical traditions, other times he is modernist, and on still other occasions there is a pronounced Asian inflection. Some meals are more precise and restrained, and others are profoundly energetic. Ludobites 6.0 is more ebullient than carefully composed.

This meal was characterized by robust flavors, but for the most part not a large dollop of precise technique appearing on the plate. I was told that the 6.0 cuisine was at some distance from chef Ludo’s cuisine at Bastide: not that one would wish to have a chef’s creations frozen in amber or molasses: no semifreddo he.

The first marquee dish - Escargot, Brussel Sprouts, Red Mole, Corn Ice Cream, and Tofu Squares – provoked a dollop of dispute. More than my tablemates, I found the dish excellent and after some weeks I recall it well. Chef Lefebvre did not prepare an authentic, classic mole, and so perhaps the false advertising burned some tongues: the sauce had very strong allspice tones, but I found the combination of allspice and snails and corn ice cream alluring and seductive. The dish was not designed for quiet contemplation. It was a excitable plate, to be avoided by the squeamish. Perhaps it wasn’t beautiful resting on china, but in this it set the tone for the meal.

Hamachi Vietnamese Style appeared as a wild salad, and so a theme emerged. Some fine slabs of Hamachi were showered with Vietnamese inspired ingredients, ginger and sprouts throughout: it was not a classic composition, but a tasty mound of vegetables. Without much of a culinary logic, it did not leave a large impression.

Today everything is coming up mackerel: classic or contemporary. Should the trend continue, jack mackerel will perhaps be soon as endangered as Chilean seabass. This oily fish, once rarely seen at top tables, now shows up in the best society. Marinated Mackerel, Leche Del Tigre (a citrus-based marinate), Baby Leeks, and Verdolagas Leaves (aka purslane) constituted Ludo’s paean to ceviche. While the dish revealed well-chosen ingredients and was successful as an aquatic appetizer, the flavors or textures have slid from memory.

Salmon “a l’huile”, Somen Noodles, Carrots, Red Wine Vinaigrette, and Grilled Salmon Roe was my least favorite plate of our night. This was ultimately a straight-up seafooder. With the exception of the creative escargot dish, the other courses to this point were presented within well-trod traditions. I do not complain about the quality of the ingredients, but I was surprised at the lack of buzz.

Although White Rice Veloute, Poached Egg, Spinach, and Christmas Oil does not either read or look like a dish that one might expect a celebrity chef to prepare, the dish in its hidden and unsuspected way proved to be delicious: three-star comfort food. Perhaps the Christmas (conifer) oil might have been more dramatic, the dish worked nicely.

Impressive, too, was Chef Ludo’s Boudin Noir “Parmentier”, Apples, Mustard Tapioca, looking for all the world like an Asian roll that might have emerged from one of David Chang’s kitchens. Parmentier indicates that the dish ennobles the potato and its promoter, but the apples and mustard tapioca provided the necessary kick for what would otherwise have been sausage and mash.

A quick glimpse of Beef Tartar, Celery Root Remoulade, Red Port, and Foie Gras Powder suggests that an explosion must have occurred in the kitchen, splattering the good china. As such, this was the most revealing dish of the evening. The precision that one might have expected was knocked aside in a riot of carnal taste. As an abattoir of flavor, the dish succeeded with the port and foie gras providing the savory core, but as a plate, tonight Chef Ludo was less Rodin than Jackson Pollock.

Foie gras continued into the next dish, which was one of the most compelling of the evening: Roasted Pickled Foie Gras, Honey, Autumn Fruits (Pear and Pickled Ginger), and Rose Flowers. Although my taste for Foie Gras has waned as its celebrity expanded, the rose flower compote made this dish a memory of summer, a moment of desire.

In contrast Cod, Smoked Potato, Bell Pepper, Pil-Pil Sauce, and Amaranth lacked drama. For me the thinly sliced and crispy smoked potatoes were the high point of a dish that seemed fundamentally pedestrian.

Even fine chefs are prone to stumble when confronted with hunks of protein. Perhaps because of their more compact form, appetizers are often more successful than the main course. Main courses often are variations on the tried and true without a novel conception. Fortunately this was not true of the two main courses prepared by chef Ludo. Maybe these dishes required less technique, but they both were exceptionally creative: brilliant and challenging combinations.

The Braised Veal, Leek Salad, Button Mushrooms, Fresh Black Truffle, Green Onion-Garlic Parmesan Bubbles was the most explicitly molecular of the dishes on the menu. One might imagine that Green Onion-Garlic Parmesan Bubbles would not be an ideal match for braised veal, but in fact the match was joyous. The combination of textures and tastes, although surprising, were celebratory. Hypermodern cuisine has the potential to enter the history books in the right hands.

Better still was Chef Ludo’s paean to Korea: Marinated Korean Steak, Crispy Kimchi, Radish, Bone Marrow, and Shiso. Tonight the chef was working with Asian ideas, and the creativity of Crispy Kimchi was marvelously provocative and managed to bring the dish together in gustatory common cause.

I was disappointed by the Cantal Cheese Mikado, White Chocolate, Candied Black Olive, another explosive presentation, but one in which the cheese and white chocolate mirrored each other visually, but did not contribute to a greater insight into either.

Surely the grandest creation of the evening was Chef Ludo’s Crème Fraiche Panna Cotta, Caramel Sauce, and Caviar, a bravura dish that several at the table found reminiscent of his work at Bastide. Here were textures and flavors that did illuminate each other: sweet, salty, sticky, and smooth. It was an electric presentation. Let us have caviar for dessert each and every evening for eternity.

Finally we were served a very hospitable Warm Carrot Cake, Coconut, Thai Curry, Mango Sorbet, with Kaffir Lime Oil. This was another Asian melody: one in which curry proved that when well-handled be a source of dessert pleasure.

Given my recent experiences with San Francisco restaurants, I found that Ludobites 6.0 was less vegetable-centric than I expected: this was a protein-based cuisine. The evening was none the worse for that, but less about the chef as gardener-in-chief.

One of the advantages to running a pop-up restaurant is a lack of commitment to a flavor profile. And so Ludobites 7.0 might be an occasion for a new invention of self for Chef Lefebvre.

Ludobites 6.0 (now closed)
(at Max’s)
13355 Ventura Boulevard
Sherman Oaks, CA
http://www.ludolefebvre.com/ludobites/max

2010-12-25T21:46:00.002-06:00

We Are Not Modern – Comme Chez Soi – Brussels

At a recent conference on the convergences and divergences of food cultures – there actually are such funded academic gatherings – I argued that cuisines could vanish. While appearing robust, they are often, in reality, distressingly fragile. For dramatic emphasis I pointed to the remarkable disappearance of classic French cuisine, a cuisine that has gone from dominant to absent in less than half a century. Here was a cuisine that could never die, but did exactly that. Where can one find those wondrously heavy sauces that so admirably contributed to lowering life expectancies among the rich and powerful? The days of roux are done. Do diners dream of mirapoix? Grand restaurants in Paris – and New York – once ladled out the cream and the butter, and every well-made sauce was flour-based: the gluten-or–lactose intolerants were in the closet. Vegans had to live by a code of don’t ask, don’t eat.

Classic French cuisine was the venerated culinary style for over a century – the natural zenith of cuisine. But when it came crashing down with a push from Nouvelle Cuisine, a nudge from Gault-Millau, and a prod from the health police, the collapse of the caloric tower was total. Who cooks Escoffier today?

Some restaurants exist that are classic-lite – La Grenouille in New York is one – but their cuisine, as presented today, would be thin gruel for the beau monde in 1960.

The night the conference adjourned, I found myself in such a restaurant, the double Michelin-starred Comme Chez Soi (“Just Like Home”), that reflects a classical-lite cuisine with all of its loving style and its drawbacks. Comme Chez Soi is a restaurant that abjures the sharp elbows of the contemporary style. Its heart is in the 1890s – along with its splendid Art Nouveau décor - even if the kitchen is producing a more contemporary version of a classical cuisine at which Careme might scoff. This is a restaurant that is run by the fourth generation of the Wynants family, a low country tradition. But it isn’t your granddad’s restaurant, even if it might wish to be. For many decades the restaurant was run by the great Belgian chef Pierre Wynants, and currently the kitchen is managed by his son-in-law Lionel Rigolet. Perhaps it is true that contemporary diners would rise in anger and disgust at the true classics, but such a claim reminds us that there are limits that you are what you eat. Sometimes dishes are unavailable: there are some culinary selves that we can not be.

I began with a light amuse of crackers with pink peppercorns, nice and spicy if not particularly daring, and a much more engaging pair of smoked halibut mille-feuilles. The latter were classic in style and conception, but with enough drama and visual appear to keep any contemporary diner sated.

My second amuse was, in fact, a trio: the third, fourth and fifth tastes of the night. The best of the three was a warm geleed fish consommé with microdiced vegetables. Any classic restaurant must be skilled in stock, and Comme Chez Soi shines in the broth department (if broths can be said to have a department). Further, in this one could see the compulsion of the classic restaurant for dicing, mincing, and chopping: mirapoix as religion. I suddenly shuddered to realize that dicing has become a lost art in modern cuisine. When does one find knife skills today? Not often.

Mackerel with cucumber, marinated in yuzu, was also impressive, the only use of fruit on Comme Chez Soi’s menu. And even in Brussels, mackerel has made its mark. Every fish gets its fifteen minutes of fame, and this is mackerel’s turn. The third of the set Fried Crawfish with several dabs of a quasi-Chinese sweet sauce was a disappointing bite, reminding more of little more than a cheap and not very authentic Asian restaurant. Any restaurant that has linen napkins should be very cautious when considering investing in a deep fat fryer: grease does marry graciousness well.

The first post-amuse dish, a carpaccio duet of Dublin bay prawns and lobster with lemongrass and raw minced gambas (shrimp) with ginger and lime, showed off Comme Chez Soi to its best effect. Here was a dish that revealed that mosaics were once a delight of the pampered diner. It was a jigsaw in spirit and in practice. While the lemongrass lent the plate a modern twist, the twist was simultaneously discreet and effective. It was restrained and classic, but very intriguing. CCS is traditional but not embalmed.

While it is not quite fair to term the second dish a soup, it revealed again the height of broth. I was served steamed dab with snails from Namur, bouillon with shiitake and Chinese chives. The flavors were rich and the presentation restrained. Perhaps the dab was cooked more fully than one would find at Le Bernardin, but it was moist and rich and happy in its little ocean.

Scallops with Puy lentils and cucumber roll with Colchester flat oysters proved again to be properly restrained in the lite-classicism that I was learning to appreciate. CCS rarely challenges the diner with clashing tastes, and this was certainly true with this subtle dish. To be sure oysters and scallops are not usual partners, but neither are they oysters and blueberries. The restaurant as current style demands provides a dollop of light sauce, a well-made accompaniment.

The greatest disappointment of the evening was the main course of roasted halibut with Chiloë peppers and king crab, smoked emulsion of parmesan and old balsamico. Halibut has a strong and “fishy” taste, and can easily be overcooked. By overcooked, I don’t mean inedible, and I did not return the dish, but lacked appeal, even when set off by the balsamic sauce. Visually it was subtle, but lacked a spark on the keyboard of taste.

The first dessert, “pear with multiple flavors,” was close to the contemporary style with a set of plated thematic mini-desserts. I particularly enjoyed the pear ice cream and “Poire William” soup with its brandied kick. While it was not as startling or as deconstructed as a fully modernist dessert, it revealed the possibilities of pear.

The final scheduled dessert emphasized chocolate and coffee, but as I avoid caffeine, I pleaded for a fruity exchange, and I was graciously blessed with the highpoint of the evening: a fully classic Lime Soufflé with Lime Sorbet. Nothing adventuresome. Just a perfect presentation of a canonical dish. Yum. When done right, the oldies are still goldies.

Given current styles, it is hard to suggest that Comme Chez Soi is an essential restaurant. Yet, I would mourn if it disappeared. In its restrained classicism, served in a striking Art Nouveau dining room, it is graceful and loving. Perhaps the main course disappointed, but most of the dinner captivated me, revealing the pleasures of restaurants from the days when I started my trek through the culinary forests. But, I wonder, could a restaurant in thrall to Escoffier survive the footfalls of modernism? Can a restaurant, in sympathy with anthropologist Bruno Latour, shout that “we are not modern” and survive?

Comme Chez Soi
Place Rouppe 23
Brussels, Belgium
02-512-29-21
http://www.commechezsoi.be/

2010-12-24T22:24:00.002-06:00

Loaves and Fishes – Le Bernardin – New York

Nearly twenty years ago I had one of the most splendid and memorable meals of my life at Le Bernardin. As it happened, and although we did not realize it at the time, it was the last restaurant meal that I had with my father who died soon afterwards and whose given name was Bernard. How is that for irony! To be sure the circumstances of that meal cast a somewhat nostalgic glow on all that fish, but we both knew immediately how wonderful the meal was. Chef Eric Ripert had recently arrived at Le Bernardin, still working with Gilbert Le Coze.

Some fifteen years later I finally returned on my own dime: Dismay ensued. Chef Ripert was not in the kitchen that night and he had his mind on other matters (he was consulting on a failed restaurant opening). There were some astonishing dishes (a flight of raw fluke, for instance), but one dish was so overcooked that I returned it to the kitchen, caught between embarrassment and anger, perhaps the only time I have done that at a restaurant of serious mien. The expeditor had apparently gone AWOL. Other dishes were not brilliant either. And, as I noted at the time, the bread was cold and stale, which, when returned to the table, was presented warm and stale.

Five years later I returned. And Chef Ripert’s mind was now firmly focused on the plate: my wife and I were delighted with our choices, although as seems generally true at Le Bernardin, the less that the seafood is heated, the better for all concerned. Still before I discuss the courses, the great and embarrassing failure of Le Bernardin is still their bread service. Unlike most grand restaurants, they do not bake their own bread, and it shows. The bread was a notch above the slabs from five years back, but they were still mediocre and some slightly stale. When one compares the bread service with Per Se or Jean-George, well, one cannot compare the bread service. Think Olive Garden. Perhaps Chef Ripert believes that we should all live gluten-free.

The pictures tell the story: here is a chef who creates exquisite compositions with raw or barely warmed fish – oceanic and from the shell. The striped bass tartare with a watermelon radish carpaccio was a delight for all those who love radish (my father did and he passed that passion on). The scallop slivers with mandarin puffs and scorched lemon were a nearly perfect composition of sweet scallop and tarted-up citrus.

Much the same could be said of the warm lobster carpaccio, hearts of palm and orange vinaigrette. Perhaps Chef Ripert overuses vinaigrette (although that serves to preserve the fish), but each dish stands on its own. The smoked yellowfin tuna “prosciutto” was stunning visually and compelling as an artwork for the mouth. Here is sashimi with a Gallic accent.

Slightly – but only slightly – less successful was the barely cooked wild salmon with braised burgundy snails, heirloom potatoes, and pernod scented sauce. I felt that the combination was a little less than brilliant, but each ingredient worked on its own terms. Baked lobster with mole puree was not as strongly flavored as I expected, but at least the good, clean lobster was not overwhelmed.

Desserts were appropriately modern, if less memorable than the raw seafood. Pistachio mouse with caramelized white chocolate was pleasantly architectural, and the chestnut mousse was well-prepared and echoed with the baked chestnuts being sold by winter vendors on New York streets. But one does not dine at Le Bernardin for the dessert.

