Tuesday, February 12, 2013

CSA Week 9 and its Uses


I have been seriously derelict in reporting on my CSA garden shares from Little River Market Garden this season. There are no excuses: my farmer, Muriel Olivares, somehow managed to keep things going even while giving birth to a beautiful baby girl right smack in the middle of the season. And she's even added more variety to this season's harvest, including new items like edamame and fresh ginger along with the usual panoply of greens, cabbages, heirloom tomatoes, root vegetables and herbs that we got last year.

So why haven't I done a single CSA post yet this season?


Well, it's partly because when you have tomatoes like these, there is no recipe that can possibly improve on them. You wash them, and then you pop them in your mouth like candy. Maybe halve them and salt them, drizzle them with olive oil if you must. Sure, I could do something more clever than that; but I don't. Even when I cook lately, it's been pretty simple stuff. Assembling a salad or braising some greens does not make for great reading.

Still and yet, I enjoy writing these CSA posts when I get around to doing so, and I especially like giving props to Muriel for the great things she does at Little River Market Garden. So here, then, is what happened to part of the latest garden share:

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Monday, February 11, 2013

Odd Couple Dinner - Daniel Serfer and Brad Kilgore at Blue Collar

That's just an example of the good-natured ribbing going on between chefs Danny Serfer and Brad Kilgore in the week leading up to their "Odd Couple" dinner at Serfer's Blue Collar restaurant. Why "Odd Couple"? Well, Kilgore is the culinary Felix Unger: before coming to Miami he worked at high-end Chicago places with a constellation of Michelin stars: Alinea, L20, Boka and Epic. When he was sous chef at Miami's Azul, Andrew Zimmern dubbed him "Wall Street" for his slick style and slicked-back hair. Yes, there are probably tweezers in his knife bag.

That would make Serfer the culinary Oscar Madison. His style is exactly as the name of his restaurant, tucked into the still-slightly-dodgy Biscayne Inn on Biscayne Boulevard, suggests: it's upscale diner food, straightforward, hearty, and if it's a little sloppy, well who cares? It'll still taste good. Truth is, Serfer's done the fine dining thing too, with several years at the now-closed Chef Allen's before opening his own place. Now he's cooking the food he wants to cook, and that people want to eat, as the popularity of Blue Collar will attest.


So when Brad and Danny decided to do a dinner together - possibly with some prodding from The Chowfather (who also "curated" some liquid refreshments) - "The Odd Couple" was a natural spin on it. Each chef ended up doing their own take on five different proteins, with desserts contributed by pastry chef Soroya Caraccioli (a/k/a Soroya Kilgore, who happens to be Brad's wife). It was a really fun meal where each chef stayed faithful to his style.

(You can see all my pictures in this Odd Couple Dinner flickr set).

Though the dinner wasn't billed as a competition, it's pretty much impossible to avoid comparisons, especially when eating the dishes side by side. So here's my take on each round, with some Iron Chef style commentary along the way (for another scorecard - and a really funny one - check out Chowfather's post on the Odd Couple dinner):

STONE CRAB

Right out the gate, both chefs were resorting to secret weapons. For Danny, it was a mini Portuguese muffin, something I've previously described as "the love child of an English muffin and brioche." It's the standard vehicle at Blue Collar for his great burger and the off-menu "Corben" sandwich. Here, it was the base for a "po'boy" of pulled stone crab meat, a smoked trout roe tartare sauce, all dressed with lettuce, tomato and onion. I didn't get a good picture, but I did get a good taste, and this was a great little sandwich.


Brad, meanwhile, went immediately to the nuclear option: bacon. A slab of cured and braised pork belly was the base for a mound of stone crab dressed in an uni-ricotta emulsion, topped with shavings of bottarga and snipped chives. I'm a sucker for pork and seafood combinations, and for uni, and for bottarga, and this was delicious, but I think Danny's po'boy did more to highlight the taste of the stone crab itself.

Round One: Danny.

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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Cobaya Khong


I have never been to Thailand. I've not had the chance to eat from a floating market vendor or a Bangkok street stall. But when Chef Piyarat Potha Arreeratn (a/k/a "Chef Bee") talks about preparing the food he grew up eating as a child, I feel pretty comfortable using that dangerous buzzword - authentic.

Chef Bee is the chef at Khong River House, which played host to our latest Cobaya dinner the Thursday before last. As always, our marching orders were simple: cook the dishes that get you excited, that you don't otherwise have a chance to serve at your restaurant. Chef Bee's response was as passionate and heartfelt as any we've ever experienced.  The result was a rewarding meal that provided a view of Thai cuisine we aren't often afforded by Miami's Thai restaurants.


