Next: Chicago Steak

The second highlight of my trip last weekend was the first menu of the year at Next.  This time around they are doing a steakhouse theme.  This is really the first time they've really taken on something that everyone knows, loves and has experienced at least once in their life time.  I was really anticipating this menu, so keep reading if you want to relive the journey with me.

The table set up, a classic steakhouse scene.  The menu in the center with the wine list.  This is the first time I've been to Next where you've had an option on what to drink besides the pairings that the restaurant offers.  Only problem is that Next has a very high opinion of themselves.  That's a saying my dad uses after he sees a wine list at a restaurant.  Not a single bottle on the list was less than $200 and there were two or three that were over $1,000.  You could cash in what you had paid for the drink pairings for a credit towards a bottle or two from the list, but then you were locked in to a single drink for the entire meal.  Huge, huge racket if you ask me.

The first course was Next's take on a classic crudite platter.  Instead of carrots, celery, tomatoes, and bell peppers.  Next used kale, cauliflower, cucumber, radicchio and baby fennel that was dusted with a dill pollen to mimic ranch dressing.  This course was served with a vodka martini, except that this wasn't a classic martini as they included a lot more vermouth than I would have normally and I think there was some orange liqueur in there as well.

In between the first and second courses the wait staff brought out a geridol that was showing off the beef that they would be serving us later in the night.

Course #2 Shrimp Cocktail, the quintessential steak house side dish.  This was a beautifully poached shrimp that was served with a fermented tomato, horseradish cocktail sauce.  The restaurant fermente the tomatoes for two weeks and then combined it with a hell of a lot of horseradish.  If you have sinus issues this sauce will clear them right up.

Course #3 was also the first time that we've ever been offered a choice of a course to eat at Next.  This was Next's take on a Surf and Turf.  You were given three different options at the beginning of the meal.  My brother had the grilled oyster and broccoli panzanella salad, I had grilled mussels, fried sweetbreads and tart cherries.  The third option that neither Joel nor I had was a surf clam and pasta dish.  I was a bit scared of this course because I normally don't like bi-valves and that's the only option I had.  Overall, this dish was outstanding and a perfect testament to why I should never do bi-valves at home.

The fourth course was prepared table side on a giant block of ice.  This dish was called LeVasseur Salad.  This was a salad of watercress, pine nuts, some olives, and olive oil poached frogs legs.  I'm not sure I had ever had frogs legs before and honestly, I haven't been missing much.  The restaurant had boned them out and there were only two small pieces on the plate that didn't have much flavor.  They served this course and the next course with a glass of Schloss Schonborn Estate Riesling Kabinett from 2006.

Before course #5 they bring out a demonstration plate of what we were going to eat next.  Salmon Coulibiac.  The dish is a whole King Salmon that is coated with a mushroom and shrimp duxelle and baked until golden brown and delicious.

The dish as plated and what we ate.  The salmon was served with a brown butter and herb sauce.

Course #6 was interesting given that there's still a huge steak in the future.  Lobster Thermidor.  This is poached lobster in what seems like a whole stick of butter per casserole pan.  This was rich upon rich upon rich.  The dish was served with apples, sherry and thyme foccacia bread.  The dish was served with a collaboration of Next's beverage team with Pipeworks Brewing.  They call this beer The One Horned Wonder and His Fanicful Flying Fresno.  It's a beer that brewed with fresno chiles, and it was really really good.

Now it's time for the main show the evening.  I didn't take photos of the individual components, but it's pretty obvious what this is.  Next serves a 30 day dry aged ribeye steak from Flannery Farms in California.  The whole course is served family style.  The steak is at 12 o'clock on the plate.  The sauces at 9, 7 and 5 o'clock are Sauce Kokonas, Capucine and Next Steak Sauce.  Sacue Kokonas is a sauce inspired by the Kokonas family, Nick Kokonas is one of the co-owners of Next.  Capucine is a sauce similar to bernaise but without the tarragon, and Next Steak Sauce is the restaurant's take on A-1.  The potato in the middle is a Two Jacket Potato which includes a crispy russet potato skin stuffed with home fries, potato and bone marrow mashed potatoes and as the waiter said every type of potato we could think of.  The salad on top of the steak was a brussels Sprout Salad and the dish in the 2 o'clock position is an onion paysan which is a caramelized onion gratin.