Chef Ripert cooks in a modern style, but without the experimental techniques that one sometimes found at L20 under the leadership of Laurent Gras (Gras’ seared foie gras with cotton candy and bee pollen is a dish as memorable in its own way as Tom Keller’s Oysters and Pearls). Still, at Le Bernardin there was a commitment to quality this night as there had been some two decades back.

I understand from the proficient staff that the dining room will be restructured and revamped, and that some recognize that the bread service is not up to par (I hope that the chef is included in this worried minyan). I rather like the dining room, but in this Christmas season, let us not forget the miraculous pairing of loaves and fishes.

Le Bernardin
155 West 51st Street
New York
212 – 554 - 1515
http://www.le-bernardin.com

2010-11-21T20:23:00.002-06:00

Chef in Translation – Manresa 2.0 – Los Gatos, CA

My second visit to Manresa, Chef David Kinch’s highly esteemed restaurant in Los Gatos, occurred less than two weeks after the first, and in culinary style, it was as if Manresa had suddenly hired a new chef. But no. When one dines at a serious restaurant with a brilliant chef, a critic attempts to draw a bead on how this artist defines gastronomy as evidenced by what he chooses to put on the plate.

My first visit to Manresa was characterized by a vibrancy that owed much to Parisian and Catalan styles as filtered through California light. Diebenkorn on a dish. I was particularly impressed by Kinch’s version of the Arpege egg, his experimental Elemental Oyster, a poached oyster made to taste raw, his Catalan (and Italian) inspired Rack of Veal Tonnato. Even the dish that I rejected – Butterfish in a Yuzu Sabayon – had no Asian tranquility, but was all jangly and nervy, despite its ingredients.

But this second evening was a different matter. We asked Chef Kinch to cook for us, and twenty-one courses later we were sent packing. (Given my complaint with my first meal, I am obliged to note that the timing was impeccable on this Saturday night – and I have come to admire Manresa’s smooth and elegant design, even if it has none of the New York glass, high-modern style, and bluff).

I do not cover each of the dishes of the evening, but the menu consisted of six amuses, ten savory courses, and five sweets. One should note the symmetry of the first and final two courses. The petit fours and gels (Red Pepper/Black Olive; Strawberry/Chocolate) were identical twins separated at birth: both engaging and delicious as hand-to-mouth bites. The beignets were less of a precise match, but contrasted savory and sweet. The cream beignet with a “dairy cup” of condensed milk ice cream was one of the two most persuasive desserts.

Amuses
Petit fours “Red Pepper-Black Olive”

Garden Beignets, Vinegar Powder

An Elemental Oyster (image in a previous post)

Caviar Beggar’s Purse

Spot Prawn Roe Tempura

Raw Milk Panna Cotta, Abalone

Savory Courses
Geoduck Clam in Apple and Seawater

Golden Butterfish, Sashimi Style, Citrus and Olive Oil

Mushroom Broth and Black Tea, Dried Tuna

Golden Raisins and Vegetables, Pickled With Mackerel

Autumn Fruit with Jasmine Tea, Bay Scallops, Pumpkin Seed Oil

Into the Vegetable Garden

Asian Pear with Celtuce, Beach Herb Vichyssoise

Spot Prawns on the Plancha, Spiced Pumpkin

Black Bass with Walnut Oil, Wild Watercress

Roast Duck with Cabbage and Dates and Riesling

Sweet Courses
Banana Roast in Passion Fruit Caramel, Shiso Crumble

Frozen Cream Cheese, Citrus and Lime Curd

Orange Sable Millefeuille, Coffee and Chicory

Muscovado Sugar Beignets with Condensed Milk Ice Cream

Petit fours “Strawberry-Chocolate”

While Kinch’s plates on my first visit were exuberant, these were hushed, subtle and seductive. Chef Kinch had recently spent several weeks in Kyoto and tonight it showed. Perhaps the change can be attributed to the difference between a Prix Fixe (dishes that are fixed in amber for the cooks to prepare – Greatest Hits) and dishes that are in process, tested through an elaborate tasting menu. Some of novice dishes tonight may in time be given starring roles.

But a few dishes were birthed from different traditions, notably the Vegetable Garden Salad, a dish in motion. This plate of greens is continually altered according to what is freshest in the Manresa garden: a chop suey of herbal cuisine. While I didn’t have the two salads to compare, I was struck by a few nicely bitter leaves that I didn’t recall from a few weeks back. Nature’s bounty is dynamic.

The Raw Milk Panna Cotta with Monterey Abalone was also an exuberant dish – profound and dramatic. (Milk and cream are used in several dishes, more European than Asian). This mix of the smooth, cool pudding with the chewy, oceanic abalone was a warm surprise and a success.

More inspired by Japanese traditions was the next act: Geoduck Clam in Apple and Seawater. The seawater was the liquid remains of the oysters as reconfigured by the kitchen. I often find geoduck chewy, but texture is crucial to Japanese cuisine, and the small pieces of clam were brightened and heightened by the water and the apple. It was not a dish that I would have chosen as a main course, but it was delightful for a few bites: a happy honeymoon of ingredients.

The mushroom broth was a firmly kaiseki dish: perhaps the most traditional of the evening (despite European shaved white truffles). No jangling here, but a mix of tuna, truffles, tea, and chanterelles. It was a dish that managed to display the best of the ingredients without having the chef’s shadow in the way.

Visually the autumn fruit with jasmine tea, bay scallops, and pumpkin seed oil was the dish that most reminded me of my visit to Kyoto, and it is a lovely jewel: Tokyo Tiffany. The plate sparkled without screaming, and the complexity of the small bowl more than made up for the fact that it was but a few bites – but rich and pungent bites. Tea, pumpkin, and scallops each have enough flavor without any shoving the others aside. Beautifully quiet, confidently composed.

In a similar way, although not as visually compelling, was the Spot Prawn Roe Tempura, which used ingredients to their very best effect. The spot prawns with pumpkin required that a diner digs the meat from the shell which made things a bit messy, but the combination of flavors and the challenge of the diner to be thought-filled made the effort memorable.

Who could not treasure the Asian pear with Celtuce (a Chinese lettuce) and Beach Herb Vichyssoise? Perhaps it owed much to the idea of the ingredients – just finding beach herbs must have been a challenge – but as a small soup I was glad to enjoy the effort of combing the oceanfront, bucket in hand.

The frozen cream cheese with citrus and lime curd was pretty on the plate and happily acidic on the tongue. Along with the beignets it was the star of the sweets.

The least successful dishes were the two main proteins. Roast duck with cabbage and dates was the type of contemporary dish that any well-trained modernist chef might have prepared, a bit of breast and a few spheres of accompaniments and a cabbage leaf. Competent, but edging to cliché. The weakest dish of the night was a zingless Black Bass with Walnut Oil and Wild Watercress. Borrring! Where is the hook? Time for a next course. Fortunately this pair of snoozers was no larger than their better cousins – and so could easily be forgotten.

So in 21 courses, no singular style fully characterizes Chef Kinch’s artistry, but tonight he strived to combine Catalonia, California, and Kyoto. His goal is my dream.

Manresa
320 Village Lane
Los Gatos, California
(408) 354-4330
http://www.manresarestaurant.com

2010-11-20T18:16:00.003-06:00

Buzzy – Coi – San Francisco

Few restaurants have generated as loud a buzz – positive buzz – as Chef Daniel Patterson’s San Francisco restaurant Coi, located in the somewhat scruffy North Beach neighborhood. But unexpected or not, the California-inspired modern cuisine at Coi has received a lot of admiring attention: it as if a hive of foodie bees had descended on the Embarcadero.

The restaurant itself is something of an oasis; it is neither luxe nor loud (Coi means quiet or tranquil in French), but bright, modest, slyly elegant, and pleasing, and service is forthcoming. And it is an establishment whose honeyed food always satisfies, although on the night that I dined only a few dishes stunned. This is only a complaint given the chatter that Patterson’s place generated. And, in truth, a few dishes were remarkable. One of my dining partners felt that the restaurant had, on that night, pulled back a bit from its more adventurous efforts. The restaurant is one of the most significant dining destinations in the Bay Area, a necessary culinary visit. And only one dish was less than very successful.

That dish was the first offering: Childhood Memory of Harvest: Vegetable Leathers, Apple, Nuts, and Pear Cider. It has become de rigueur for chefs to trade in nostalgia, sometimes for the best, sometimes not. Here the memory was Patterson’s. For this diner, fruit leathers have never been that appealing. I come from a generation in which these “healthy” snacks were not widely available for afternoon television surfing. I give Chef Patterson a ribbon for the best vegetable leathers that I have tasted, but prize is perhaps not worth much in the larger culinary scheme.

Fortunately this memory was quickly replaced by a gracefully cool and fresh plate of Marin Miyagi Oysters with wheatgrass and lemon ice. This was an amuse for the ages, designed to awaken all of one’s senses. It was complexity and simplicity on a plate, and was among the star presentations of the evening. Oysters can be difficult partners, but when treated well, they are sexy and profound.

The inverted cherry tomato tart with a black olive basil wafer was an elegant architectural construction: precisely prepared. If it didn’t jangle or provoke, it was a very happy savory tart. Perhaps it was more an assertion of the builder’s art than the chef’s, but the tastes were Californian and right.

Chilled Piquillo Pepper Soup with fresh pole and shelling beans, preserved lemon, and cilantro was another highpoint. It was slightly gelatinized (is that a word?) and so vibrant in visual appeal that its hue could play off its tang. This soup was not Progresso, but Progressive.

Monterey Bay Abalone Grilled on the Plancha with Nettle-Dandelion Salsa Verde, Spicy Breadcrumbs and Wild Fennel Flowers might have nodded too deeply to the idea of the wild. Here I was particularly impressed by the textures which were challenging and exciting with each bite.

At this point, we were served an off-the-menu soup: Late Summer Squash with Borage. Patterson’s second soup was impressive if less exciting than the first soup of the evening.

Do diners dream of beet charcoal? I do. Our most memorable dish was Wild Black Cod Smoked over Beet Charcoal (beet charcoal?) with Creamed Leeks, Beet-red Flame Grape Sauce, and Horseradish Dill. Who knew that I would love a presentation that couldn’t be beet? Perhaps it was the smoked and rooted flavor of the cod that seduced, or perhaps it was a visually stunning plate or an amazingly moist aquatic protein. Everything worked in synergy, and I bang my head on my computer screen for lacking the photographic skills to show you my love in her deep red lipsticked grandeur.

Pan-Grilled Matsutake with Potato-Pine Needle Puree was a quiet contrast to the cod. I never have understood why Japanese gourmands count Matsutake as so favored a fungus: I will take King Bolete. The Matsutake and pine was well prepared, tasting like a walk among damp conifers.

The main protein was Poached and Seared Duck Breast with Foie Gras Ganache, Figs, Angelica Root, and Tarragon. I have tired of those dishes that are a little of this, a little of that. A smorgasbord rather than a symphony. Yet, it is the style. Each point of light on the plate was well-prepared, but the dish seemed more straight-forward than astonishing.

Our cheese – Tomme D’Ossau with Late Summer Greens – was the artistic presentation of a fine slab of curd.

The Cheesecake with Goat Cheese, Graham Cracker, and Niabell Grape was a powerful sweet. Both the goat cheese and the grape added muscle to the creamy cake. It was the more striking of the two desserts.

Cinnamon Smoked Apples with Iced Buttermilk, Hazelnut, and Sorrel was a worthy closing, although perhaps too accessible – more North Platte than North Beach. I could eat such a pleasure, but I would doubtless select a more challenging sweet.

So, Coi was a success: a four star restaurant for certain. Several dishes were wonderful, and the cod and the oysters were memorable. If it didn’t quite live up to the buzz, we should blame the buzz and not the chef. Chef Patterson is a man of enormous talent and creativity. With his left coast garden perhaps there is no stopping him.

Coi
373 Broadway (North Beach)
San Francisco
(415)393-9000
http://www.coirestaurant.com

2010-11-13T21:42:00.001-06:00

Manresa 1.0 – Los Gatos, California

Everyone foodie needs a goal in life, if for no other reason than to keep him off the streets. And so during my year in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, actually), I made a commitment to myself to visit Manresa once a month: for a total of ten visits. Who knows whether, in fact, I will meet my goal, but it surely counts as a caloric packed Jewish New Year’s resolution. Although I have started off slowly (on a month-by-month basis I should be at my third visit), I hope to ramp up soon. I expect to eat through the menu, although I have no doubt that the menu will change to extend my mad dash. (If we were talking about Moto, I could not only eat through the menu, but eat it as well).

It can be debated – endlessly with gustatory gusto – which Bay Area restaurant is the most definitive or the most delicious (not precisely the same question). This is a metropolitan area that sports the French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Gary Danko, and Coi. Countless other restaurants have their own virtues. But there are many partisans for Manresa, David Kinch’s establishment in Los Gatos, which, among its many virtues, includes the avoidance of San Francisco’s traffic.

Of all of the Bay Area’s restaurants, it is Manresa that perhaps owes the most to European (especially Spanish, especially Catalan) cuisine, although Chef David Kinch has the California’s love for all things herbal, vegetative and fructifying.

Manresa as architecture is pleasant, although not startling. The design doesn’t pretend to knock one out, and, in truth, it could house a restaurant deserving one, two, three, or four stars – or perhaps none at all. To say that it is upscale generic is not to suggest that it is corporate. But it lacks the attention to architectural theatrics that one finds at Alinea or Bouley. At Manresa one does not lick the walls, just the plates. The attention is on the food.

Perhaps what I will enjoy most in my essays is finding points to criticize this essential and compelling restaurant. This is the critic’s right and, frankly, his pleasure. This first night – a Sunday – my colleagues and I selected the four course menu. As we moved through the night, I was glad that no one in our party was dieting or that no one was rushed. The dinner became ten courses (some of the extras may have resulted from a friend’s phone call), and spread out longer than four hours. I confess that there will be no objections from this scribe to four amuses (that is a lot of amusement, comparable to Duck Soup or Babette’s Feast), a substantial palate cleanser, and a brief dessert. And it is not the four hours that was at issue. Still, we were surprised at the pacing of the dinner. If four courses last four hours, does David provide PJs for the tasting menu? We were surprised at the gaps between the courses. The amuses were delivered quite expeditiously, but the spaces between the prix fixe courses left much time for conversation. Aside from the pacing, service was very agreeable and we appreciated the wine suggestions of the sommelier: two very food-friendly wines.

My second complaint was an unbalanced dish that I describe subsequently.

I will not spend much time describing the amuses and other extras, but no account of Manresa would be complete without mention of the poached oyster with seaweed and the Arpege egg, an homage to Alain Passard. The former is a marvel of culinary technology, a cooked oyster, designed to taste raw, almost. Chef Kinch was able to capture the fulsome quality of the oceans, particularly the essence of seaweeds that accompanied the dish.

I have not eaten at Arpege – sad moi! – and so I cannot claim any expertise as to whether this yolk compares, but of all of the dishes served it was the most luxuriant and astonishing. The hot-cold soft-boiled egg mixed with cream, maple syrup, and sherry vinegar. The warm egginess is set apart with sour’n’sweet. It is a canonical dish that deserves, like the greatest musical composition to be reprised frequently in culinary concert halls.

For this first meal, I asked our server (Bryan) to suggest the most “typical,” or perhaps archetypical, dishes of the Manresa collection. The dishes were not the ones that I would have ordered from the menu, but I wanted to learn how the restaurant (or at least one of their servers) conceived themselves.

