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.

.

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.

Green Onion Tamales

Christmas 2012 was the first year that my family didn't go to my dad's side for Christmas.  My Grandad had passed away 3 1/2 years earlier and my Grandma was no longer capable of taking care of herself and wasn't in the house anymore. 

Therefore, my parents were trying to figure out how we were going spend the day.  They decided to make tamales.  I had never had a tamale before, I think I've tried to make them before and failed horribly.  That afternoon, though convinced me that I really liked tamales. 

Today, I got a chance to make tamales for myself.  This version was green onion based and the recipe was from Bobby Flay.

The condiment for the tamales, green onion butter.  I brought a stick of butter to room temperature and mixed it with sliced green onions.

This recipe surprised me a bit in that I didn't realize that I was going to make my own masa, and not use corn flour and water.  For the masa though it's pretty simple, corn, shortening, butter, green onions, onions, chicken broth, corn meal, sugar, salt and pepper.  The corn husks are what you pack and cook the dough in.

The dough started by taking the corn onion and chicken broth and putting it into the food processor until the mixture was smooth.  I then combined the corn meal, sugar, salt, pepper until the dough formed and then I cut in the butter and shortening along with sliced green onions.  This is what the dough looked like before going into the corn husks.

The hardest part of the tamales was filling and tying the corn husks to make sure the dough cooked properly.  To prep the corn husks they soaked in water for a couple of hours and then were filled with a couple spoonfuls of dough.  I then folded them up into little pouches and tied them off with butcher's string.  Once All tied up, they went into a pan to steam for about an hour.

Once the tamales had steamed I removed them from the corn husks where they unfortunately kind of fell apart, which is a sign that they hadn't cooked quite enough.  I unpacked them and put them onto a baking sheet and finished them in the oven long enough to melt the butter.

Overall, delicious, I'd need to make little tweaks here and there but overall a fun dish, that wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought.

Cornish Game Hen with Bacon and Onions

So as a cook, fiance, and full time employee there are always going to be times where you need a really simple.  Something, as Anthony Bourdain once said, can be made with one had tied behind my back, standing on my head and with a bong in my mouth.  This is one of those dishes.  Cornish game hen (baby chicken), bacon and onions, can't get any easier and cheap than that.

Here's everything you need for the entire dish.  A cornish game hen, bacon and onions.  Cornish game hens are easily available at any grocery store.  Typically they come frozen in packs of two.  At Meijer there are stashed with the frozen turkey breasts.

This is the picture of the everything cooked, except for the bacon.  You'll just have to believe me when I describe how I cooked it. 

I first cut the bacon up into little slices and cooked that off to render the fat.  Once the bacon was cooked I pulled it out of the pan and put the split chicken in.  The chicken then cooked skin side down in a 500 degree oven with the onions for about 15 minutes. Seriously, that's it.

Once cooked I plated everything up.  Wham bam, thank you ma'am and you have a wonderful dinner.

Alinea: Anniversary Dinner

I'm not one for new years resolutions.  I find them petty and patronizing.  If you've known me is recent years you know that I'm not a big fan of going with the flow and doing everything that everyone else does.  However, if there would be a resolution I'd make it would be to do more blogging this year.

January 3 was the first anniversary of the first date I had with my wonderful fiance.  To celebrate, I made a reservation at Alinea a few months back.  Sam isn't the nearly the foodie that  I am so I take these opportunities to enlighten her about the food opportunities out there.

This was my second trip to Alinea, the first being 15 months ago.  My excitement was probably dampened a bit because I was going to spend time with the woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with rather than to satisfy the food nerd in me. 

Anyway on to the food.  First indication that something was up, 13 courses instead of 21.  Given that the price of admission was equal to if not more than the first time around I was skeptical.  But hell, it's Grant Achatz, as long as I get my Hot Potato, Cold Potato and Black Truffle Explosion I'll be happy.

Course #1 was Artic Char roe with banana, ginger and passion fruit.  It was a fantastic way to start the meal.  The saltiness of the fish roe was a perfect counterpoint to all of the fruit in the dish.

Course #2 was scallop, citrus aroma and fourteen textures.  Probably the most visually appealing dish of the night.  A clay pot was brought to the table that had a bed of seaweed in it.  The seaweek was topped with a scallop shell (which is damn near impossible to get.).  The shell was filled with the dish and everything topped off with some dry ice which provided the smoke effect.  The dish was delicious and the effects even better.

Course #3 started with a little campfire in the middle of the table.

The actual third course was called Dugeness Crab, Squash Blossom, Cardamom and saffron.  The crag was cooked confit (in fat) and served with a fried sliced thin squash blossom leaf.  The white stuff is a cauliflower puree.  Overall, this dish disappoiinted.

Course #4, finally resulted in the the playfulness that I know Grant Achatz to undertake.  You remember that fire from the last course.  Well in those coals was a piece of charred parsnip and a piece of high test wagyu beef that went into this course.  Grant, you're my hero.  Please make future Alinea meals like this all the time.  The wait staff disassembled the fire and pulled out the components of this dish and sliced table side.  Absolutely delicious, which should be expected when dealing with beef that cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100/pound.

Course #5, veal might be one of my biggest guilty pleasures.  Especially since I shouldn't feel guilty about eating it.  It's beef and it's tasty granted it's young and hasn't had the pleasure of living a bit longer like it's steak bound brethren.  But still delicious.  This was veal cheeks, lapsong souchong, pine, blackberry.  Everything worked well together, just not a mind blowing dish.

