Duck Liver Crostini Tuscane with Spicy Cucumber Salad

Pre post warning, portions of the prep of this dish are not very appetizing looking. 

To start this dish, the ingredients for the liver mixture were sauteed off in a pan.  This included chicken livers (duck livers again are very hard to source unless buying whole ducks) capers, onions, anchovies and red pepper flakes. 

This is the not so appetizing picture.  The ingredients that were sauteed got pureed and ready to go on grilled bread.

Once the liver pate was made I made the side salad which was cucumbers, olive oil red wine vinggar sugar and red pepper flakes. 

Then final plate.  The cucumber salad was delicious, the chicken liver crostini didn't do much for me. 

Broccoli Rabe Crostini wth Crotonese and Black Pepper Oregano Oil

So I'm a bit behind on these posts from Mario Batali's book.  I have cooked a few things from the book over the past several months I just haven't posted them.  Well here's one of them.

This is the only photo I took of this dish.  Broccoli Rabe is very difficult to find in grocery stores around here so I'm pretty sure I used kale instead.  The kale was boiled until tender and then tossed with garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and oregano.  I grilled off the bread and put the kale mixture on top and topped with thinly sliced fontina cheese.  Again the Crotonese cheese is nearly impossible to find so I used another sheep's milk cheese.  Then once the crostini is assembled it was drizled with an oregano, black pepper and oil concoction.  This made a wonderful side dish for my meal this particular evening. 

Next: Hollywood

With every new menu concept the people at Next are challenging themselves.  Sometimes within the strictest box they can find such as The French Laundry menu from October 28, 1996.  Sometimes it's within a specific style of food such as Ancient Rome or Modern Chinese.  Other times they challenge themselves with a complete abstract idea such as Childhood or with the current iteration, Hollywood. 

With this menu the chefs wanted to be inspired by the movies.  Some of the courses were the chef's recreations of dishes made famous within movies and sometimes the courses were inspired by the movie as a whole.

The initial table setting, had a script written as though the restaurant was a scene in a movie. 

The opening course was inspired by the iconic "Gone with the Wind"  this is a film reel used as a plate with a single bite of caviar, champagne gel and an edible paper with the word "damn" on it.  The word is from the famous line from the movie "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

No movie experience is complete with out popcorn.  This is a fancified version of it.  Popcorn that is dusted with fennel pollen and anise seed and then there is an ear of roasted baby corn wrapped in guanciale and topped with celery and meyer lemon hollandaise.  Simply amazing.

The next three bites were inspired by the lunch scene in "The Breakfast Club"  The drink was actually a watermelon gazpacho that was drizzled with Allison's pixie stick, in this case it was an oil concoction.  The sushi looking bite is inspired by Claire bringing sushi to the lunch.  The restaurant made a morel mushroom nigiri.  Then finally, the crustless sandwich made famous by Brian.  The restaurant took this up a notch.  The bread is actually aerated cheese and the inside is the classic BLT.

Next we go back to the all time classics with "The Wizard of Oz" and a dish inspired by the yellow brick road.  The sauce is a golden raisin sauce with Amarillo for a little bit of spice then topped with roasted romanseco and broccoli and a few small pieces of white anchovies and a smoked yogurt sauce.  Another home run from Jenner Tomaska and his team.

Notice that we had our first scene change.  The black table cloth was removed to show the table top covered in red foil.  The two bites that followed were inspired by "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."  The restaurant bough actual portholes for a real ship and plated the first bite which was a scallop cracker topped with passion fruit and other sea vegetation. The second course is a roasted octopus fermented black bean, pear, peanuts and oregano foam.

We move back into more modern movies with this one inspired by the mosquito trapped in amber used to fill in the dna of the dinosaurs in "Jurrasic Park"  This rye bread topped with a madeira gel.  This bite was ok, some of the flavors were a little off putting.

The next few bites were perfect for the inner nerd in all of us.  This is the "Star Wars" course.  The plate were toy guns that were painted to look like Han Solo's blaster, and I shit you not these guns made noises if you pulled the trigger.  Needless to say lots of half drunken photos were taken of my other dining companions posing with the guns.  Anyway, Jabba the Hut's favorite food in the movie is frogs.  The course is a fried frog fritter served on a nasturtium leaf.  The whole things is edible similar to a taco.  I loved loved loved this dish.

"Blade Runner" time.  The plate is an LED light that changed colors periodically.  On the servicing dish is home made ramen wrapped around roasted duck.  What an incredible bite, absolutely delicious.

The second and final scene change.  The foil was ripped away to reveal a table top wrapped in movie posters and then sealed.  Each table had different posters, ours had Clueless, Godzilla and several others. 

The next bite takes us from "Blade Runner" into a kids movie "Ratatouille"  As cliched as this course is, the team at Next would be remiss if they hadn't done it.  It's a ratatouille served on a tomato biyaldi whieh uses a metal mouse trap as a a plate.  This dish was a delicious as it was cute.

And we bounce right back into the not exactly family friendly realm with "The Godfather"  The course was a savory cannoli with a picture of a gun underneath evoking the line "Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

This course wasn't a specific movie, but a genre, horror.  The left side of the plate was smoked pork neck which tasted like the best pulled pork you've ever had.  The second component was spherified beet juice that was covered in edible silver leaf that when your pierced it acted like blood.  This was a crowd favorite of the night.  Everyone at the table loved it.  I'd definitely rank it as one of the better dishes I've had in my 17 trips to Next.

The next course was inspired by the Big Kahuna Burger from "Pulp Fiction."  The onion ring was made out of heart of palm.  The beef portion on the inside was cherry smoked and roasted A-5 Wagyu Beef braised in hawaiian flavors and wrapped in shiso and dressed with sesame seeds.  A-5 wagyu is the creme de la creme of beef in the world going for well over $100/pound retail. 

Next always employs a transitional course to get you from the last and heaviest savory course into the deserts.  This course was inspired by "Honey I Shrunk the Kids"  In addition to the actual plate they bring out a magnify glass that looks exactly like the Pixar logo.  The actual food was chamomile, foie gras and freeze dried strawberries.

The first desert was from "Marie Antoinette"  There were entirely too many components to remember on this dish but there was cotton candy involved.

The final bites were "Mary Poppins" and a spoonful of sugar which involved a vintage absinthe spoon and fernet, tons of black licorice flavors.  The chocolates include inspirations from "Forest Gump" life is like a box of chocolates.  The chocolates themselves drew inspiration from "Some Like it Hot"  "The Goonies"  and "The Nutty Professor" 

Next always does a great job, but the whimsy and playfulness of this menu really put it over the top.  I can not wait to head back in October for the primo menu of the year and the World's 50 Best menu which will be collaborations with a number of the chefs with restaurants on the World's 50 Best list.  It's going to be epic.