So I began with “Into the Garden . . . Their Natural Juices.” I expected a subtle, restrained dish like Town House’s Vegetable Minestrone. I could not have been further from the mark. Chef Kinch’s salad was a herbal kitchen sink. It had everything that one might imagine, prepared in incredible ways. It looked like an exploded mixed salad, but it tasted like a jazz combo. There were soils, bubbles, foams, leafs, and shoots. If the goal of modern cuisine is the make each bite an experience and to permit interaction with one’s food, this salad succeeded brilliantly.

I promised a criticism, and my second dish is the place. Chef Kinch does not produce laid back cuisine, but why did he have to beat a yuzu drum? I was served butterfish slowly roasted with chanterelles, baby leeks, herbs, and yuzu sabayon. While the butterfish was as buttery and perfectly prepared as advertised, and the chanterelles were welcome, they were overwhelmed by an astringently pushy yuzu sauce. I was astonished by how dominant – how hegemonic – that yuzu was, and I have to wonder whether it was poorly made or deliberately intense. This was sabayon with sharp elbows. I have argued that food need not taste good to be artistic, but this dish seemed something other than serving glass shards to add the taste of blood. After a bite or two I tried to wipe away the sabayon. Perhaps a salmon or mackerel might have stood up to the blows, but not poor little butterfishy.

The third course put the meal back on track: slow roasted rack of veal “tomato,” cabbage with sweet onion and porcini fritter: a Manresa specialty. The label rack of veal was misleading as no rack was in sight. What was served was delicious enough, veal off the bone, cooked as tuna might. Even though this was the main protein course, it had the style of a grand salad, and, with the exception of the amuses mentioned above, the star of the night.

Dessert is prepared in the modern style, mix and match components: Pears and pumpkin cake with Speculaas (spiced cookie) ice cream with moscato jelly, prunes, dates, molasses and pecans. I enjoyed the dish thoroughly although my preference is for a dessert with a central focus: these days pastry chefs feel that rather than creating a single dessert, they create a dozen served on the same plate. Still, it was a successful autumnal sweet.

Chef Kinch deserves those plaudits ladled upon him. Manresa is a four-star restaurant. Yet, after this first meal, I am not quite sure where I would place it in the firmament of dining destinations. The veal “tonnato,” carnivalesque salad, poached oyster, and Arpege egg suggests brilliance. The pacing and yuzu extravagance less so. So with nine meals left, the grade is incomplete.

Manresa
320 Village Lane
Los Gatos, California
408-354-4330
http://www.manresarestaurant.com

2010-10-30T22:26:00.002-05:00

Ubuntu – Herbal Heaven – Napa, California

Some days my wife decides to play vegetarian. Unlike bunnies, carrots lack a pretty face. It is an identity that while enthusiastically held at times is not a consistent self. I am not condemned to a beef-free hell. Still she believes that being a vegetarian is a worthy identity, and often at restaurants with tasting menus, she selects the vegetable option (and as often as not she has won in our best dinner competition). But since we were visiting Napa Valley, after having buttermilk fried chicken at Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc the night before, we selected lunch at Ubuntu, the combination restaurant/yoga studio in downtown Napa.

In its early days, Ubuntu was known for the skills of chef Jeremy Fox. But as often happens in the culinary biz, the magic could not last. It was reported that after a 3:00 a.m. meeting (the end of the work day for some chefs) much of the staff decided to resign en masse. I have not eaten Chef Fox’s cuisine, and have no way to compare then and now. Fox was replaced by Aaron London, who had been the chef de cuisine, but even with his experience this was surely a difficult transition following a beloved chef.

While I didn’t find Ubuntu in its current formulation a startlingly brilliant restaurant, it is a very satisfying one: filled with light and air and with light and airy food that makes a real effort to please. Many fruits and vegetables and herbs on the menu are grown in the restaurant’s biodynamic garden.

We ordered four dishes (each between $12-$17), and they were satisfying for a lunch. The dishes were well-composed, although in a few cases they read better than they tasted. I would have preferred big tastes, although two of the dishes were excellent.

We started with a clear cantaloupe and sage gazpacho with radish and compressed and blackened pickled melon. I imagined that this would be a powerful dish, and we ordered it thinking that it would startle us. The dish itself, although pleasant, was mild and straightforward. Each ingredient was fresh, but the combination was less than its parts.

A traditional steamed bun stuffed with burrata chesse and coated with smoked pear dust was unfortunately doughy. The smoked pear dust was mild. It was pretty on the plate, but was the most forgettable of the four.

Much better was Ubuntu’s take on macaroni and cheese: garden inspired extruded pasta with spiced fiore and confit gajo de melon (a type of tomato). This clever dish was substantial while avoiding the gumminess of mom’s (or Kraft’s) mac’n’cheese. I delighted in its Gouda goodness.

The best of our midday repast was the “inside out” grits cooked with goat’s whey and blistered pardon peppers and beans with smoked corn husk. It was a distinguished dish, even if I couldn’t figure out what constituted the “inside-out-ness.” But the beans and peppers were dramatic counterpoints to the ricotta and the creamy grits. At the price, I could have carried home a gallon.

When one dines at a restaurant that was once canonical, it is hard to determine if it has slipped or has maintained all of its virtues. I was impressed by the confidence of Chef London, even if his bravery might have been kicked up a notch. Perhaps each dish could have benefited from bacon, but that comment is just the sort of snarky remark that those who run a combination yoga studio/restaurant must put up with from the fat and comfortable. Bacon or no, Ubuntu is worth a visit.

Ubuntu
1140 Main Street
Napa, California
707-251-5656
http://ubuntunapa.com

2010-09-19T15:36:00.002-05:00

Saisons Greetings – Saison – San Francisco

When I arrived at Saison, I was uncertain what to expect. The restaurant is tucked away in a slightly sketchy courtyard in the lively but mixed industrial Mission district. Saison has been open a few months now, but doesn’t have the buzz-factor of a restaurant such as Benu.

The website indicates that the chef, Joshua Skenes, prefers using “primitive techniques” such as ember and ash cooking. Could wooly mammoth be in the offing? (Much of the rest of the description of Saison’s philosophy seems industrial-strength farm-to-table boilerplate.) Skenes had been chef at Chez TJ, and the website mentions, somewhat oddly, that Skenes had received perfect grades while a student at the French Culinary Institute of New York, akin to advertising a cardiologist’s medical school transcript.

Upon entering the stylish 2010 comfort space one is confronted with a large brick fireplace filled with those embers mentioned above. No need to sit on rocks, using bone implements.

Although one might imagine that a restaurant that embraced its inner Cro-Magnon might lean toward muscular protein, Saison dances with vegetables, and waltzes well. This night the protein was secondary (and, in fact, a radish plate was replaced with mackerel, and had radishes been at peak only a single dish, squab, would have been starred animal protein).

Dinner began with Tomatoes and Melons with Riesling Vinegar, a lovely, if brief, amalgam of garden and field. The dish hovered between sweet fruit and tart vegetable, as is proper for tomato inspiration, bolstered by a grapy vinegar. The presentation was calm and supple with a slight aspic air. (The amuse – caviar and corn beignet – came next, a successful mini-bite).

This was followed by Wild Horse Mackerel with Anise Hyssop. No fish farm is known as “Wild Horse,” although it seems as plausible as “Dirty Girl Produce” or “Wild Crane Springs Ranch” or “Riverdog Farms,” all purveyors to Saison. Here wild is an adjective to indicate that the Horse Mackerel (known to sushi fans as aji) was not farmed. The fish is very popular in Japan and deservedly so. While there was not a strong anise flavor, the presentations of mackerel, meaty and sculptural were supremely pleasing.

The third dish was Garden Beans in Various Forms with River Vegetable (a plant found at the edge of streambeds). Again, Chef Skenes revealed a sure green touch. The combination of legume and leaf matched symphonically, demonstrating again that vegetarians (though not vegans) may be the leading force of contemporary cuisine.

Tokyo Turnips Roasted over the Embers, Shaved Raw and Poached with Bonito, was the high point of the night. Texture took precedence although the smoky, burnt edges certainly did their part. While this was not quite a vegetarian dish, like so many dishes it was blissfully vegocentric: edging toward a religious marriage of earth and fire.

Surely the most courageous dish of the night was the presentation of Silver Queen and Red Flint Okra with Wild Seaweeds and Sweetfish. Okra is the vegetable that it is fashionable to hate, understandable when boiled and turned into mucilage. These okras were less so, but you while you can remove okra from the slime, it is harder to remove slime from the okra. I admired the moment – didn’t hate it – but my admiration was for a brave chef, rather than a lusty dish. The mixture revealed a serious commitment to modern cuisine with its accompaniments. Still better okra is not as delicious a good anything-else.

The marquee protein was a composition of Four Story Hills Squab, roasted in Fig Leaf, Adriatic Figs, Cave Mascarpone, and Rosebud (Four Story Hills is a farm, not a squab varietal). It was beautiful and lush – squab presented several textured ways with a rich combination of fig and cheese. Perhaps it was not the beef that Saison’s fireplace might produce, but in its gamey way it was glorious.

Desserts were less elaborate, although suitable to the end of an evening. At Saison it is the vegetables, not the sugars, that matter. The first selection was Autumn Flame Peaches (a variety), ember roasted and peach sorbet with milk granite. The powdered milk didn’t do much for me, but the roasted peaches were a wonderful tribute to September.

Finally Summer Berries in their Consommé with Yuzu Ice Cream was a perfectly appropriate close to dinner. If not startling, the berries were juicy and well-matched.

I was delighted by Saison’s seasonal cuisine and its eight course tasting menu ($98; Saison also has a kitchen table where longer progressions can be served). Here was a restaurant that deserves a place on any weekly rotation. The vegetable dishes were superb, the squab was a fully conceived dish, and the techniques gaze forward as they look far back. While not the most deluxe restaurant in the Bay Area, Saison holds its own any month.

Saison
2124 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-828-7990
http://www.saisonsf.com

2010-08-26T15:17:00.002-05:00

Simply Good - Quinones at Bacchanalia

For nearly two decades Bacchanalia has served as the Gold Standard of Atlanta fine dining (with the exception of the glorious, but brief reign of Seeger’s). Atlanta fine dining has largely been rather traditional, if not to say stodgy (e.g. Panos and Paul’s), but Bacchanalia introduced Atlanta to some of the canons of modern cuisine. Granted this was not a restaurant that should be compared with the true temples of haute cuisine – and the main restaurant is more formal than dining establishments on the coasts – but it was and is a regional highpoint.

Once (or twice) a week Bacchanalia under chef David Carson and pastry chef Carla Tomasko ventures into the world of degustation, serving a nine course tasting menu (plus amuse) in a separate dining room in the Star Provisions restaurant complex. And how is it? In its own terms it is very pleasurable. If it falters a bit in ambition or starry brilliance, perhaps feeling just a bit like modern cuisine with training wheels (seemingly no more than five ingredients per dish), that does not detract from the soundness of the plates. Atlanta will not be a fine dining mecca, but if one resides in Hotlanta, Bacchanalia is as warm as it gets.

The dishes served the night of August 14, 2010 (they change on a weekly basis) were:

1) An amuse of Sweet Vidalia Onion Soup with Chicharrones: a wonderful sip of soup, a paean to local terroir – onion and pork skin.

2) Kumamoto Oysters, Hawaiian Ahi Tuna, Caviar, Heirloom Melons, and Chervil – a smart and well presented dish, perhaps the flavors were too sweet to be truly challenging, but it provided a cool punch of summer pleasure from the oyster, tuna and melon.

3) Nantucket Diver Scallop with White Gazpacho, and Melon. The scallop, fresh enough, was not as sweet and tender as one might expect, but the gazpacho, tiny though it was, proved delightful.

4) Foie Gras Terrine, Pickled Blueberries, Spiced Cocoa Nibs, and Wild Arugula. A nicely composed dish, but well within expectations of how foie is presented.

5) Loup de mer with Melted Spring Onion, Local Squash, and Crispy Fingerling Potatoes. Simple and elegant. Perfectly cooked fish with thin potato scales. A real treat in its minimalist presentation.

6) Crispy Veal Sweetbreads with Oyster Mushrooms, Pole Beans and Young Carrots. A straight-ahead preparation of sweetbreads. It was well-made without being uniquely memorable.

7) Colorado Lamb Loin, Stewed Field Peas, Butter Beans, Zipper Peas, and Summerland Farm Herbs. This was the least compelling dish of the evening. It was not poorly prepared, just rather dull, although capturing some of the farm-grown beans that dot Southern tables.

8) Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill Cheese, Georgia June Peaches, and some more Arugula. A small bit of nice cheese on a pretty plate.

9) Lemon Buttermilk Panna Cotta, Local Blueberries, and Blueberry Sorbet. Well-done, but what one would expect given the ingredients.

10) Skipping the chocolate dessert, I was served four scoops of sorbet: peach, melon, blueberry, and blackberry, each a straightforward flavor.

Of the dishes it was the Loup de Mer – awash in simplicity – and the Vidalia amuse – simple in its own cunning way – that captured my affection. Chef Carson hasn’t quite developed a distinctive gastronomic style, other than attempting to build on Southern farm produce (beans, leaves, and herbs), admirable to be sure. Still, there is no doubt but that he is surely a very capable chef, probably the best around. I will surely continue to dine at Bacchanalia when I get to Atlanta, but, as yet, I don’t plan to travel to Atlanta in order to dine at Bacchanalia.

Quinones at Bacchanalia
1198 Howell Mill Road
Atlanta, GA 30318
404-365-0410
http://www.starprovisions.com/

2010-08-26T13:01:00.002-05:00

On the Avenues – Avenues

I had not dined at Avenues in the years since Graham Elliott Bowles decamped for Graham Elliott, and as I will leave Chicago for a year, the time had arrived (or even long passed). I was a fan of GEB’s zany cuisine, and I worried that the magic could not be sustained. But I was wrong. In fact, if anything, Chef Curtis Duffy cuisine is uber-magical if not quite as charmingly goofy.

I selected the eight-course garden (vegetable) chef’s menu served at the kitchen bar: switching out a tofu dish and a chocolate dessert, neither of which sit well with me. My short ribs were the only meat of the evening, but surely a splendid protein.

Time prevents a full recitation, but my dishes were:

1) Heirloom tomatoes with golden watermelon, elixir, and garden herbs

2) Sweet corn with charred husk, finger limes, and coriander blooms

3) Grains, seeds and nuts: Amaranth veil, puffed sunflower seeds

4) Acquerello risotto, black figs, chanterelle, and oxalis

5) Beef short ribs with lime, pinenuts, and cilantro flowers

6) Chilled passion fruit with tapioca, rose, and lemon balm

7) Spring cucumber, olio verde jam, Buddha’s hand, and African blue basil

8 ) Strawberry ice with Thai black pepper, mascarpone, and opal basil blossoms

Over the years I have become less enamored by those deconstructed dishes in which chefs place an array of disorganized (if prettily arranged) “things” on the plate, and let diners “have at it.” They often seem lacking in a conception of combination. They can be lovely but thoughtless. Chef Duffy is notably thoughtful, high praise indeed. The dish most characteristic of the strains of modern cuisine was most notably true of the first appetizer that was an appealing array of heirloom cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and herbs, although not a dish in which the ingredients truly locked together. Dishes can be deconstructed, but can they be reconstructed again? Still, there was no dish that I did not enjoy (I didn’t care for my cocktail, a Thai Kick Boxer, which was a soupy mess of basil, coconut water, and not much alcohol).