Our dinner started with a trip up the stairs of Khong, named for the Mekong River which winds its way through China, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. In the comfortable upstairs hideaway,[1] a long table awaited, covered with blown-up photos from Chef Bee's trips back home. The bar was also set with some drinking snacks that would set the tone for the meal:



(You can see all my pictures from the meal in this Cobaya Khong flickr set.)

Dak Dae Tod are plump salt-and-pepper fried silk worm larvae. Mang Da Tod[2] are deep-fried water bugs, which chef Bee tossed with five-spice. Of the two, I genuinely enjoyed the former - the silkworm pupae had a pleasingly soft, almost creamy texture, and were as good a vehicle as any for the classic salt-and-pepper flavors. The water bug was more texturally challenging - the kind of papery feel of a shrimp head that's not quite been fried crispy enough to eat comfortably - but had an intriguing, almost floral flavor as you crunched down on its carcass which reminded me of elderflower. Though perhaps shocking to Western sensibilities, both are common Thai street snacks.

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Monday, January 28, 2013

Hey Man Nice Shot - Part 3

So all of a sudden restaurant photography - or the prohibition thereof - is a hot topic. At least the New York Times would have us believe that, according to a piece published last week: "Restaurants Turn Camera Shy." The article describes a "growing backlash" against in-restaurant food photography, citing bans imposed at places such as Momofuku Ko and Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare.

If this doesn't quite sound like breaking news to you - that's because it isn't. In fact, David Chang's ban on pictures at Ko already made the news cycle at least once before - nearly five years ago. Brooklyn Fare's no-photo policy (and no notes, and no cell-phones!) likewise has been around for at least a couple years.

People taking pictures in restaurants isn't anything new. Chefs and other diners being annoyed by people taking pictures in restaurants also isn't anything new. And while I can empathize with the sentiment, there are any number of other restaurant behaviors I find equally if not more annoying: loud cell-phone talking, sloppy drunkenness, heavy petting, lousy tipping.

So if you're going to do it, you ought to at least do it in a way that's least intrusive and offensive to your fellow diners, and also try to get the best shot possible, right? The NYT piece prompted a few good guidelines on that front: "How to Take a Picture in a Restaurant Without Looking Like a Jerk;" "Everyone: Taking Food Pictures in Restaurants is Not that Complicated;" and "Restaurant Food Photography: Is It Possible to Do It Well?" hit on most of the high points. To summarize: no flash; no tripods; no weird filters; no pictures of other people in the dining room; take your shots quickly; learn how to use your camera; don't clutter the table with equipment; and "Above all else, try not to be a dick."


I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I'd been given the opportunity to try out a Sony NEX-5R camera as part of a Sony / Flavorpill campaign. I've been using it a couple weeks now, and am finding it to be a great tool to fulfill most of these commandments. Its body is actually about a centimeter shorter than an iPhone and not much wider, other than the grip on the right-hand side. Though it won't fit in your pocket with the lens attached, it is still significantly less of a space-hog than a DSLR. But it still has virtually all of the capabilities of a DSLR: full manual control, very solid picture quality, good low-light performance, the flexibility of interchangeable lenses. You'll be able to see the results soon at the Sony Store - details to follow shortly.


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Momi Ramen - Miami


This idea of doing one thing, and doing it extremely well, is not often seen in Miami, at least not in the restaurant world. Miami is the land of the "Pan-Asian" eatery, full of places serving up Korean-Thai-Japanese-Vietnamese amalgams aimed to please all palates. It's the home of the Thai/Sushi joint, a merger inexplicable from a culinary basis, but mind-bogglingly ubiquitous around these parts. So many Miami restaurants try to be everything to everyone, and wind up doing precisely nothing very well.

You can't get sushi at Momi Ramen. Nor will you find tempura or teriyaki, pork buns or pad thai. Chef and owner Jeffrey Chen just wants to make ramen. And that's pretty much all that's on the menu at his restaurant, with about 25 seats and a glassed-in kitchen all tucked into an old house in the Brickell area off Miami Avenue.[1]


Though the ramen "trend" could be close to celebrating its tenth birthday in New York, it had been slow to make its way south to Miami. There have always been a few places where you could get a bowl of the hearty noodle soup - Hiro's Yakko-San offers a few different types, as does Su Shin Izakaya. And more recently, a few of the "next generation" Asian places have tried their hand at it - Gigi and Pubbelly both have their versions, Makoto actually does a very nice Taiwan style ramen with ground beef and a chile-infused broth, more recently Bloom and Shokudo trotted out their own takes. But none of these places claims to be a ramen specialist.[2]

Momi is something different entirely. Chen makes his own noodles several times daily. He makes a rich tonkotsu broth that takes most of a day and night to prepare. And each day he serves about a half-dozen variations on the theme of noodles and broth, assembled from a very short list of carefully chosen ingredients.[3]

(You can see all my pictures in this Momi Ramen flickr set.)