Now into the classics, course #6, the Hot Potato, Cold Potato soup.  The bowl is a restaurant made parafin wax bowl.  The soup inside is a cold potato soup.  On the pin is a small chunk of butter, a butter poached potato ball and a gratuitous slice of truffle.   You each it within about 30 second of it coming out because the hot potato is finished in hot butter right as the dish is plated.  An absolute homerun.  I noted to Sam that tables around us ruined the dish because they were at Alinea to say they were there and couldn't follow simple instructions on how to eat the dish.

A portion of Course #7, Duck ???  This was the duck portion, duck prepared four different ways and then a just for the hell of it foie gras torchon thrown in. 

The components for the duck dish, 60 various condiments that go nicely with duck.  The idea was to split the cooked duck and sample as much of the condiments as possible. 

Course #8 and the second dish that if they every took off the menu there would be riots on the streets of Chicago.  Black Truffle Expolsion.  This is a raviol that is filled with a black truffle puree and topped with a slick of black truffle.  You take everything down in one bite and you get a mouthful of black truffle goodness.

Course #9 was the trasitional course, Ginger, Five Flavors.  Little cubes of ginger with different flavors.  Some spicy some sweet. 

Another sort of transitional course for #10, Pumpkin, smoldering cinnamon, maple and pumpkin seed.  All the components except for the cinnamon stick were tempura fried.

Course #11, the first of the truly sweet courses.  Corn, White Chocolate, Honey and Mango.  This was a freeze dried corn cake with a white chocolate cup and chopped mango with honey sauce.  This was one of my favorites.

The messiest dish of the night.  You can see Sam doing her thing on hers in the lower right of the pic.  This is a green apple taffy filled with real helium to form a balloon.  You give the balloon a kiss and inhale and you sound like a little person for about 45 seconds.  Fun dish.

Final course, this is a classic Alinea presentation.  Full table plating for the final desert.  All of those swirls were done with nothing but a spoon.  Normally, Grant Achatz himself does this, but we were there on Saturday, four days before the next menu at Next opens, which means Chef Achatz was at Next for a friends and family preview (I have got to become friends with a staff member at Next).  One of the sous chefs did the presentation for the night, this is a chocolate tart with sweetened cream being the white stuff, violet sauce being the purple and a couple other things.  Again delicious.

Overall, I hate to say it, but I prefer Next.  This was my second trip to Alinea and they are rightfully one of the best restaurants in the world.  But in a 15 month increment I had three out of thirteen courses that were the same as my first trip and another three that were a version of what I had before.  That means over 50% of the meal I had experienced before.  I hate to say it but for $1,000 plus I expect a bit more variety.  Next provides me with a similar level of execution with the added level of completely different meals.  I love you Chef Achatz, but it will probably be several years before I'm back to Alinea.

Alinea at Home: King Crab, Vinegar, Aromatics, Seaweed

So my intro to this blog said I would share my failures with you.  This is definitely one of them.  Ultimately, I don't think this is not recipe error, but more user error.  The combination sounds funky, but ultimately I get how it would work.  I just took a couple missteps along the way.

The first step was the vinegar portion of the recipe.  In this case the vinegar got turned into jello.  The jello consisted of salt, white vinegar sugar agar agar gelatin sheets and water.  I soaked some three of the sheets in the water and then mixed the vinegar, salt, sgar and agar agar and eventually combined the two.

Once all the ingredients were mixed together I poured a portion of it into a dish and let it set in the fridge for a couple of hours.

O

Now time for the crab.  I've got a whole leg here.  This is sort of where I went wrong.  Long story short I should have cooked the crab in some way before going into this dish.

After extracting a portion of the crab leg, I poured the rest of the vinegar gel mixture over the top and let it set for another hour or so.

One of the flavor component of this dish was seaweed.  I took a bit of this and chopped it thinly.

No pictures of it but I cooked up some sushi rice for the side.  The crab was cut out of the dish and then placed under the broiler for a bit.  Another reason why I wished I had cooked the crab first.  Anyway the picture above is the final plate.  Like I said initially the favors would have all worked, except that the raw crab was a texture thing for me and I could on finish one bite.

Tapenade Crusted Salmon

Last week with the holiday was a series of relatively simple dishes.  This first one was really easy and nice mid-week dish if you are so inclined.  Tapenade is simply an olive paste and this dish takes a salmon filet, puts an olive crust on the flesh side and then you pan fry it.  That's it. 

The tapenade included nicoise olives, olive oil, anchovies, pine nuts and garlic.  That's the most complicated thing about this entire dish.  I took all of the ingredients and took them for a spin in the food processor which completed the paste.

  

Now I'll grant you a piece of salmon that beautiful probably didn't deserve to be treated this way it probably would have been much better served at a sushi bar.

I took the tapenade out of the boil and then pressed it on to the flesh side of the filet while the pan heated up.

The flesh side when into the oil that was put in a non-stick skillet, I flipped it after just a few minutes and let the oil do its work on the skin side.

The final plate.  After I cut into the meat I realized that I probably had the oil too hot as the crust was crispy but the fish was still basically raw on the inside.  Thankfully, I'm not one that gets too upset by that.