I particularly admired the sweet corn dish, a mix of fascinating flavors and textures – an upside down icy bowl. I was particularly impressed with the range of temperatures that were embedded in that single dish with the multiple textures of corn and the appealing lime and coriander. It was surely not the most beautiful dish of the evening, but the best conceptualized and most memorable.

The mix of grains, seeds, and nuts – a tribute to sunflower seeds and amaranth - was also an astonishingly delightful dish with its lovely mixture of textures and tastes (including, as I recall, raisins). It was served at the right time, in the right place, and was still fully unexpected in its joy and its terroir.

The third dish that I especially loved was the spring cucumber dessert which was herbal and sweet in equal measures. This was perhaps the most beautiful dish of the evening (although the strawberry and the risotto came close). The cucumber plate succeeded in every way that I could imagine a dessert to work. It was a triumph. Desserts often are anticlimaxes. This magnificent sweet was a star.

It was because of this trio that the dinner itself was a triumph. The dinner had no missteps (aside from the cocktail). Service was graceful and congenial (although sitting on high stools at the bar made service a bit difficult for a few height-challenged staff. Even though we sat at the kitchen bar, the food was not served by the cooks from the front (a la Minibar or Momofuku Ko), but from behind, a slightly awkward arrangement. I assume that the rationale was that the chefs were cooking for the entire restaurant and not simply for the eight of us at the bar.

Of all of the high-end restaurants in Chicago, setting aside Alinea (for Achatz’s genius) and Schwa (for Carlson’s commitment), there is no local restaurant that is comparable to Avenues for providing truly remarkable food. For travelers who select their hotel based upon cuisine, the only choice is the Peninsula. I loved Avenues under Bowles, thinking that it could not be improved. I waited too long to discover that I was wrong.

Avenues
The Peninsula Hotel
108 E. Superior Street
Chicago
312-337-2888

2010-08-11T20:19:00.002-05:00

Sandwich Heaven – Jer’s Kitchen – Franklin, North Carolina

For a period of some twenty years – from the early 1970s until the early 1990s – one of America’s great restaurants was located on an isolated backroad in the mountains of western North Carolina. The Frog & Owl was beautifully situated beside a little stream by a watermill along what was, when it opened, a gravel road. The Chef Jerri Broyles (now Jerri Fifer) turned out food that could turn heads in Berkeley or Manhattan. Along with Alice Waters and Anne Rosenzweig, she was in the triumvirate of great female chefs of the 1970s (today there are so many women in toques that the category “female chef” seems a dusty relic). Perhaps being situated on a dusty road made her celebrity less glossy, but those who dined at the Frog and Owl realized that here was a restaurant that deserved a place on any “ten best list,” and perhaps not at the bottom. Her cooking was pure, it was clean, it was precise, but it was subtle as well. Her use of fruit was ahead of her time; her use of local ingredients was not as showy as Ms. Waters, but her farms were closer to her table and not run by Ph.D. wannabees. Each year I made a pilgrimage to the F&O, watching as Chef Fifer became more accomplished.

And then a thunderbolt. Because of family issues (coupled with a persnickety septic tank – as important as a stove), Chef Fifer chose to shut her rural Chartres, and move to Franklin, the county seat of Macon County, where she opened the less ambitious Frog & Owl Bistro. She eventually sold her share in the Bistro, and the restaurant, which had become a shadow of itself, is now shuttered. Every so often there were Fifer-sightings. She cooked at a small bistro in Highlands, North Carolina for awhile, but she also nursed an aging mother, as well as raised her son.

Last year I heard that she had opened a sandwich/salad stand – Jer’s Kitchen (her logo incorporates a frog) in a large antique mall in Franklin (just north of the Georgia town of Dillard on Highway 23), run with her confederate Nancy. Now a sandwich stand is not a four star restaurant and who knows how long antique malls will survive in the age of eBay? The “restaurant” is basically a dozen tables in an open area in the mall. However, despite its location (it is open approximately 11-2, Monday-Saturday), it deserves your attention. It is very, very good. (Chef Fifer also sells boxed suppers and does private catering and teaches the occasional class at the John Campbell Folk School). While the menu might seem fairly standard – although never too standard – the food is made with great care. I was particularly impressed by the toasted torta bread. Whether one wants Pimento Cheese (from Wisconsin white cheddar) or made-from-scratch hummus, homemade basil mustard, or two freshly made soups, they are here. One shouldn’t oversell the achievement, but as sandwiches go, they are first rate.

I ordered Chef Fifer’s “Black Mountain” – a lamb burger served on homemade torta with herb aioli, lettuce and tomato. It was totally satisfying. I believe that the technical term among food journalists is “nummy.” A juicy, well-cooked, straight-forward sandwich with enough interest for a gourmetish lunch.

Sandwiches are served with a side order, but I ordered three: Citrus Coleslaw, Fruit and Nut Orzo (not photo), and Corn Bread Salad (?!). Both of the first two were creative twists on standards: the citrus coleslaw was particularly good, and the orzo was a high-end pasta salad with almonds and cranberries (Chef Fifer still relies on the power of fruit). The corn bread salad, a recipe from the chef’s mother (an homage) is an acquired taste: mashed up cornbread with something like a cole slaw dressing. It is fair to say that one will not find a similar dish in Berkeley.

I am delighted to find Chef Fifer behind the stove, seemingly happy to be there. With her son to be launched in two years, she is thinking about the next step in her culinary journey and ours. For twenty years she was an American chef with vision and élan. Today with top-notch restaurants appearing in Chilhowie, Virginia, Frederick, Maryland, Peoria Heights, Illinois, and Findlay, Ohio, could the rebirth of Franklin, North Carolina be next? But even now, Jer’s Kitchen is worth a whistle stop.

Jer’s Kitchen
Whistle Stop Mall
1281 Georgia Road
Franklin, NC 28734
828-524-1960
Http://JersKitchen.com

2010-08-07T22:42:00.004-05:00

The Peach, the Orange, and the Quiet – Town House – Chilhowie, Virginia

Once upon a time in America to desire gourmet dining meant one destination: not New York City, but midtown Manhattan. Slowly the appetite for culture spread from Gotham’s gut, and cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago opened their own bathhouses of gastronomy. Diffusion marches on, and in 2010 we find destination dining in small-town America, Main Street meals. After dining fabulously well in June Restaurant in Peoria Heights, I ached to extend my range. (Restaurants in the same category are Revolver in Findlay, Ohio and Volt in Frederick, Maryland, although Yountville, California, home of the French Laundry, is a town as small as others, but a tourist destination, not a designation for Peoria). During a month in Highlands, North Carolina, I planned a three hour trek to Chilhowie, Virginia to sample the fanciful cuisine at Town House. Prior to 2007, Town House had been a small-town grill, but that year John Shields (sous-chef at Alinea) and his partner – now his wife – Karen Urie (Shields) (pastry chef at Tru) moseyed down to Southwestern Virginia (his home neighborhood, I believe) to reimage Town House.

Town House is not rural, nestled in comforting woods with neighborly owls and bears. It is found on a small town main street. Its environs are not impressive in themselves (no need for valet parking). The design of the restaurant, modern and sleek, would suit Park Slope Brooklyn. The restaurant seems plunked down: a gastronomic room that happens to be in Chilhowie, not particularly indigenous (although some ingredients are local).

Town House offers four menus: a short a la carte menu (one salad, three entrees, and a dessert); a four course prix fixe (two choices for each course); and a ten course tasting menu ($110). We selected the latter, and added two intriguing courses from the prix fixe, a blessing as these were among the best courses. We also had a mini-version of Charlie Berg’s excellent wine pairings (not staying in Chilhowie, value seemed the better part of valor). Although I do not cover wines, they were well-chosen and a creative match (only the Foggy Ridge Cider was from Virginia).

I divide Chef Shields’ dishes into two: an ecstatic elegant minimalist style and the now-common modern cuisine, with busy plates covered with carefully shaped and processed ingredients. Chef Shields does busy food very well, but in a style that is often seen (this is also the style of Pastry Chef (Karen) Shields. What I will remember from here until hospice are the whispering dishes (Chilled Vegetable “Minestrone”; the Orange from Valencia; A Minimal Preparation with Peach; Scrambled Egg Mousse; and, from column B, Corn and Crispy Pig Tail. It was not that the other dishes were bad; they weren’t; they were impressive and represented the style well, but a few lacked focus (the desserts had this quality). At times the whole was less memorable than the sum of the parts. Town House cuisine pays respectful attention to texture (including, at times, temperature), but to my surprise, with a few notable exceptions the dishes were not visually stunning. The kitchen’s palate runs from white to tan to beige to brown and back again. It is not only the moderate lighting that makes Town House a challenge for photographers.

Soon there appeared a savory cookie of cocoa and black olive – a post-modern Oreo with Meyer lemon compote and parmesan cream. While I was impressed with the citrus cream filling, I found the cookie to be dry with a slightly oily mouthfeel. I should have revived my own oreo memories: removing the cookie and licking the cream.

It is dangerous to serve the best dish of the evening as the opening act. But at Town House this is surely the case. Chef Shields’ “Chilled Vegetable ‘Minestrone’” is an astonishing dish. It is a canonical creation, perhaps in the class of Keller’s Oysters and Pearls, or Michael Carlson’s Quail Egg Ravioli. Yet, Shields’ minestrone cannot truly be compared with this pair. Both are lush while Shields is restrained: Agnes Martin in a bowl. Like every goodly, godly stock the liquid is complex while appearing simple. This “soup” consists of 11 different (root) vegetables, rolled as small cylinders. We are served radish, beet, carrot, leek, and a chorus of others. Each has its color, creating a stunningly beautiful dish in a minimalist vein. Tasting each pipe, I realized that each had been cooked in its own herbal bath. The diner who ignores the vegetable consommé misses a high point of vegetable cuisine. It is a perfectly imagined dish, a virtuoso display of genius.

The second course seemed a scoop of orange sherbet sitting lonely on a plate: “The Orange from Valencia.” Here was orange puree, flash frozen. A tennis ball crammed with a savory mixture of shellfish – mussels, shrimp, and other oceanic nummies. Perhaps it was the surprise of a seafood bombe, but this was another wondrous dish. The contrasting temperatures and textures, combined with the cunning acidity of the orange puree, permitted a dish that provided a dramatic contrast with the minestrone, avoiding being overshadowed.

The third dish – Soup of Cherries with “almond bread” (frozen almond milk), slow oven-roasted tomatoes, cucumber water, ginger, and sardines – was the most challenging dish of the evening, perhaps of the year. Some 35 years ago I was served a dish at Larry Forgione’s An American Place on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. At that moment of culinary promiscuity, American chefs were attempting to develop a lusty American cuisine, using an array of traditions in a style that would become institutionalized as fusion cuisine. Forgione, then something of a celebrity chef, sent out a multi-layer tortilla torte with barbeque beef, corn, tomatoes, and salsa, and others ingredient I have striven to forget. The dish was a mess, a clashing composition of tastes and textures (my wife was served a stunningly velvet sole with sorrel beurre blanc). In contrast, my dish nearly inedible for all the right reasons. If art need not be pretty (think Richard Serra, brutalist architecture, and challenges to decorative art), must food taste good? Must all dishes be “comfort food”? I have discussed Forgione’s dish more than any other that I have eaten. Shields attempts something similar with his combination of cherry, tomato, sardine, and frozen almond ice. The ingredients bounce and slam around the plate: it is a hip-hop hors d’oeuvre: in your face before being in your mouth. There are some dishes (the minestrone) that I wish that I could eat every day, and there are some dishes that are once in a lifetime experiences. Sardines are not good bedfellows, but they have rough style. Sour, tart, oily, sweet, acidity, smooth: this dish was like no other most nights. Memories are made of such strains.

Scrambled egg mousse, a paean to breakfast, was fourth, and was another success. Although Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck places his breakfast dish – bacon and egg ice cream – at the end (perhaps to remind us how long we have been at table), this mousse is still an appetizer, and a lovely, quiet one. The scrambled egg mousse is served over smoked steelhead roe, sorghum, sweet spices, preserved ramp, and rye bread. I thought that the dish must contain bacon – it does not – but it captures most of the flavors that constitute bacon: sweetness, smokiness, saltiness. The texture is silky as one cuts into the mousse, hiding (as in the orange) complex deliciousness below.

Peekytoe Crab in Brown Butter and Lime with “caramelized onions,” banana, curry, and cider vinegar was in the style of modern cuisine’s symphonic dishes. Here was perhaps the most typical modern dish of the night. Chef Shields works with three basic ingredients: crab, banana, and onions, and then shapes them in various forms, textures, tastes, using multiple cooking processes. It was a virtuoso combination, but my concern with this presentation is that one never gets the same bite twice: there is not enough time to think about taste and texture before other tastes and textures intrude. Like many of the dishes the colors on the plate were shades of off-white.

The sixth dish was, for me, the most troubling dish, although one that I am reassessing. It was the dish for which I registered a complaint to Chef Shields; perhaps I spoke too rapidly. I was served a “Risotto” of Squid. Whenever one finds quotation marks on a menu, anxiety is about. This dish appeared a petite risotto, but one absent rice. The rice was squid cut as rice (surely a labor-intensive task). My first reaction was not happy. I would have preferred risotto sans quote marks: real Arborio rice is heavenly starch. In terms of sheer enjoyment I have not changed my stance. Yet, a week later I still think about the dish. The squid was deliberately chewy (some might say rubbery), not the meaty grilled calamari of Greek cuisine. By leaving out the rice, the dish had a creamy, aquatic purity. It was still my least favorite dish, but I can appreciate the choice. Perhaps it had something of the let-us-do-it-because-we-can sensibility, but it had a textual punch.

Now I received the first “extra” course: Corn and Crispy Pig Tail with basil-infused buttermilk, toffee, popcorn, and cocoa nibs. Like the crab this was a dish that is very much in the register of modern cuisine: a focus on the possibilities of corn with a butt wag to Fergus Henderson’s snout-to-literally-tail cuisine. This presentation brought to mind a stalk of corn, and is stunning as this style gets. The textures – gelatinous, smooth, stringy, chewy, meaty, liquid – were showy. Here was something other than a mish-mash, but a set of ideas. Corn and Tail is dramatically different from the quieter dishes (Shields works with several distinctive cooking styles), but is a vivid composition.

The foie gras royale, confit and crisp chicken skin (covered with a patch of fresh berries – a batch of fresh perries?) was easily the most vibrant presentation of the evening (my photograph shamefully lacks justice). What is not to like about duck liver and blackberries? Nothing, of course. To say that it was nothing special seems to demean the dish, but only in contrast. It is a dish that makes diners happy in three-star cuisine.

And then naked came the peach (“A minimal preparation of peach roasted in beef fat and chanterelle mushroom bouillon”), a second extra dish. If the minestrone had been out of stock, the little peach would have stolen my heart. I would be raving about this roast slice of fruit. If peach were filet how would it taste? Shields is a consummate consommé master. This was almost as perfect a two-bite dish as could imagine, so beefy, so woodsy, so filled with the orchard. Astonishing!

The entrée was Lamb Cooked in Ash with Smoked Eggplant Cream Puree, Miso, Black Garlic, Bonito, and pulverized potato starch. Shields serve a meat dish that is textbook, so filled with paper-like ingredients it was. Much was thin, wrinkled, and crackly, the floor of an academic office. I was stunned in its play with textures and its reflection of ash. Perhaps its bustle was overshadowed by the peach, but I cannot deny my pleasure throughout.