The highlight of the show and worth the wait.  Absolutely a home run.  The course was served with a huge red wine.  Dettori "Tenores" Romagnia Rosso from 2009.  This is a red wine that is fermented for two years in caves in uncovered vats.  I've never heard of a red wine that's been made in the what would be considered the lambic style.  One taste of this wine and the funk from the open fermentation was obvious.  I don't often try and track down the wines I have at Next or other restaurants, but this one might be one that I try and spring for.

The transitional course of the evening, Champagne Float.  This is a glass of Colin Extra Dry Premier Cru Champagne that has a piece of brioche ice cream in it.  Overall, the dish was good, but I'm curious, flattered and disgusted that Next decided to use and probably waste such a fantastic champagne on this course.  I loved the champagne, thoroughly enjoyed the ice cream they probably could have stayed apart.

The second time, they gave the diners two different courses, but this time we didn't have a choice they just set something in front of us.  Joel had the cheese cake brulee.  This was a cheese cake flavored creme brulee.  He thought it was too right so he let me finish it up.  I thought it was amazing.

I got the Norwegian Omlette that was served with Hazelnut, Cigar and Malt.  These is essentially a baked alaska with a hazelnut ice cream underneath.  The cigar and malt components of the dish come in the next step when they

LIGHT THE THING ON FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ok, I'm a pyro at heart, but I'm a sucker for anytime food gets lit on fire at the table.

The waiter tells you to blow out the dish when it reaches your desired doneness.  This is what it looked like when I got ready to eat it.

The final desert of the night.  Chocolate Mint, a mint and chocolate pudding that was topped with whipped cream.  Honestly, a less than stellar way to end the night.

 The standard end of meal menu pic.

And in a classic omage to the steakhouse a matchbook.  Too bad I couldn't have been smoking a cigar throughout the entire meal.

Overall, this meal hit my expectations.  I wasn't necessarily sure how they were going to do it.  When they first announced it I thought maybe they'd try to do different steak preparations.  But they didn't and they really executed it flawlessly.  The menu this summer is a modern taken on Chinese food, can't wait for that one.

ING: Salvador Dali

I spent this past weekend in Chicago for my first 2014 trip.  ING is located in the West Loop right next door to Next and is owned by Homaru Cantu who also owns Moto which is right next door to ING.  The 900 block of Fulton Market is kind of turning into the richest restaurant block in Chicago. 

This was third trip to ING, but I've never blogged about it.  ING stands for Imagine New Gastronomy and they tend to be very playful with what they do.  Homaru Cantu loves to make things that look like one thing but taste like something completely different.  That playfulness is a bit more restrained at ING than it is at Moto but there's still an element there. 

ING's menus are themed and they try to change them every 3 or 4 months or so much like Next, but less heralded for some reason.  The first menu I went to was The Wonder Years where they took childhood favorites and made them more adult.  The second was Street Food where to did their take on street food from around the world.  This menu is Salvador Dali where all the dishes were inspired by paintings or sayings of Salvador Dali. 

The full menu is a ten course meal which includes pairings all for $105/person so overall extremely reasonable.  Now onto the food.

So this is the menu.

The first course was inspired by a saying where Dali said "Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry."  This is a tapas dish that was titled Onion-Kalamata-Salt Cod.  The closest dish to the wrist is a piece of focacia topped with caramelized onions.  The olives are covered by a pepper, and the piece closes to the fingers is a salt cod croquette.  This was a really fun way to start the meal. This dish was served with a white wine out of California from the Mark Herald winery It was the 2012 Acha Blanca.