If you want variety, even among ramen styles, this is not the place to go. Indeed, rather than expanding the menu since Momi opened about a month ago, it's been pared back. Though the choices change a bit every time I've been in, that hearty tonkotsu broth, a slow-simmered pork bone stock that gets a creamy, lip-sticking, almost gravy-like consistency from the marrow in the bones and the conversion of collagen to gelatin, is at the heart of almost all the bowls offered at Momi.

If you ask me? That's just fine. Because there is a level of craftsmanship and attention to detail at Momi that has few peers in Miami - at any type of restaurant.

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Friday, January 18, 2013

Publican Pizzeria Pop-Up


If you were following Paul Kahan's career trajectory from a distance, you might think it was in a downward spiral: fifteen years ago he opened Blackbird, one of the top high-end restaurants in Chicago. Since then, he's opened a more casual small-plates tapas place, then a beer hall, then a taqueria, and most recently, a butcher shop. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. While his projects have been increasingly casual, they are all incredibly successful, and you will eat very well at any of them. As Michael Schwartz, the host for Chef Kahan's pop-up dinner at Harry's Pizzeria Tuesday night, said, if you went to Chicago and only ate at Kahan's restaurants, you would get an excellent cross-section of Chicago's culinary universe.

For the past year, Schwartz has been bringing some of the country's best chefs to Miami's doorstep to cook for an evening at Harry's. On our last visit to Chicago, Kahan's Blackbird and The Publican were two of our favorite meals, so when I saw his name on the upcoming schedule, I made sure to secure a spot.

Though the cooking at these Harry's "pop-ups" is always reflective of the visiting chef, the format of the dinners tends to follow the same pattern: an assortment of passed appetizers to start, including some variation on a pizza; and three or four courses all served family-style, usually taking advantage of Harry's wood-burning oven. Kahan's menu followed suit:


(You can see all my pictures in this Publican Pizzeria flickr set; pictures were taken with my new Sony NEX-5R, courtesy of Sony).


Things got off to a good start with a "fettunta" (the Tuscan version of what gets called "bruschetta" in the U.S.) topped with a creamy chicken liver mousse, tangy satsuma, and spicy, sweet and sour onions "agridulce," all providing great contrast to the rich liver shmear.


Chef Kahan went local style with a crudo of cobia, topped with kohlrabi and mint salsa verde. The mint nicely highlighted the freshness of the fish.


While the bacon-wrapped, chorizo-stuffed dates may be the "signature dish" at Avec, an argument could be made for the "deluxe focaccia," topped with taleggio and ricotta cheese, and just a whisper of truffle oil.

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Sunday, January 13, 2013

Hey Man Nice Shot - Part 2


Nearly four years ago when I started this blog, I thought about - and wrote about - my ambivalent feelings towards food photography. At that point, I was decidedly outside the camp of the "douchebags taking pictures of their food." Not that I had any problem with other people doing it, if done discreetly - indeed, I've always thoroughly enjoyed viewing the work product of talented photographers like A Life Worth Eating and Ulterior Epicure and Chuck Eats and Doc Sconz. I just knew I wasn't in that group and wasn't sure, even if I had such skills, that I wanted to be.

Four years later, I still feel like a complete hack of a photographer, but I'm a less reluctant one. I still don't particularly love taking pictures during a meal, but I'm grateful for having done so after the fact, to have something tangible by which to memorialize and in some ways relive the experience. There is truth to the saying that "We eat first with our eyes."

But for every gorgeous picture that captures the beauty and savor of a great dish, there are a dozen blurry, overexposed, flash-saturated, Instagram-filtered abominations that are the opposite of appetizing. I don't want to be one of those. So, if for no other reason than to honor the work of the chefs whose dishes I photograph, I have tried to improve my skills. I've learned what some of the different controls on my camera do. I bought a decent point-and-shoot with a larger sensor and a brighter lens that can shoot better in low-light situations. I even started to figure out how to use a real DSLR, when Frod Jr. got one for his birthday and generously loaned it out to me from time to time.

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