The two desserts, created by Karen Urie Shields, formerly of Chicago’s Trotter’s and Tru, are much in the modern style (her bread is simply delicious). First was Parsnip Candy with Aerated Coconut, Yeast Sponge, Banana, Maca Crumbs (maca is, apparently, an herbaceous root plant from Peru: a slap in the face of locavores?), and Lemongrass. Most impressive was the wonderful set of textures in this dish, another symphony in off-white. However, after a week it is hard to recall the tastes involved.

The second dessert was Blueberries and Lychee with Peony Sorbet (wonderful), goat yogurt, coriander berries (very distinctive), and crispy milk skin (the Shields could open a culinary paper mill). I love lychee and so I was pleased with the dessert, but it revealed the limits of modern cuisine, perhaps it was too impressive in its fireworks. If one preparation is astonishing, sometimes having five or six on the plate makes amazement routine.

My unasked-for advice for a brilliant ending is to create a dessert-equivalent of the minestrone. Choose eleven fruits, shape them beautifully, serve with a light, off-sweet consommé, and remind us again just how simple food can be complex. Or, if not, a nugget of veal served as a nectarine.

It took three hours to arrive at Town House and three hours to dine and three hours to return home. Three hours of expectation, three hours of reminiscences, and three hours of pure joy.

Town House

132 East Main Street

Chilhowie, Virginia 24319

276-646-8787

http://www.townhouseva.com

The restaurant has an associated guest house for those wishing a full wine tasting.

2010-06-25T22:54:00.003-05:00

Stars - Courtright’s Restaurant – Willow Springs, IL

The fundamental problem that Courtright’s faces can be summarized in two words: Phil Vettel. Courtright’s is a beautifully situated restaurant with an extremely lovely scenic background, located in Chicago’s southwest suburb, Willow Springs, a community not know for the quality of its culinary adventures.

Phil Vettel, in contrast, is the long-time restaurant critic of the Chicago Tribune. He has been at his tables since 1989, which should be punishment enough. He is not a bad critic, just a generous one. Phil Vettel is a man as promiscuous with his stars, as Tiger Woods is with his starlets. Indeed, if he would only lay off the caffeine while typing, taking most reviews down a notch or two, he is generally close to the mark.

On June 10, 2010, Vettel stunned culinary Chicagoland by awarding Courtright’s four stars, his highest rating. While Vettel has been generous with three stars, he has maintained some discipline with the quadra-fecta. Only six other restaurants in Chicago have received this notice in the past decade: Alinea, Everest, Spiaggia, L20, Avenues, and Les Nomades. A case can be made for all six (although I have some doubts about Les Nomades and L20). Courtright’s is in pretty exalted company. Among the restaurants that did not make the cut were Trotters, Tru, Blackbird, and Topolobampo.

Dishes at Courtright’s are described as dazzling and extraordinary. Such bubbly euphoria calls for some skepticism and for a visit. And so my wife and I made the hour-long drive to Willow Springs on a recent Friday, awaiting their special tasting menu. Courtright’s Friday tasting menu is an homage – although a somewhat wan one – to Iron Chef. Chef Jerome Bacle, formerly with Le Bec Fin – a favored restaurant of mine in Philadelphia – selects an ingredient and them constructs a three-course menu around it (with a few extras) for a mere $35 (the regular three course menu is $55, and there is a five-course tasting menu for $75). On the night we dined, the ingredient du jour was melon, but it has been apricot and jicama and kiwi.

Perhaps you can imagine the problem with this strategy. The special menu is a cross between a loss leader and the chef’s aesthetic vision. Which is it? At this price point, the dishes seemed far from luxe, and being served only once, the problems of the dish were never worked through. While the meal was not without its pleasures, the meal that I was served was not four-star quality, the interior décor is not stunning, and the service, as even Vettel admits, was more sincere than flawless.

So, what’s up? The answer, apparently, is deer (Vettel’s writerly theme du jour). Not venison, but Thumper. Vettel is taken by Courtright’s setting, seduced by the woods. I agree that the garden is splendid. But those of us who live within hailing distance of the forest preserves have our eight p.m. deer, and I believe with a critic’s eye that my wife’ cookery can give Chef Bacle a run for his money. Let me invite Phil to dinner, where not only can he watch our twilight deer, but as soon as Chicago’s gun ban is lifted, he can shoot it as well. Bambi on the barbie.

While the view out of the picture window is surely becoming, the view from within is rather ordinary. Vettel describes it as spotless, which is something less than inspiring, but is reasonably accurate. The service, as noted, is good-spirited. The staff seemed uncertain about when to remove our plates, I was served bread when my wife was away from the table and the server never returned until we requested, and the waitress stepped on my shoes once or twice. Vettel admits he can’t call it flawless (apparently wine was spilled on his tablecloth), but that should be a hint when the comparison is with the service pros.

Then there was the food. If the special menu is the height of perfection (Bacle’s “creative best”) it is a good-size prairie hillock. While I enjoyed the meal for the most part, I was never stunned. The photos reveal a chef who needs a greater attention to plating or a more modest critic. Of the dishes the most assured was the amuse: a combination of balsamic vinegar, fried leeks, edamame, and corn. It was a most pleasant summery mix.

The appetizer was a Watermelon, Crab, and Avocado Salad with Mango Dressing. The dollop of avocado was a happy mixture of mashed and pureed green. It was matched on the other side of the dish with a mix of crab and watermelon. This was a good watermelon, but not a watermelon at its amazing peak; good crab, but not great crab. The smear of mango didn’t add to the plate’s curb appeal.

Our main course was Grilled Shrimp with Wrapped Prosciutto, Honeydew and Ricotta, Roasted Pineapple, Basmati Rice, and Coconut Basil Sauce. I endorse the coconut basil sauce and the shrimp were fine, but the ricotta cut the tang of the honeydew. It was an unfortunate match that perhaps would have been altered on a second night. The presentation on the plate was far less interesting than the rocks and flowers. The touches that one expects in haute dining are missing at this sturdy local spot.

Dessert was quite tasty with the mix of cantaloupe and port wine in a summer pudding. Again the chef is somewhat done in by his plating. No amount of dots and spots can make up for a brown glob at the center of the plate, however enjoyable that glob might be.

It is surely true that had it not been for the Tribune’s review I would not have trekked to Willow Springs. But had I been inveighed to visit through other means, I would not have been attempting to justify the stars.

Ultimately Courtright’s is a fine suburban restaurant with a most comforting view. It deserves patronage, and Chef Bacle is to be commended for working within the constraints of stressed customer budgets. With any restaurant, expectations are key, and it does no good to imagine that this can match the suburban trio of Tallgrass, Vie, and Carlos. So, Chef Bacle, you deserve praise, but remember that your enthusiastic friends can be as dangerous as those who turn their backs.

Courtright’s Restaurant
8989 Archer Avenue
Willow Springs, IL 60480
708-839-8000
http://www.courtrights.com

2010-03-07T22:58:00.005-06:00

Pushing Asia – Bo Innovation – Hong Kong

Molecular Cuisine has become a global brand, a reality that has led some to suggest that its time has passed: the sun has set on foam, night has made deconstruction invisible. As an avid diner, my suspicion is that some of the bubbly enthusiasm has waned, but this is not necessarily a bad thing for the cuisine. We are at the point where experiments are not done for their own sake, but because they actually taste good – they create memories on the palate.

In my attempt to collect stamps from all of the global molecular post offices, I knew that I would have to visit Bo Innovation on my trip to Hong Kong, presided over by “Demon Chef” Alvin Leung. In the 2009 Michelin Guide to Hong Kong, Bo Innovation received two stars, but in the 2010 guide was demoted to one (perhaps revealing the danger of palling around with Anthony Bourdain on “No Reservations” and god knows where else! How many bad boy chefs can one world take?).

But one star or two, Bo Innovation is a happening place, and eating at the kitchen “bar,” chatting with the cooks and servers, it reminded me of an Asian version of Washington’s Minibar. I give a lot of credit to AJ, the maitre d’, Mark, one of the servers, and Leah who was staging, for making my evening so congenial.

Bo Innovation’s ploy is a relatively simple one – clever and generally successful. Chef Leung marries the techniques the molecular cuisine (cuisine agape) with a mixture of Asian and western flavors, but with an emphasis on luxe ingredients: the restaurant describes themselves as creating “x-treme Chinese cuisine.” Diners are required to order the tasting menu, which on the night I visited was approximately nineteen courses (depending, of course, on how one counts such things).

As is so often true, not every course was fully satisfying. (The fact that French Laundry, Alinea, and a few others do makes their three stars all the more impressive). However, the ratio of hits to misses was agreeably high. While at times it seemed as if each dish was centered around a single Chinese ingredient, rather than being fully Asian, the incorporation of mou-tai, dried shrimp, lotus, or yak cheese added a sense of Orientalism to a menu that was structurally not so different from Minibar. One wonders if molecular cuisine can ever be truly Chinese, given different styles of cooking and presentation – and theories of food – or whether experimental cuisine will inevitably Western with Chinese touches. Bo Innovation does not fully answer the question. But if Bo Innovation is not stratospheric in its creativity, there was enough vision to allow the meal to be worth recalling with delight.

Chef’s table menu: January 23, 2010

1) Mou-tai Sour combined with fluffy egg whites – a pleasant amuse and palate cleanser. Although Chef Leung incoporatored Mou-tai (the Chinese liquor made from sorghum molasses, giving the drink a light molasses taste), it was basically a standard molecular treatment.

2) Escargot with compressed watermelon, Sichuan vinaigrette with crispy garlic, fried greens – beautifully composed, but again the style is Western with Chinese ingredients.

3) Caviar with smoked quail egg and crispy taro – Kaluga caviar from China – reminiscent of Thomas Keller’s Pearls and Oysters – a beautiful dish

4) Hamachi with black sesame, crispy rose essence ginger – beet juice for ginger, amazing Japanese inspired – for my taste this was the most accomplished dish of the evening.

5) Sea Urchin, ink noodles, chili oil, and “har mi” (Sun-dried shrimp) – very distinctive taste, brave flavors, although perhaps too strong in terms of what came before and after.

6) Black truffle sandwich, “chian dan chee” – crispy spam and egg sandwich with truffles – one of the best sandwiches I have had with a distinct truffle aroma. Chef Leung is in this menu quite partial to truffles.

7) Iberico 36 (months cured ham) with morels and porcini, Korean vermicelli, and onion foam – one of the best dishes of the night, a one-bite wonder that effectively combined flavors.

8) Molecular “xiao long bao” – a “dumpling” in a bladder – pork stock with a line of pickled ginger on top, but how Chinese was it really. A cute and pleasant dish, but limited in its appeal. The idea overwhelmed the taste.

9) Yak and Mac – with black truffle bits – ok, but not so different than mac’n’cheese – Yak cheese, not as good as the yak butter tea that I had from a Yunnan food stall a few days before. But another cute idea.

10) Frog Leg “beggar style” – frog thigh stuffed with lotus and shiitake – on small diced vegetables (again, despite the fact that it was based on a traditional Chinese dish, one wonders how Chinese it was? It seemed like a Western appropriation of Chinese cuisine.) Still, the flavors were impressive.

11) Scallop with sesame, kaffir lime, grape aspic, quite beautiful and contemporary in conception

12) Foie Gras with black truffle and turkey congee, looked the same as the yak and mac – a joie d'esprit – a savory donut underneath (no photo – see the photo for Yak and Mac)

13) Halibut with shiitake soil, “yun nam” ham powder, extra virgin olive oil, reminiscent of the “soil” dishes of Wylie Dufresne at WD-50 (no photo)

14) Sweetbreads – oyster sauce (somewhat think but bright) lettuce tempura, artichoke puree – excellent dish; impressively prepared, but it is the oyster sauce than made it Asian.

15) Chalon duck with longon, red rice and preserved kumquat – too gingery to my taste, and one of the least successful dishes of the night.

At this point I was served several desserts, which in general were not as inspirational as the savory courses:

16) Almond with sandalwood smoke – a nosegay that is reminiscent of some experiments at Alinea – “Chinese temple”, nice almond ice cream but not revelatory.

17) Shui Jing Fang – poached caramelized banana and dark chocolate ganache (but served without chocolate since I am caffeine sensitive) mint, rice wine liquor – very nice, and probably better with the ganache.

18) Chinese petit fours: kaffir lime macaron, red date marshmallow, salty fudge (no photo)

19) Jasmine kiss – jasmine flowers with liquid nitrogen – another fragrant moment with a tip of the toque to Grant Achatz at Alinea.

I left being fully satisfied by the evening. Bo Innovation provides four-star cuisine, but in its glory raises the question of how Asian molecular cuisine can truly be. Is molecular cuisine always and ever to reflect Western culinary imperialism?

Bo Innovation
Shop 13, 2/f, J Residence
60 Johnston Road (lift on 18 Ship Street)
Wan Chai, Hong Kong
852-2850-8371
http://www.boinnovation.com

2010-02-21T00:46:00.003-06:00

First Day – Hong Kong – Shanghai Xiao Nan Guo Cuisine

The Jumbo Kingdom Floating Restaurant off Hong Kong Island, near the Aberdeen Fishing Village (more like a very large and diverse marina) is a sight to be seen. It is a huge Hong Kong dim-summary: a gathering for parties, banquets, and tour lunches, although not a place to eat more than serviceable dim sum, less impressive than good (not great) establishments in New York, San Francisco, or even Chicago.

I spent much of my first day in Hong Kong on a Gray Line tour to gain a sense of the city, and the Jumbo was where they parked us for lunch. The dim sum selections, understandably, if sadly, were from the dark edge of the menu: a dry Steamed Barbequed Pork Bun, a greasy shrimp egg roll, bland curry noodles, and a flavor-challenged shrimp dumpling. The only two passable dishes were those that I ordered personally, a sweet Chinese Ginger Juice Pudding although with only a whiff of ginger, and a crispy fried sesame beef ball dumpling. The greatest compliment that such a meal can receive is: filling.

Things improved in that evening when my host – a Hong Kong native – selected a Shanghai restaurant, the Tsimshatsui branch of a chain, Shanghai Xiao Nan Guo Cuisine. The ambiance was clean and pleasant, muted, although somewhat generic, more what one describe as international style than distinctly Chinese (if Hong Kong can, in fact, be considered distinctly Chinese).

The first surprise came at the start of the meal when water arrived (Jetlagged, I didn’t care for tea). The water was served hot, which my friend informed me is considered healthful in China. The second liquid surprise was the Chinese rice wine – rather like a sweet, dark sherry, also served warm (like sake). When a dried sour plum was added the wine gained a distinctive and pleasant musky fruit aspect.

Even though there were only two of us, we ordered enough for a platoon: Asian trenchermen. The meal began with pungent marinated duck tongues. The enjoyment of the meat (and the very idea of the dish – no worse, surely, than foie gras) was moderated by the difficulty of consumption, nibbling the edges of cartilage while mismanaging chopsticks when half asleep: getting the tongue in my maw was easy, in removing less picturesque.

The tongues were soon followed by a pair of lightly fried crispy yellow fish – a small white fish with a yellow tail (not tuna-type yellowtail), the size of a large herring. It was beautifully fresh, airy, and crackly in all of the ways that fried food reveals its perfection.

Steamed pork dumplings are a well-known Shanghai speciality, and these bocce balls, with soup hidden inside were sturdy if not startling examples of the genre. Less special – and heavy – was sticky rice with pork rib. I am confident that this dish is no worse that how the dish was intended, but it lacked a special appeal.