This is beet cubes that have been marinated in a bit of orage and then topped with I think some sort of honey cracker.  This dish is served with the miracle berry.  The miracle berry is a fruit that causes the taste buds to taste foods differently, meaning that sour foods tend to taste sweet.  This is something that Cantu loves to play with.  So the waiters tell you to eat about half the dish without the miracle berry.  Then you take the miracle berry which is a little tablet that dissolves in your mouth, you then bite the lemon to make sure that it's working and then you eat the rest of the dish.  I generally hate beets, and I really enjoyed this dish both with the miracle berry and without. ING loves to do inventive cocktails so with this dish the did a beet juice, artichoke liquor and mezcal with a bit of honey.

Dish #3 was inspired by what I think is Dali's most famous painting, if anyone who reads this blog is more in tune with art please correct me if I'm wrong, "Persistence of Memory" or melting clocks.  I forget what the product that the clocks were painted on, but the one in the front is over sauteed mushrooms, the one in the back is over a goat's milk panacotta.  The yellow stuff in the upper left is an espange which is a spanish frittata or omlette and the red sauce is a sofrito sauce.  I really really enjoyed this dish.

Course #4 was "Still Life Moving Fast"  The utensil of this dish is a spoon with a spiral handle that was filled with rosemary and thyme to give a bit of that aroma as you eat the dish.  In the bowl was a chicken rilette.  On the right was a pear sauce and I think a sauteed pear and on the right was a squash sauce with butter nut squash.  The green sauce in front is an herb pistou.  This wasn't one of my favorites, but it was still delicious.  This course was scheduled to be served with Allagash Dubbel Ale, however, for whatever reason they decided to serve it with Goose Island Pepe Nero.

Course #5, "Tuna Fishing"  I was a bit skeptical of this dish when it was described to me.  The broth is an onion broth and on the bottom was a potato croquette.  This is where I got skeptical, croquettes are supposed to be crunchy, so how in the world could one be soaked in broth be any good.  Over the top of the croquette was a piece of olive oil poached cobia.  Then on top of that was liquid nitrogen frozen onion noodles.  Each of the components on its own was delicious.  However, this dish got even better as everything melted together.  It turned into an amazing fish stew.  The pairing on this one was a Riesling from Bollig-Lebnert.

I forgot to take a picture of course #6 which was "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans" (Premonition of Civil War).  This was Chorizo-Garbanzo-Pork Jowel.  It was a broth that had a little bit of thinly sliced chorizo that was laced with garbanzo beans and had a pork jowl rilette.  Absolutely delicious and my favorite of the night until course #7.  This dish was supposed to be served with a Rauchbbier from Braueri Heller Trum, however, we got something else that I can not remember what it was.

This is Atavism at Twilight.  I was a bit scared of this dish when I knew it was coming up because I was already pretty full and I know how these meals work and I figured it was going to be an absolute gut bomb.  On the bottom of the bone was a parsnip and mashed potato mixture with bone marrow.  The meat in the middle was an oxtail rilette and on the right is an olive tapenade.  This dish came with the one and only red wine of the night which was rightfully big.  Alvea, Alange, Ensamblaje from 2009.

Course #8 was based on a quote from Dali "I spill Coffee on my Shirt..."  The spilled coffee in this dish was a cappuccino moose and a vanilla bean nougat in the top right and I really don't remember what the other components were.  However, what I do know was that everything was really good and I'm not a fan of coffee at all.  Of the three beers that were served, this is the one that actually on the menu.  Dark Horse Perkulator which is a coffee doppelbock.

Course #9, "Architectonic Angelus"  The stick is a frozen marshmallow and the sauces are brioche suace, cherry sauce, apricot sauce and pistachio sauce.  A very unique dish, though not one of my favorites.  On the ten course meal this wasn't scheduled to have a cocktail with it, but I had told the waiter that this was my third time here and they surprised me with a glass of 20% alcohol sherry.  It was amazing.

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The final course was "Metamorphosis of Narcissus"  This includes chocolate ice cream, brown butter ice cream (i think) on the bottom is hazelnut and fennel sauce.  A nice way to end the meal.  I'm not a huge fan of deserts so it's hard to blow me away with deserts.  The final cocktail was a mixture of Absinthe, frangelico and port.

Overall, I had a ton of fun with this meal.  If you enjoy art, and enjoy food, make sure you get to ING before March 1 and this menu is gone forever.