Next: Kaiseki

So it was just over 1 year ago that season tickets for 2012 at Next Restaurant in Chicago went on sale.  On that Saturday I sat in front of my computer all day hoping to see that email come across saying that I could gain access to the restaurants website and make my purchase.  After 12 hours that email never came and from that time on I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure I ate all three menus anyway.  Last night was the culmination of that goal with my meal for Next:  Kaiseiki.  The meal last night came in perfect time to confirm that I will be attempting to get season tickets for 2013 which were announced earlier this week at the same time the three menus were announced next year.  I'm expecting it to be slightly easier to get tickets for next year primarily because there are no menus that will be a four hour meal that will only allow for one seating, which automatically makes a much larger number of season tickets available.  The restaurant also announced that they will likely be going to seven day a week service at some point during 2013, which should also open up some additional tickets.  Either way it will be another fun quest.  Ok, enough of my rambling, on to the pictures from last night.

 The center piece that greeted us at the table.  In traditional Next fashion the scroll on the table gave you the story about where Kaiseki started and how it got its name.  Also, I knew as soon as we sat down that the centerpiece would be used in a course at some point, which is a very Grant Achatz thing to do.  He does it at Alinea all the time. 

 The first plate that was set when we got to the restaurant.  The item on the top right is a charred corn husk.  Again a precursor for what was to come in the first course.

 And now the fun begins.  The first course was a charred sweet corn husk tea.  Originally, Kaiseiki was a tea ceremony so its only natural that today the meal starts with tea.  I don't usually like hot beverages (just ask my sister who gives me crap for it all the time), but this might have been the best thing served all night.  The tea was surprisingly sweet and definitely tasted like corn.  I would have never guessed that a person could coax that level of flavor out of corn husks.

 Course #2:  Chestnut, Apple, White Miso, Hay Aroma.  This dish consists of a chestnut flavor tofu (a serious texture thing, but still good).  The dish was garnished with raw apple, and white miso.  Here is where the center piece from the first picture comes in.  The waiter set the dishes down in front of all of us and then took a lighter to the hay in the center piece for the hay aroma. 

 Course #3, Japanese maple forest, by far the most beautiful plating of the night.  Some hits and some misses on this plate.  On the left is a boiled shrimp, top left are deep fried lotus root chips that were meant to be dipped in the sea urchin emuslion, then we have a parsnip chip that was topped with Blis Brook Trout Roe, there are deep fried shrimp legs that were outstanding, on top of the branches and you can't really see it were the deep fired shrimp heads (which weren't all that good) we also have slices of bottarga and finally there was a duck sushi which included a thinly sliced lightly cured duck breast wrapped around nori and something unidentifiable in the middle. 

 Course #4 was a sashimi dish.  There were three different fish in the bowl on the left one of which was salmon and for the life of me I can't remember was the other two were.  The gree sauce is a shiso sauce and the brown stuff was a tamari soy sauce. 

 Course #5 was one I was really looking forward to.  This is abalone cucumber and red sea grapes.  Abalone is a rare bivalve that is considered a real delicacy.  There were two different preparations for this dish.  Fanned out on top was a braised version and under all the garnishes is a raw slice.  We took this one down in one bite like a oyster shooter.  The flavor of this one was awesome, I didn't mind it too much but several of the other people at the table were put off by the chewy texture of the abalone.  Overall, a very fun dish.

 So here we have the soup dish.  This is Anago, Maple Dashi and Shimeji Mushrooms.  Anago is eel that is then placed in the bowl of maple dashi which is a broth that in this cash is infused with maple bark.  The shimeji mushrooms were outstanding as well.  The beauty of a lot of these dishes is that once you eat the fish and mushrooms out of the bowl it's perfectly ok to bring the bowl up to your mouth and drink the broth right from the bowl.

 Course #7 Matustake Chawanmushi and pine.  No Japanese meal would be complete without a version of this dish.  Chawanmushi is a steamed egg custard that was infused with matustake mushrooms (which are a ridiculously rare and expensive mushroom) and there is a small slice of the mushroom in the middle of the soup.  The pine comes in the form of an aroma in the centerpiece that had pine needles with some hot rocks.  This was a good dish, but man was it rich, it was tough to finish the whole thing.

 The grilled dish, the wait staff brings out this grill that is lit with the next course on it.  In this case we have barracuda filets.  I didn't get a picture of it but there were two sauces on our plates a wasabi leaf sauce and a soy sauce that was topped with egg yolks.  This was a really good dish, if they hadn't told me it was barracuda I would have never guessed it was barracuda.

 So I didn't take many pictures of the drinks that were served but the barracuda dish was served with this beer.  I could have sworn they were going to do a collaboration with Half Acre, but I guess not this is Hitachino Nest Nipponia part of the breweries Ancient Ale series.  The beer was great, the dish was great.

 Another classic, can't have a japanese meal with out something fried.  This is nasturtium flower, eggplant, and shiso leaf.  The flower was edible and had a nice peppery bite, the shiso and eggplant were perfectly fried and seasoned.  This was a huge hit with everyone at the table.

 The next course, Soup, Rice and Pickles.  The plating of this dish was pretty elaborate.  With this bowl comes out to the table its just the vegetables and some thinly sliced wagyu beef in the bowl and then they also set out the pickled vegetables which you'll see below plus bowls of  rice.  Then the wait staff comes with a tea pot and pours red miso broth into the  big bowl effectively cooking the beef.  Then you load up your bowl with the soup, rice and veggies.  The beef was perfect the broth was outstanding as were the vegetables. 

 The first of two deserts.  We have a deep fried maple leaf, a crystallized carrot, deep fried yuba (the skin that forms as you simmer pureed soybeans.  You can't see it but there's a soy milk ice cream and the yellow thing on the plate is a persimmion shell that is stuffed with a persimmion puree.  This was an absolutely fantastic dish, lots of things I had never tried before and would have never guessed that would have worked as a desert.

 The first component of the final course, this is called Warabi Mochi which is basically a green tea that is meant to be consumed in three or three and a half sips and never four because apparently the Japanese character for the number 4 is very similar to their character for death.  I know a great story to end the meal on.

The second piece of the final course.  This is a jelly that is coated with toast soy powder.  This was a very very interestign texture but the flavor was really good.


Overall, the team at Next surpassed expectations again.  I enjoyed this meal more than Sicily, but of course there's no way this meal could have surpassed El Bulli.  I loved seeing the tradition of how a Kaiseiki meal was to be presented and I loved seeing Chef Achatz's and Chef Beran's take on the tradition.