For me – and my companion – the high point of the night was Fish Maw with Crab Yolk, advertising the Shanghai expertise with seafood. Astonishingly this dish was both eggy and slightly sour, a citrus note that cut through what could have been the unctuous quality of the loose egg sauce. Its revelatory golden color added to its appeal, as did the delightful fish maw and sweet crab. This plate was both inspired and awakening.

We ended the evening with two sweet soups. First, was a light and fresh Papaya in Broth: a wake-me-up that would served as a palate cleanser had it not been warm. The final soup was a sugary rice wine soup with gelatinous rice balls. Had it remained with these ingredients, it would have been too heavy for a final note to this long symphony. Fortunately, in the liquid were some dried flowers which transformed this dessert into an incredibly fragrant memory – enough to recharge us into the warm January Hong Kong night on our way to the elegant Felix bar at the Peninsula.

Jumbo Kingdom Floating Island Restaurant
Aberdeen Fishing Village
Shum Wan Pier Drive
Hong Kong
2553 9111

Shanghai Xiao Nan Guo Cuisine
Unit 2, Level 6, MegaBox,
38 Wang Chiu Road,
Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, China
2369 8899

2010-02-20T23:31:00.002-06:00

Cantonese Memories – Lung King Heen – Hong Kong

By some accounts Lung King Heen, the three-star Michelin restaurant on the fourth floor of the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong with its stunning view of the harbor, may the best Chinese restaurant in the world. Certainly no other Chinese restaurant has received such Michelin praise. When I visited Hong Kong last month, Lung King Heen was on my agenda. I had read about the strengths of the restaurant and was fortunate to rely upon the experience of “Ultimate Epicure,” and so did not choose blindly from the extensive menu, although I also relied on the guidance of my savvy server.

There is much to commend the food. But what I remember most clearly relates to the fact that I was dining alone. When I sat down, I was provided reading material for the time between courses: Travel and Leisure and Christophorous Magazine, a magazine designed for Porsche owners, perhaps LKH’s market niche. Should I have been grateful (or disappointed) that I was not given the Guangzhou edition of Maxim? Different stokes, as they say.

Cantonese cuisine used to be China’s culinary ambassador to the global maw, but today the style is seen less as exotic, but as fusty. However, Lung King Heen demonstrates that such a patronizing perspective is not essential. With its lengthy menu of well over 100 items, the kitchen is both skilled and flexible. I have had others Chinese dishes whose taste adheres to memory, but few that make such a claim to sheer opulence. The meal was superior, and yet surprise sometimes bowed to technique.

The innovative chef amazes from the first bite: the amuse astonishes. This was not the case at Lung King Heen, where my first bite was the saddest. I begin with a tiny plate of crispy squid, tomato, and cucumber. The squid, heavily breaded was anything but crispy, and rather tough. What was I doing here? Were the Michelin inspectors asleep?

My appetizer selection was imperfect, but more satisfying. I received a trifecta of roast goose with plum sauce, BBQ pork with honey, and BBQ suckling pig. The technique impressed me, but the small dishes varied in their pleasure. The goose was somewhat tough and the sauce was too cloying for pleasure. The pork was impressively sumptuous, but perhaps overly fatty. In contrast, the pig with a square of crackly skin atop was a memorable travel into the heart of pork with skin as crisp as crème brulee.

Shark fin soup is not likely to be available much longer. One bends one’s knee to animal rights. I received a wallop of criticism from friends who don’t blink at eating eyeball tacos or blanch at foie gras. Still diners wish for a full life, if that can’t be said of the object of their appetite. I selected a $100 US soup: Braised Superior Shark Fin Supreme Broth with Lobster and Gold Leaf. Here is conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen would appreciate. The taste of this soup is not overwhelming, but the aroma and the texture is powerful. Perhaps I will never again choose shark fin, but this experience will last. The dish was a concatenation of subtleties, and in this revealed the artistry of Cantonese cuisine. The chicken broth was a divine gift. The shark fin amazed, slightly chewy and slightly slippery: translucent but solid. The small amount of lobster was a fair partner for the broth. The gold, not strictly necessary, reminded me that this was to be the only C-note soup I would ever order.

I followed this extravagance with a plate of wok-fried prawns with dried chili and shallots. Unexpectedly the chilies were not Sichuan-hot, but intensely flavorful. During my travels in southern China, I was served only a handful of dishes that reminded me of the “spicy-oily” dishes so common in American Chinese restaurants. At Lung King Heen the heat never overpowered the ingredients, with shallots and cilantro providing a depth of flavor. Not a novel combination, the dish was intensely satisfying.

I completed my entrees with a luscious dish that I surely would not have selected had it not been for Ulterior Epicure’s advice: braised e-fu noodles with fresh Alaskan crab meat in Champagne sauce. East meets west. The sauce was as rich as any pasta sauce I can image: a roll in butter and bubbles. Crab, tender and sweet. The sauce had a French consistency, and the noodles a Chinese bite. E-fu power was the echo of luxe. For a moment I became a titan of industry passing between two worlds.

What Cantonese banquet would be complete without a Bird’s Nest? Rather than selecting a savory bird’s nest course, I chose dessert: double-boiled egg white milk custard with bird’s nest. The flavors were never overpowering, but the textural subtly matched the flavor notes with hints of ginger. The dessert was so remarkably smooth and so light that it might have been avian.

In all, I felt well-satisfied with Lung King Heen, even if I recognized the many leagues between the Four Seasons experience and the traditional Cantonese table. Still, when in Hong Kong, one might as well pretend to be Governor General.

Lung King Heen
Four Seasons Hotel
8 Finance Street
Central
Hong Kong, China
(852) 3196-8888
http://www.fourseasons.com/hongkong/dining/lung_king_heen.html

2010-01-04T21:51:00.002-06:00

Minibar Revolution – Minibar – Washington, DC

For the culinary community, the 00’s were the Molecular Decade – for butter or for wurst. In the 90s Ferran Adria was still figuring out his chemistry set, but it took Y2K to fashion a craze. One cannot fairly say that Cuisine Agape ever dominated, but many culinary capitals birthed restaurants that played games with your food. From Barcelona to Bray, Paris to New York, from the near west side of Chicago to the near north side of Chicago, experimentation was the game’s name. And, it must be said, that the gourmet decade had it all over the political decade. We can look back with satisfaction and not shame; after all those calories we really need some health care.

To end the decade, I returned to Minibar, Chef José Andrés’ outpost in his Café Atlantico in downtown Washington. Short of underground dining, short of El Bulli, Minibar is the toughest reservation to cadge. It took four mornings, calling at the moment that lines were open finally to snag a spot. (There are two seatings of six each. Sorry, Octomom!) The object is to be up-close-and-personal with the chefs: a sushi counter gone wild. Such a structure makes for agreeable conversation with the staff, but perhaps limits what can be produced by the team of four, working in tight quarters under our hawkish gaze.

I had eaten at Minibar two years previous and was impressed with the creativity and panache. How did it wear? Was Minibar a two-trick pony? The answer is complicated.

Artistic revolutions have their life cycles. First, there are the pioneers, the rebels. But there are only so many ideas under the dining moon. In time even the most remarkable sparks of deconstructed genius become matters of routine. The craft remains, but the new dishes are often modifications of canonical recipes. The history of aesthetic insurgency is that of trick or tweak. In time, passion becomes passé: been there, ate that. At that moment, others, more traditional, emerge to pluck the best ideas and blend them with the tried and true: that’s what happened with Careme, Escoffier, nouvelle, and fusion.

We are, it seems, in-between the moments of modification and incorporation. Soon chefs will not strain to foam. But by then even the most conventional chef will place pop rocks in their mise en place for that perfect plate.

Minibar remains an essential restaurant and certainly will be eye-opening for anyone who has never been exposed to molecular cuisine. My challenge was to find the lasting memories among the fusty standards (if a mojito bladder can be derided as fusty or as standard). Depending on how one counts, I was served two dozen courses. Eleven “munchies.” Ten “flavors and textures.” Two desserts and one plate of mignardises (or “sweet surprises”).

Andrés and his chefs are still capable of revelations, even if some dishes are more curious than eternal. A description of twenty four dishes seems excessive even for the most bilious blogger (the photos provide evidence of the chef’s handiwork), but there were some goofs. I was not taken with the “Bagels and Lox,” a small hors d’oeuvre that was little more than loxy balls in a bready cone. The flourless blue cheese and almond tart was tasty enough, but nothing special, although being served in a bowl of rocks was an enjoyable conceit. The carbonated mojito bladder was fun, but more a cunning culinary stunt than a dish that led to seconds. The same could be said for the parmesan “egg” that was more cute than delicious.

What is necessary in our Tweens is for brave chefs to create brilliant dishes. We have moved beyond being satisfied with the astonishment of the concept (Wow, shards of glass in the fruit salad, so this is a blood orange!) to demanding dishes that are luscious, creative, and brimming with sensation. Fortunately there were several dishes at Minibar that deserve this acclaim. Other dishes deserve nods. A hot and cold Pisco sour, a tempura Brussels sprout, a raw smoked oyster with apple and ginger, an inside out reconstructed guacamole, a charcoal salmon with black garlic and lemon-lime pearls all stood firmly on their own. However, I focus on four dishes that represented for me what molecular cuisine can achieve, but often does not.

First, there was the now obligatory cotton candy display: chefs at the funhouse. But at this carnival, cotton candy eel with shiso leaf, wasabi, and ginger really did transcend. Forgot that it was “cotton candy,” but feel the texture and taste the ingredients. The wispy filaments contributed to the exoticism of this proto-Japanese dish with its symphony of senses. It was brilliant, transcending the brittleness of the conceit.

Second was Zucchini in Textures, a signature Andrés dish (it was served two years ago). The taste was subtle, not boisterous, and the textures were sublime. It elevated this rather pedestrian summer squash to the winter heights. Each level - the water, the seeds, and a puree - was precisely achieved. It is a contemporary classic: quieter than Keller’s Oysters and Pearls or Carlson’s Quail Egg Ravioli, but just as subversively memorable in its spare delight.

Third, late in the meal, was Breaded Cigala with Sea Salad (sorrel, I believe). Cigala is a type of Spanish langoustine (perhaps the generic translation of langoustine). Again it was a simple dish, but a pure and wonderful one without fireworks, but with enormous care in the ingredient and the preparation. The salad matched the seafood precisely.

Finally, the dessert: Thai Cuisine, more molecular than the previous two choices but with the spices of Bangkok banged into surprising shapes and textures: ginger crumbles, cilantro-coconut sorbet, ginger bits. Here was a deconstruction of an impossible construction. This savory sweet was a wonderful fantasia, and a lovely close to a wide array, revealing that molecular cuisine still has much to teach, although perhaps no longer in two dozen courses.

The rest:
Hot and Cold Pisco Sour

"Bagels and Lox"

Boneless Curried Chicken Wing

Flourless Blue Cheese and Almond Tart

"Ferrero Rocher" - savory hazelnut and blue cheese

Mojito Bubble

Steamed Brioche With Caviar

Brussels Sprout Tempura Rose

Dragon's Breath Popcorn

Guacamole Roll

Smoked Oyster with Green Apple

Hand Made Corn with Huitlacoche

"Sun-Dried" Tomato Salad with Lemon Foam

Charcoal Salmon Toro with Black Garlic and Lemon-Lime Pearls

New England Clam Chowder with Bacon Cream and Potato Bits

Parmesan "Egg" with Migas

Philly Cheesesteak

Frozen Yogurt, Honey, Olive Oil

Mango White Chocolate Box, Smores, Bacon and Chocolate

Fizzy Ball

Minibar
Second Floor
405 8th Street NW,
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 393-0812
http://www.cafeatlantico.com/

2009-10-03T21:25:00.002-05:00

Top Chef – Topolobampo

Some months ago in that mix of cuisine and media that is now so common, Rick Bayless was anointed Bravo’s Top Chef for the season. Let me confess that the only cooking show that I have watched with any regularity since the one-time bizarre antics of the galloping gourmet (Graham Kerr) was the original Japanese Iron Chef that satisfied my weirdness quotation for the week. But weird or not Chef Bayless of Chicago’s (and the world’s) Topolobampo (and the more accessible Frontera Grill – and the now über-streetfood Xoco) won the honor. Congrats to you Rick. I was informed by our server that the four savory courses were recapitulated Bayless’s life in food. (I never learned the meaning of the fourth course – or the dessert).

To honor this occasion, Bayless recapped his star-turn five-course meal as a special tasting menu ($90/person) from August to mid-October. While I cannot rate the meal flawless, I was pleased to taste cable entertainment at a suitable distance.

As might be expected, given that the meal reveals his life, the first course was the most juvenile. Bayless’s father owned a barbeque restaurant in Oklahoma (is there any other kind?) and in honor of dad, the chef served “Hickory-smoked quail with Hickory House barbeque sauce and Iroquois cornbread croutons.” The dish might have been appealing to an eight-year old, but the sauce could have come from a bottle. It was sweet and tangy, but that comes with the territory. I didn’t find the complexity of Arthur Bryant’s sage-inflected sauce on this plate. Nothing really wrong, but not challenging enough. The spicy watermelon salad and roasted garlic slaw were impressive, but the course was short of memorable for those who did not share the chef’s life.

The second dish, reflecting Rick’s discovery of Mexican cuisine was better, but still within a normal range: seared Hawaiian ahi tuna in Oaxacan black mole with plantain-filled tamal, grilled nopal salad, roasted knob onions, and three-nut crunch. (Despite the list of ingredients these “sides” were not as visible as they might have been – often true on this menu). Bayless does make a sturdy, dense, rich, flavorful mole, although it is not sturdier, denser, richer, or more flavorful than the moles at other serious – and more traditional - Mexican restaurants such as Mixteco Grill. While I enjoyed the dish, I wished that the plate gave more attention to the creative accompaniments.

Third – black rice “a la tumbada” with Maine lobster, squid, mussels, grilled octopus, and homemade chorizo in tomato-jalapeño broth with pickled vegetables and prosciutto pearls(!) – was the high-point of the evening. It was an astonishing composition. Again, the chef might have been more generous with the accompaniments, notably the prosciutto tapioca-balls. Still with such rich lobster, there was little need to complain. Here in this food memory the chef becomes a chef, discovering the possibilities of culinary preparation.

Overnight-braised suckling pig pibil with crispy pig’s foot croquette was served with sour orange jellies, habanero-pickled onions and sunchoke pudding. Ditto about the sides. But I found the crispy pig’s foot croquette was mushy: crispy on the outside, but squishy within. I admired the citrus jelly-dice, but judged the dish the least successful of the evening.

Dessert turned out to be less of a sweet than a teasing savory. Bayless created a warm caramelized tart of camote morado (Mexican sweet potato) with a swoosh of garnet yam (sweet potato and yam both?), spiced walnut ice cream, toasted homemade marshmallow fluff, and tangy caramel sauce. As the description suggest here was a last savory. Yet, its distance from a traditional sugary dessert allowed it to provoke thought. Each piece was well-made and thoughtfully combined. It was a dessert that inspired respect, more than honeyed love.

Despite imperfections this menu is the creation of a creative, speculative – if overly telegenic – cook. Topolobampo, not the most expansive of Chicago-four-star restaurants may be the most expansive, and we are lucky to be the home of Bayless and Oprah both – Olympians both.

