Gastronomie

Snap Peas

The table across from us had been keeping generally the same pace as us, and their next course arrived first. We smelled the place setting for this dish before we actually saw it. Joy and I immediately yelled, "lavendar!", but there was also something caramelly-smokey going on, too.

We watched as fluffy linen pillows were placed before each diner. As each dish was set down atop them, wispy tendrils of heavenly-scented vapor escaped from little pinholes in the pillow, and added something really special to the dish.

The food? House-made silken tofu, with a texture like pudding. Fried ham, toothsome and salty. Charred pork cheek (or something similar), crisp outside, meaty and tender inside. Fried tofu "skin", flavorless but a crispy chicharron-like texture. Yuzu emulsion, to bring it all together and add a beautiful, bright note. All enhanced with that seductive lavender "air".

This dish was another dance of textures. Brilliant.

 

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PB & J

1. Peel a beautiful seedless grape, leaving the stem attached & intact.
2. Smother that grape in the most perfect "peanut butter" ever -- salty, sweet, smooth as butter.
3. Wrap the whole thing in a paper-thin layer of brioche.
4. Watch the four crazy people at the table in the corner jump up and down in their seats, clapping their hands like three-year olds.

 

 

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Asparagus, Egg Yolk Drops

My generally hateful relationship with runny egg yolks is well-documented in the food blogosphere. However, let me repeat again that fully cooked egg yolks which do not SMELL eggy are fine by me.

This includes, apparently, what I'm calling "Egg Yolk Dippin' Dots" - Israeli couscous-sized grains of egg yolked poached in clarified butter. Really, now, what's not to like about that? They have a faintly spongey character, making them fun to eat, and they taste like heavily buttered scrambled eggs.

In a crazy take on classic asparagus & egg preparations, the Dippin Dots were nestled in a pretty glass bowl next to a small spear of asparagus and asparagus foam.

This dish was the first one that I just wanted MORE of when I'd cleared my bowl.

Incidentally, if you're keeping track, we're now on course number seven. Out of 22. We're not even a third of the way there.

Salsify

Have you ever been to Southern Oregon? There is a breath-taking natural bridge, close to where the Klamath River meets the Pacific, that I still dream about.

This dish brought back those memories in more ways than one - look at the arch of caramelized salsify. The pool of parsley oil perched lazily on smoked salmon cream, reminiscent of Oregon's rough-and-tumble Pacific and rocky sand.

And, of course, there are the plump red spheres of steelhead roe that pop just so, eliciting the scent of the ocean.

I loved this dish, and I found myself wondering if Chef had, in fact, stood in the very same spot in Oregon. Because how else could he have captured its essence so purely?

 

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Dungeness Crab

At the base of this dish is a mildly sweet and rich "cake" of raw parsnip, cashew and young coconut. Atop this sit poached or steamed claws of Dungeness crab, parsnip crisps, basil leaves and "noodles" of young coconut. Having never eaten fresh young coconut before, I found this course somewhat revelatory.

With this dish, we were served one of my favorite aromatic white wines, Susana Balbo "Crios" Torrontes. It's a crisp, incredibly fragrant wine with a fair bit of acidity to support the richness of the crab dish.

Now, you may have noticed that up until this course, the table beyond our dishes has been devoid of a centerpiece or flatware. So when we were presented with "silverware stages" -- a linen pillow for each diner which would subsequently be set with the appropriate flatware for each course.

As Joy put it so perfectly, "Pretentious? Yes. Silly? Yes. Awesome? Also yes."

Mango

This dish was the first one to truly showcase Chef Achatz's genius when it comes to combining flavors that seem disparate, but work together in stunning ways.

Here we have a frozen disk of mango puree, with a center of liquid sesame oil. On top is a droplet of soy sauce and grated dried bonito. We were instructed to allow the whole thing to melt away on our tongues. An extraordinary dance of sweet, tangy, salty, icy, creamy, oily...

At this point, we all realize that we are "playing with our food". That we can't wait to compare the next thing, and our impressions of it. This is fun. And we're only three dishes into 22.

 

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Lamb

Tucked beneath this veil of eucalyptus leaves hides a jewel-like morsel of lamb. The leaves have been heated to release their essential oil in a heavenly cloud of scent. The lamb rests atop a dab of intensely-flavored fava bean puree, and is lightly crusted with nicoise olives and akadjura, a "bush tomato" from, you guessed it, Australia.

It is delicious. And elegant. And incredibly flavorful. However, there IS a small flaw in the strikingly beautiful presentation. The meat doesn't want to stay on the end of the "spear" if it's lifted straight up, but if it's lifted with an angled "swoop", most of the fava been remains in the bowl, and it's hard to get back under all those leaves to get what's left behind.

 

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Hot Potato, Cold Potato

Suspended over a translucent bowl of chilled potato soup lives an acupuncture needle with, from bottom to top, parmesan, chilled butter (!), chive, warm potato and black truffle.

We were instructed to draw the needle away, and allow the above to fall into the soup. The interplay of textures and temperatures was a harbinger of the carefully composed dishes to come.

As I later discovered (by accident), the bowl is made of wax. After breaking mine, I promptly forced Jon to swap with me so as to save face.

With this dish, we selected glasses of '97 Feuillatte "Cuvee Palmes d'Or" Rose and '90 Pommery "Cuvee Louise".

 

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And Thus it Begins...

I swear this photo is not posed.

It's simply how a month of growing excitement, a weekend worth of nervous anxiety, and the shock of walking Through Grant Achatz's Looking Glass coalesce into a moment of pure giddiness.

We ate at Alinea last week. Joy is working on her post, which you know will be brilliant and amazing and funny. I'm going to write about a couple of courses at a time because, frankly, I'll never be able to do justice to it any other way.

 

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