Topolobampo
445 North Clark Street
Chicago (River North)
312-661-1434
www.fronterakitchens.com

2009-09-10T22:18:00.004-05:00

Two Meals – Chez Panisse and The French Laundry – Berkeley and Yountville, California

Although New York often thinks of herself as the origin of all things, such hubris ignores the reality that Gotham’s skill is as arbiter: to pick and choose among the worthy green shoots and then convince herself that they were to be found in New York all along. All the arts know this trick: Manhattan always trumps regional genius in its own imagination.

Nowhere is this more true than in gastroland: Nuevo-Caribbean cuisine from mango Miami, molecular cuisine from Barcelona and Chicago, New Orleans haute-cajun, and the list continues. But perhaps when the final history of cuisine is Kindled no patch of land will deserve more credit for culinary innovations than the Bay Area, the engine of American gastronomic theory and practice.

In a recent trip to San Francisco, I dined at two canonical restaurants: Chez Panisse (for the third time) and the French Laundry (as a FL virgin, but having eaten at Per Se three times). I also had a fine meal at Restaurant Gary Danko, but as Danko is “only” a fine rendition of well-established national trends in modern American cuisine I won’t discuss Chef D’s efforts.

Diners have their own emotional equations. A lover of the Chez Panisse might sniff at the French Laundry and the reverse. I lay my cards on the table. I have long respected Chez Panisse but never loved her (not in 1985, not in 1995, and not in 2009). Yes, I celebrate CP’s importance in birthing restaurants that I love. I recognize CP’s importance as a social movement in changing (for the better, mostly) how Americans think about food production and dining including by White House compost pile, but I have never had a “wow” moment. Leaving CP I have felt, “Gosh, this is flawless; where can I find a really good taco”? In contrast, Per Se and, now, French Laundry are me. I am in love. And if only they would use fewer quotation marks on their menu, saving gallons of imported ink, I would lack quibbles.

Despite the fact that Chez Panisse famously developed from the hippy-dippy movements of the 1960s, Panisse seems less Aquarian than Calvinist. Stripped down, lean, and clean; like dining in a Presbyterian chapel. Throwing out the capital-G gourmet frou-frou is valid to a point: it is about the food. But it is also about the show, about the excess, about the awakenings, about the ability to astonish. In Keller’s haute-farmhouse there is magic afoot.

Chez Panisse changes the menu each night. This is an impressive feat. Applause. But since diners do not eat there every night, they take their chances. Some dishes click loudly; others more softly; and few are discordant. These constantly shifting, micro-seasonal menus mean that chefs cannot perfect dishes over time, and they cannot routinely present their brilliancies. Even a chef like Alice Waters and her cooks aren’t geniuses every evening. Even Einstein needs a break. As a result provenance and produce replace art. So it was on the evening of August 11, 2009. A review from August 12th, much less December 12th could be quite different. Dinners differ by day of the week, just like New York Times crosswords – Monday is simple, Friday and Saturday more extensive. CP can duck criticism because the failed dish may never be seen again. (Playwright Suzi-Lori Parks attempted to write and then have theaters produce a play for each day of the year. Not surprisingly some were clunkers for which audiences laid down their cash).

On Tuesday August 11th, we began with a chilled tomato and cucumber soup with avocado. It was an August 11th soup. Not exactly gazpacho in that the ingredients were present for our gaze: showing off a garden-fresh ideology. This was as delightful as any a cold vegetable soup that I have tasted. It was plated to remind the diner of just how fortunate they were to be served this kind of produce. Fundamentally it was not so very different from a soup that I might have made if I had such a network of gifted farmers.

The second course was a local petrale sole à la ciboulette (chives). What simple perfection! Sauteed, lightly battered, a mild lemon sauce, sprinked with chives. What is not to like? This is the kind of dish that is Chez Panisse to the core. How hard can it be to cook sole – but flawless? Despite (or because of?) its Puritanism, its lack of show, it was the high point of the night.

The next dish, however, revealed CP’s limits. I admit that the main courses on Monday, Thursday, and Friday sounded enticing, but this was Tuesday: Spit-roasted Becker Lane Ranch pork loin with fresh summer shell beans and chanterelle mushrooms. I have never had a poorly made dish on Shattuck Avenue and this was no exception. However, despite the quality of the pork and beans (not deconstructed, but simply shared), it had no depth of flavor (although the onion rings certainly were applause-worthy). It lacked savory memory.

Dessert was Middleton Gardens raspberry ice cream crêpes. They were as advertised if you treat the excellent peaches and blackberries as lagniappe. At Chez Panisse, the ingredients are generous. Think of a raspberry crepe, and then think of a raspberry crepe with perfect fruit. That is Chez Panisse.

The idea of Chez Panisse is transformative, but unlike the greatest meals in my life, the food isn’t. Still, we must consider price. Turning to The French Laundry and its fireworks means traversing from a $75 prix fixe without service to one set at $240 (service included). For two icons in these days of economic meltdown, that is not a difference to be ignored. Berkeley profs can afford Chez P.

But forget cost if you can. Eat until the trust fund is no more. While Chez Panisse advertises the idea of local dining, on the following night (August 12th for the record) I tried to discern differences between French Laundry’s menu and that of Per Se. Different spaces but similar vision. While the ingredients – particularly the produce – are likely to be differently sourced and each restaurant has its own chef de cuisine (Timothy Hollingsworth at FL and Jonathan Benno at PS, although the restaurants are in continual video communication), similarities outweigh differences, beginning with Keller’s signature “Oysters and Pearls” – a “Sabayon” of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters and white sturgeon caviar. The dish is as definitive as ever: the great post-modern classic. (Amuses were an ethereal Gruyere gougere and a cornet of Scotch salmon, spring onion crème fraiche and a nicely spicy black pepper tuile.)

The menu at French Laundry is largely fixed, although diners choose between the Chef’s Tasting Menu and the Tasting of Vegetables (neither vegetarian nor kosher, as FL announces Lobster Bouillon and Ibérico Ham on this menu). Within the nine-course menu, diners can choose from a pair of selections for four courses (and can choose the occasion course from the other menu).

The first post-O&P course was an astonishing salad of compressed melon (a dish selected from the vegetable tasting menu) with Niçoise olives, charred scallions, arugula and verbena “aigre-doux” (sour/sweet). Of all of the skills of Keller’s minions, the composition of the dishes is unique. It is not that Keller produces the most beautiful plates or the most architectural, but his are the plates in which the placement of ingredients reveals exquisite sensitivity towards the inventive power of shape.

My companion selected a degustation of French Laundry garden potatoes with Australian black truffles, picked pearl onions, celery branch, nasturtium and crème fraiche. While the presentation was deliberately minimalist, one could not fault the Panisse-like quality of ingredients while also recognizing a distinct combination of tastes.

The first fish course was a flavor-confection centered around Chesapeake Bay soft-shell crabs with marinated eggplant, pleasantly bitterly pungent red radishes, navel orange pips, mizuna, and miso vinaigrette. I was entranced by this careful composition. This was another favorite dish in a list of favorites. There is a sculptural intensity that characterizes Chef Keller’s presentations, but also an intensity of flavor: a wisdom that recognized that crab, radish, oranges, and eggplant might make for a perfect Wednesday evening.

The other fish dish, sautéed fillet of Columbia River sturgeon with “pain de Campagne,” toybox tomatoes, little gem lettuces, Spanish capers, and “bottarga di muggine,” reveled a fillet a little more cooked than perhaps it ought and with a somewhat minimalist background. I found this the least compelling plate of the night. It didn’t sing or zing.

Maine lobster tail “pochée au beurre doux” with mission figs, Cipollini onions, scallions, and chocolate-coffee sauce was heroic with the unlikely but stirring partnership of buttery lobster and choco-coffee. Consuming this shellfish reminded me of watching Hamlet performed in rap: we know the traditional text and can enjoy how modernity plays tribute to tradition.

We had two choices for the first meat course: Salmon Creek Farms Pork Belly with Savoy spinach, chick (or chic!) peas, spicy paprika, and Meyer lemon condiment worked hard to please. My photo does not do the dish justice, but this was the night’s least photogenic plate. Still, the richly tart lemon made for a very nice counterpoint to the fatty, deep pork. A very satisfying dish, even if short of astonishing.

The second option was preferable: a gemlike combination of “épaule (shoulder) de lapin farcie aux ris de veau with Jacobsen’s Farm Pears, hazelnuts, watercress and summer truffles. A brief editorial: Why provenance the pears? Does knowing that they were reared by some farmer in the dell’s orchard improve my pleasure? True, all pears, even American ones, are not created equal, but wouldn’t the variety of pear be more important than their human parent. End of rant. And back to this treasured dish with its wonderful August truffle and oh-so-sweetbreads. With its novel utensil this was the dish most reminiscent of Alinea, but wherever FL’s inspiration, it was inspired.

The menu’s centerpiece was Snake River Farms “Calotte de Boeuf (an often ignored cut of beef surrounding the ribeye) Grillée” with globe artichokes, Nantes carrots, garlic “croquante,” parsley shoots and sauce barigoule, a sauce traditionally napping artichokes, a nod to classical cuisine. This was not an exotic adventure, but a dish with enormous integrity. Not as simple in presentation as dishes at Chez Panisse, it evinced equal respect for produce. Minimalist, each bit was revealing. Of all the courses in this evening of pleasures the honest grilled beef demonstrated the long and warm shadow of Alice Waters. Without her brave fight, the French Laundry could never be.

Our cheese course was “Tomme du Berger” (a soft, nutty, “fragrant” cheese) with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, sweet peppers, haricots verts, and arugula. It was an ideal follow-up to the beef. This was another quiet, intense course that bowed to the integrity of the ingredients. One does not need a plate of cheeses to conclude: cheese matters.

Honeydew melon sorbet with compressed red and yellow sorbet and basil “nuage” (a “cloud” or light foam) reprised the early melon dish. It was a very pleasant palate cleanser.

For dessert my companion ordered the “Ballon de Chocolate Fumé” with smoked black tea, vanilla ice cream and tonka bean caramel. He was presented with a chocolatty bocce ball. My small taste suggested a Cadillac of sundaes.

I decided upon lemon verbena “vacherin” (a meringue base) with Tellicherry pepper panna cotta, lemon verbena sherbet, and chilled Silverado Trail strawberry consommé. This composition was another favorite with clever shapes, vivid colors, surprising textures, and sensuous tastes. This sweet revealed a complexity that announced that whatever the debt of Chef Keller to Chef Waters, his cuisine is more challenging and remarkable in its visionary potential. Keller’s vacherin was a splendid closing to edge me into the cool, still, verdant, small-town Yountville night.

Service at both restaurants was warm in a way that only Californians have perfected.

Eating at Chez Panisse and French Laundry back-to-back is a one-two punch that might only be matched by consecutive meals at L’Arpege and El Bulli – but these Californians sit just across the bay. Cali rulz.

Chez Panisse
1517 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
510-548-5525
http://www.chezpanisse.com

The French Laundry
6640 Washington Street
Yountville, CA
707-944-2380
http://www.frenchlaundry.com

2009-08-16T13:52:00.002-05:00

Breather - Greens - San Francisco

After a hectic culinary week in San Francisco, it was time for a last lunch. So many choices, so little time. Before heading off to a four-hour flight in a sardine tin, I needed some mellowing out. And in the Bay Area, Greens marries bliss with upstanding cuisine. One realizes the possibilities of a robust and creative vegetarian cuisine while relaxing at the edge of the Bay. Greens captures the ethical soul of near-fine dining. This is no veggie-shack, but green cuisine.

Having had a warm bath of calories the past week, I chose two cool and light plates. Both were generous – and humane – first courses. Grilled nectarines with fromage blanc, watercress, and Snyders sage honey was as tempting as any fruit salad that I have been served in, well, close to ever. It was summer sweet while the crunchy watercress added a slight peppery intrigue. Perhaps it could have been dessert given the honeyed depth, but for a small meal it was a fine starter.

The second plate was ricotta corn cakes with jalapenos, scallions, cheddar and smoked cheese, served with crème fraise, fire roasted tomato and pumpkin seed cilantro salsa. The ingredient list on the menu makes the dish sound more pretentious than it was in person, but those allergic to pumpkin seeds and smoked cheese have been duly warned. These griddle cakes were a fine success, reminding us that (pace Michael Pollan) corn is not necessarily a four-letter word. These cobby-blinis were complex without being precious. Had I the stomach I could have eaten a baker’s dozen.

And so from the bustling calm of Fort Mason, I left with memories to consume on the (thankfully) foodless flight home.

Greens
Fort Mason, Building A
San Francisco
415-771-6222
http://www.greensrestaurant.com/

2009-08-05T10:23:00.002-05:00

Zaharakos and the Politics of Ice Cream

It being August, our fancies turn to ice cream. Driving through Indiana, I was delighted to learn that Zaharakos - the classic ice cream parlor (or parlour) in Columbus, Indiana was once again open for business after four years shuttered with new owners. Zaharakos was opened in 1900 by Greek immigrants. The turn of the century was the golden age of ice cream parlor throughout America - palaces of delight and danger - many of them opened by southern Europeans (especially Greeks and Italians), and the public was both attracted to this otherness and fearful of the danger. Ice cream made its greatest impact in the Midwest at the time of the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. Rumors were spread that the unscrupulous owners would put narcotics into the ice cream of pretty young women dining alone and then sell them into "white slavery" (in contrast to that other form of slavery!). In fact, ice cream parlors were somewhat less reputable than tattoo parlors are today. For an excellent account of the dangers of ice cream, see a recent article (very readable) by Bill Ellis in the Journal of American Folklore:

Bill Ellis. "Whispers in an Ice Cream Parlor: Culinary Tourism, Contemporary Legends, and the Urban Interzone." Journal of American Folklore 122.483 (Winter 2009): 53-74.

Even today ice cream is somewhat dangerous as Illinois governor Patrick Quinn has signed a law that bars sex offenders from driving ice cream trucks. This could limit the employment options for some politicians, but presumably not our governor. Perhaps the next stage is to prevent these miscreants from working in ice cream parlors.

Zaharakos is open again (about five minutes from I-65 in the architecturally-splendid Columbus, Indiana. The woodwork and the fountain and the organ has remained,

although the space is somewhat too large for the number of tables, giving a slightly empty look (ice cream parlors should be bustling). Still simply having Zaharakos open for business again is terrific. Service was energetic, if not polished (on the evening I was present, there didn't seem to be any adults running the place: not necessarily a bad thing). I ordered the Gom Cheese Brr-Grr (Brr-grr, get it?): a Maid-Rite sort of sloppy-joe/cheeseburger on white bread (although not exactly thick white bread as the menu proclaims).

The Ice Cream soda was a worthy blend of ice cream (butter pecan, in my case) and cinnamon syrup, although not a super-premium ice cream.

By dining alone in an ice cream parlor one misses something (or if one were a women in 1909 perhaps gets something as well); still just knowing that Zaharakos is back in business, even without a frisson of danger, is comforting.

Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor and Museum
329 Washington Street
Columbus, IN 47201
812-378-1900
http://www.zaharakos.com

2009-07-27T22:17:00.002-05:00

Midsummer House – Cambridge, United Kingdom

After being prepared to admit, sadly, that there are no excellent restaurants in Cambridge, a week before my departure I had one of the outstanding meals of the year. Of course, the happy success was not a total surprise as the Midsummer House (set in a lovely garden near the banks of the River Cam) had received two Michelin stars. However, two Michelin stars have often been just enough to break one’s heart. But not this evening. Under chef Daniel Clifford the meal was nearly flawless, failing only a few minor tests.

The evening began with a tiny, but surprisingly robust gazpacho tasting, made memorable because of a wave of pureed celery that set off the acidity of the tomato base. It was delightful, and would have made a worthy bowl on a summer evening. This was followed with a simple and creative anchovy tempura – just enough fat and salt to make every health care vanish. It was unfortunate that these starters were pared with the only real failure of the evening: two cheese (brie?) gougeres that were overfilled and lacking interest.

Still working through the amuses, I was presented with a crystal ball filled with pink grapefruit cream and champagne foam. While foam is properly being edged off the gastronomic stage – having had its fifteen minutes of culinary fame – foamy champagne was a novel and witty retort. It was a memorable palate cleanser before my palete needed to be cleansed.

This was followed by still another amuse: a sweetpea veloute served with tiger shrimp. If not as creative as the remainder of the meal, it was silky smooth and the essence of an English spring.

Finally we reached the meal itself, which without being experimental, captured the best and brightest of modern European cuisine. The ingredients, of which there were many, blended in inspired and startling ways, and, in fact, I was profoundly grateful that I avoided the tasting menu so that I could enjoy these plates in full.

As my appetizer, I selected maple-caramelized sweetbreads with turnip, pistachio, ox tongue (!), and maple jelly. Although such as dish had danger of being an early, cloying dessert, the sweetness was mellow and added a complexity and richness to the subtlety of the rest of the ingredients, rather than overpowering them.

For a main course, I selected braised turbot with peanuts and pistachios (this turned out to be an all-pistachio dinner), sea scallops, cos lettuce, asparagus in a crackly pastry, and vanilla. While I would have preferred my fish to be more translucent, such is rarely how fish is served in the British Isles, and the fish was in no way overdone (even if such cooking involves dancing on a tightrope). The remainder of the plate was splendid, and complemented the mild white fish to excellent effect. Chef Clifford is particularly to be commended in his attention to texture.

I passed on an extra dessert – a tiramisu – too much caffeine: but it was a beautiful display.

Finally a triumphant close: warm braised cherries with pistachio (again!) ice cream with a cream filled pistachio “cannelloni” shell and underneath chartreuse tagliatelle. Perhaps the meal was dominated by nutty tastes, but they were remarkably sophisticated with the herbal echoes of chartreuse as a counterpoint.

The Midsummer House deserves attention and not only in the long evenings of June. The location and size of the restaurant militates against a third Michelin star (it is not really in position to be a “destination” restaurant), but I have no hesitation in preferring it over two London standards The Square or Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley, and, if not as creative as Gordon Ramsay or The Fat Duck, capable of equaling them in pleasure and bettering them in cost.

The Midsummer House
Midsummer Common
Cambridge, United Kingdom
+44 (0)1223 369299
http://www.midsummerhouse.co.uk

2009-07-27T20:16:00.001-05:00

Madison's (Old Edwards Inn) - Highlands, North Carolina

About five years ago, the Old Edwards Inn in Highlands was renovated, transformed into a four-star (or five-star or however many stars mean really, really fancy and) inn, resort and spa. In the course of this transformation from an old-timey inn on Main Street, they opened a fine dining restaurant, Madison's. In its first iteration it attempted (somewhat bizarrely, and without much grace) to borrow from molecular cuisine and also incorporate a set of rather bizarre flavor combinations. Different is not always better. Back then the restaurant was rather too taken with itself, and my first meal was not a success - quite the contrary with a check that suggested that the owners felt that the food was more sparkling that it was.

However, over the past two years, I have had several improved meals at Madison's, culminating with an excellent dinner last night. The chef de cuisine (at the restaurant for two years now and now in charge of the menu) is Chris Huerta, who worked with Guenter Seeger in Atlanta (at Seeger's, which, until it closed in 2006, was Atlanta's premier restaurant - Seeger is attempting to open a New York restaurant) and who was a stage at Per Se. Huerta is a serious young cook with a serious blog ("Chipped China"). My friends and I were very pleased with the style and assuredness our meal. In strictly culinary terms Madison's is - by some distance - the most accomplished restaurant in the area (go to On the Verandah for the view and good food). Madison's has a quite pretty space and in contrast to some area restaurants is light and airy and is relatively quiet. They also have an ideology of "Farm to Table Dining," which they are expanding - mostly vegetables and pork at this point.

I began with Huerta's Apple and Bacon Hushpuppies (ah! bacon!), which were the best hushpuppies I have ever eaten. Granted claiming that one found the world's best hushpuppies may be akin to picking low-hanging fruit, but they were delicious. A friend had a very creamy (and nicely composed) vidalia onion soup and another companion had a salad of Chilled Local Carolina Shrimp Salad, Florida Citrus, Winter Greens, and Vanilla Citrus Double Cream. Let us ignore the "local" shrimp as we are several hundred miles from the sea in the western Carolina mountains, but the Vanilla Citrus Double Cream was a very becoming complement to the fresh shrimp.

For entree I chose the compelling (although not visually remarkable - unless one likes a symphony of gray and brown) Braised Duck Leg, Celery Root Ravioli, and Stewed Hand Harvested Mushrooms with Natural Jus. It was a luscious combination with perfectly moist duck leg and properly cooked ravioli with its intriguing celery root stuffing. If not quite worth a photo, it was the most polished entree I have had in these mountains since the grand Frog and Owl closed fifteen years ago.

Dessert was an assured smooth vanilla-bean panna cotta with butterscotch sauce and crumbled espresso biscotti and a cornet of vanilla bean (I think) ice cream. Another appealing and modern presentation with a mix of flavors that were delightful, if not quite startling.

Madison's also has an extensive wine list and well-selected wines by the glass.

But for one who spends a month in the mountains each summer, Madison's poses a problem. Should every dinner out be a dinner at Madison's. Is everything else just slumming?

Madison's
Old Edwards Inn
Fourth and Main Street
Highland, North Carolina
866-526-8008 or 828-526-8008
http://www.oldedwardsinn.com/

2009-07-25T20:03:00.003-05:00

Grump - Selene – Santorini, Greece

When it comes to restaurants, I can be a bit of a grump. My standard is perfection, and even I can’t meet that standard! Recently my wife and I took a cruise through the azure waters of the Aegean Sea. Now cruiseship food – even if bountiful, colorful, and well-provisioned - can not salve a culinary grump. But every so often we escaped the ship. One of these moments permitted us to explore the beautiful, white-washed island of Santorini, an island formed from the rim of a volcano, which the deity exploded for His own amusement (Santorini sits in a caldera – the collapse of land after a volcanic eruption), the most remarkable spot in the Cyclades. When one comes across a crescent sliver of land so exquisite my thoughts turn to, well, food. (My thoughts also turn to food when viewing a toxic dump or a beautiful woman.)

Still, Santorini is more than brownfields or lithesome legs, it is scenic. Were this insufficient, Santorini is also the home to one of the most astonishing restaurants in all of Greece, and, Michelin not to the contrary, in all the EU. Selene, perched on a cliff in Fira, the main town (in fairness most of Fira is perched on a cliff), opened in 1986 under the guidance of owner George Haziyannakis, who wished to show off the creative nature of Greek cuisine. He succeeded.

Yes, the view is perfection, but it cannot quite compete with the food. One looks down at one’s plate while the clouds and skiffs pass outside. We began with a pair of soups, cold tomato and warm rockfish and langoustine. The cool tomato was perfection in this warm June lunchtime, although had this been our only course I would have noted Selene as a most pleasant boite. The seafood soup was pure cream and sea: impeccably rich and sweet, with ingredients that revealed that locavores have a point.

These soups were followed by an appetizer of local bivalves with lemon foam – molecular cuisine in the isles! – paired with potent seafood tartlets. Here was a chef who was aware of both the standards of modern cuisine and the robust cookery of the Aegean. Again the local clams were salty-fresh and the buttery tarts composed of the finest catch of the wine, dark sea.

But truly it was the main course that was spectacular: that afternoon I fell in love with all things Santorini. As is clear from the photo the ravioli is not the enclosed, Italianate pocket pasta, but rolls of perfectly cooked strips with – again! – blessedly fresh seafood with plump mussels and delightful squid, so perfectly prepared that the word rubbery was banished, and authoritatively and sharply seasoned crayfish and shrimp.

As magnificent as the ravioli was, it was surpassed (just barely!) by the risotto: rice in a fava bean sauce with a juicy roasted rabbit with an evocative rosemary jus: symphonic notes of Greek cuisine, but so expertly prepared that it would have been perfection if prepared by Escoffier. A month later I still dream of this brilliancy.

To close the afternoon, we were served a sturdy baklava with a startling Niotiko cheese ice cream. Not a showy dessert, but with the view appearing again, the dessert served its purpose.

Never have I been so pleasured by the combination of taste and scene. With God as designer and with Selene’s own divine kitchen staff, any grumpiness must quickly be voted off the island.

Selene
Fira, Santorini
+30-2286022249
http://www.selene.gr/

2009-02-22T13:14:00.002-06:00

Moto 2009

Last Tuesday I returned to Moto, Chicago’s premier molecular restaurant (at least if one places Alinea in its own transcendent category), and I was surprised at the changes. The restaurant looks much the same, but the cuisine feels different. The changes at moto may mirror those decisions made by many successful artistic rebels. After their moment of publicized rebellion – after they have thrown down the gauntlet and after the media has chronicled that gauntlet – the rebel needs to ask, “what now?” These heroes come to realize that there is a lot to be learned from the standards of the world from which they have rebelled. Perhaps symbolically when we were given our kitchen tour we did not need to wear protective googles – there was no laser in evidence.

Strikingly, the dish from the ten-course dinner (with a few extra courses) that I remember most clearly and most fondly is (almost) a dish that could easily have been served at any restaurant committed to contemporary cuisine. The kitchen presented a pan-seared Texas quail with modulated hot (pequin) pepper and celery three ways. Granted the dish arrived with an edible paper that was reminiscent of buffalo wings – the dish was ostensibly a deconstruction of buffalo wings – but what struck me was how sweet and luscious and even traditional the quail was. My tablemates agreed. The “Chicago steak dinner” was likewise a lovely, modernist dish with a beautifully cooked bit of prime rib eye. Yes, it was a deconstruction of the composition of such a dinner, but not a destruction of it. Perhaps the least effective was the faux “breakfast” – a coconut and passion fruit egg (white and yolk) served with crab cake tater tots and blood orange ketchen. The crab was extremely tasty, but the egg (a borrowing, if I recall correctly, from WD-50) was more curious than enjoyable, given a texture that was perhaps too reminiscent of plastic.

As with this “egg” dish, some of the Moto oddities – the powders and a little nitro and a Cuban sandwich shaped as a cigar with ash, but for the most part the tastes were strong. There were no dipping dots to be seen. Moto’s problem has been that the concept has on occasion overwhelmed the taste. The edible menu (as the amuse) is a case in point. No one would demand to eat this cracker were it not for the jest on which it is based (eating the menu).

Pastry Chef Ben Roche’s desserts were, as usual, most enjoyable, but not so different in spirit from what one might be served as Jean-Georges, Per Se, or, in Chicago, at Blackbird. They were compositions of flavor points, following modern canons, rather than provocations. And they were all the better for that.

Moto 2009 reveals a greater attention to flavor, while sometimes the presentation seems to be minimalist (such as the BBQ beans and slaw. The roadkill (described on the menu as “roadkill of fowl”), a now canonical dish at moto (a result of the visit I organized when the restaurant had first opened) is based on duck (not raccoon) and is much more elaborately plated. However, while the dish is tasty, it has lost some of its authenticity as a just-in-time creation.

So moto is changing, as it should be. Chef Homero Cantu seems to be considering what he needs to do, rather than what he can do. After all, if it is only the ideas that matter, what would justify return visits? Moto remains vital and exciting, clever and tasty: but now a restaurant that doesn’t need to strain so hard to be worthy of its diners’ love.

Moto's edible menu (Grand Tasting Menu version)

Passion fruit and coconut egg with crab tater tots and blood orange ketchup

Saffron Scallop with Lemon oil power, Orange and Shiso syrup

Deconstructed French onion soup: Gruyere and onion cracker

House made pequin (chili) quail with trio of celery

Smoked beef brisket, frozen cole slaw, and BBQ beans

Roadkill of fowl: duck, red and yellow beets, crunchy red rice

Chicago Steak Dinner

Pina Colada forms for dessert

Pumpkin pie forms for dessert

Moto
945 West Fulton Market Street (West Loop)
Chicago
312-491-0058
http://www.motorestaurant.com/

2008-10-17T23:17:00.002-05:00

Spanish Panache - Cinc Sentits – Barcelona

How can so many svelte women be on display in Barcelona? Don’t they know that four star dining abounds. Surely they must because they are to be found at those tables, but there must be a caloric catch somewhere. So much taste, so much elegance, so little time. Among these choices none is better than Cinc Sentits – a brilliant establishment that revels in the five senses (the soundtrack included Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Dean Martin - a pack of rats in a clean, cool trap). Of my meals within the boundaries of Barcelona, the finest meal was that splendid lunch at Cinc Sentits, a temple of light near the University of Barcelona. Cinc Sentits is a college of the senses.

I began with one of the most compelling and thrilling starters in recent memory: a shot glass filled with drama and with love: cava, cream, and maple syrup with a little salt as accompaniment: all of the passionate food groups were here: champagne, cream, sugar, and salt in a jewel-like composition. I was dazzled by the light.

A second, deeper starter was a tomato ice compote served with a slice of sausage, garlic foam, and small bread cubes: gazpacho deconstructed. The presentation was exquisitely composed and a cool counterpart to the hot streets of a waning Barcelona summer. By forcing the diner to contemplate the construction of gazpacho, it did what majestic modernist cuisine must do: to turn food into theory, while keeping it at the peak of delight.

Then followed a squat square of foie gras: a cube of liver with an elegant and rich pasty layer beneath and a crispy burnt sugar crust above. Like so many such dishes it might have overplayed a desire to transform foie into dessert, but what saved the dish from a sugary mass was the subtle play of textures throughout, as fetching as a rectangular crème brulee.

The seafood plate was a perfect rectangle of tuna in a smoked tomato water with a roasted onion “sofregit” (a tomato-onion-olive oil sauce) and black olive salt (Cinc Sentits is partial salt as a condiment). Perhaps tomato water represents the ultimate downsizing of French saucing, but such lightness makes one feel healthy, forgetting the calories elsewhere (The secret of Spanish beauties). If not as filled with drama as the amuse, it was a subtle, slinky dish.

Iberian suckling pig was the last in a trio of rectangular cuisine. Fatter and denser than what had been previously presented, this sous-vide pork – perhaps slightly mushy as served - wallowed in its richness, swathed in a crispy ratafia glaze (a fruit cordial) and sprinkled with (more) salt. The texture was a bit off, but the taste was dense and complex and precisely porcine. To recapitulate the lifeworld of a Spanish sow, apples served as the accompaniment: in cooked slices and as an apple jam with wine and honey.

Dessert was a plentiful plate of gloriously zesty Maresme strawberries (an area on the coast of Catalonia known for these ruby berries). On top sat a scoop of marscapone sorbet with some fennel and rose water. One can not term this combination “simple;” splendid is more precise. Airy, herbal, flowered, and divine.

Cinc Sentits is a restaurant for the five senses. By no means the most expensive restaurant within town limits, of my dozen meals this was the pinnacle. Cinc Sentits is Catalan splendor on high heels.

Cinc Sentits
Aribau 58 (Eixample)
Barcelona
93-323-9490
http://www.cincsentits.com/en/index.htm