1500 Degrees - Miami Beach

It would have been easy to dismiss 1500°, which opened last October in the Eden Roc Hotel. Its combination of steakhouse and farm-to-table themes could easily seem a cynical effort to simultaneously play both the lowest common demoninator and the latest trendy fashion of restaurant buzzwords. Its chef, Paula DaSilva, was perhaps better known for a stint on the culinary torture porn that is the Gordon Ramsay-hosted Hell's Kitchen than for her work as chef de cuisine of Dean James Max's 3030 Ocean in Fort Lauderdale. And hotel restaurants on the Beach, with limited exceptions, have generally not been the most fertile dining grounds of late.

And yet ...

And yet, 3030 Ocean was a fine restaurant when DaSilva was running it. And yet, that "farm-to-table" routine may be more than just lip service, with a menu that features many local products and artisan producers like Benton's Hams.^[1] Maybe I should quit being so cynical and just try it. So I did, a couple times over the past couple months.

The truth is, 1500° really isn't much of a steakhouse at all. Yes, the name is a reference to the temperature of the broiler they use to cook their meats. But beef actually makes up only a small portion of the menu. In fact, the five steak choices (which include a mammoth 34 oz. porterhouse for two) are matched by an equal number of non-bovine entrées, and are vastly outnumbered by various, mostly non-beefy appetizers in various forms, and a plethora of vegetable sides. Which is a good thing: the steaks are OK, but the other stuff is mostly much better.

(continued ...)

CSA Weeks 1 through 11 (a/k/a "What Happened to the CSA Posts?")

This is now my third year doing a CSA with Little River Market Garden, and while the quality of the products keeps getting better and better, the frequency of my posting on them has precipitously declined. I managed only two posts all of last season, and here we are halfway through this season, and not a single report yet.

Part of the reason, honestly, is that in our home cooking we mostly sacrifice creativity for simplicity, if not expediency. And while a simple salad or some braised greens may make for good eating, I'm not convinced it makes for exciting reading. Still, it's one of the small highlights of every weekend to pick up my bag of vegetables from Farmer Muriel every Saturday. So here is a glimpse of what I've been doing with it.

Shaved kohlrabi and turnip salad. I think kohlrabi is a vastly underappreciated vegetable. It's got a satisfying snap to its texture and a flavor that reminds of broccoli, but sweeter and less farty. So I was excited to see kohlrabi at Muriel's stand this Saturday,^[1] and then even more excited to see a recipe using it from Ignacio Mattos of New York's Estela in the latest edition of Bon Appétit. In fact, it's a dish I had at the restaurant just last month.

This winter salad combines thin-sliced root vegetables (the magazine recipe uses kohlrabi; when I had it at the restaurant, it was with turnip - I used both) and apples, dressed simply with lemon juice, zest, and vinegar, together with fresh mint, nuts (the recipe called for hazelnuts but I had none and used marcona almonds instead) and cheese (I subbed parmesan for the funkier fossa cheese Mattos uses). It's deceptively simple, pretty, and incredibly satisfying: the crunch of the root vegetables, the refreshing tartness of the apples and lemon, the umami from the cheese and nuts, a bright grace note of fresh mint.

Spicy beans and wilted greens. This recipe, with some adaptations, was from last month's Bon Appétit,^[2] and brings a motherload of umami via anchovies and parmesan rinds cooked with the beans. We used every green we had in the fridge, which included kale, Swiss chard, turnip greens and kohlrabi greens. Some variation on this theme - greens, beans or a grain, and top it with an egg - is a regular dinner staple in our house.^[3]

Backyard tomatoes with burrata, spring onions and arugula. OK, the only thing here that actually came from my weekly CSA share was the onion (and maybe the arugula) - but the tomatoes were from seedlings I bought from Little River at the start of the season. That still counts. I've got about a half-dozen tomato plants going, and the first to bear fruit were the Sungold (a small orange-hued cherry tomato packed with flavor) and the Indigo Rose (almost black-skinned with a bright red interior and a round, sweet flavor). I added one larger grocery store heirloom tomato to bulk this up some. The mint green goddess dressing was inspired by the one served at Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonette's "Toro Pizzeria" dinner at Harry's Pizzeria last month.

(continued ...)

Blanca - Brooklyn, New York

"People take pictures of each other
Just to prove that they really existed."

A couple years ago, reports began to emanate of a second kitchen at Roberta's, a funky "third wave" pizzeria in deep Brooklyn. Roberta's chef Carlo Mirarchi was already turning out acclaimed pizzas. But this was something else - delicate fish crudos and composed dishes, "fantastical tales of aged birds and beef." Soon the mainstream media caught up, and word was out on these extremely limited edition tasting menus.

Demand ultimately led to a separate venue inside the Roberta's compound for these dinners, dubbed Blanca. Since opening about a year ago, Blanca has become known for a number of things: its artful, extensive, and expensive (currently $195pp) tasting menus; its extreme dry-aged meats program (not "fantastical" after all); its location in Bushwick (Roberta's is on a "grim street" in "basically a frontier community," according to Alan Richman, though Ruth Reichl didn't find it nearly so desolate recently); its extremely limited seating (12 spots, two seatings a night); its obtuse reservation "system" (since fixed);^[1] and its no-photos no-cellphones policy.

Some of these are more important to me than others. I'll travel pretty far - even Bushwick^[2] - and navigate a pretty tricky reservation system if there's something great to eat at the end of the ordeal. And as someone who started off this blogging venture with very ambivalent feelings about photography, I never really imagined that not being able to take pictures would have any impact on my enjoyment of a meal.

And yet I find myself now with ambivalent feelings about our meal a few months ago at Blanca, and I wonder if the no-photos policy has anything to do with it. I have vivid recollections of only a handful of the 20-ish courses we were served. Many others are only fuzzy vague memories; and some I don't recall at all.

Do people take pictures of their food just to prove that it existed? Does a dish no longer exist to me if I don't have a picture of it? Have I so externalized my own brain functions that I can no longer clearly remember something if I've not digitally recorded it somewhere? Or was it something else about the Blanca dining experience?

Here's what I do recall:

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travelogue: three days of eating (and other things) in and around Memphis, Tennessee

Despite getting to do my fair share of traveling, there are still huge swaths of this country I've never seen. With all of the family together over winter break, I aimed to make a small dent in the long list of "Places I Haven't Been" with a week-long, three-city trek that started in Memphis, Tennessee. As always, my pre-trip research resulted in a list of places to visit about five times longer than could possibly be achieved in the time we had. To see the complete list and plot your own adventure, click on this Memphis / Nashville / Louisville google map. Here's where we ate, with a few inedible highlights along the way.

If I knew one thing about Memphis food before this trip, it was dry-rub ribs. And if I knew one place to get them, it was Charles Vergos' Rendezvous, a nearly 70-year old restaurant downtown where you enter through a back alley and head downstairs into the basement. The ribs here are swabbed with a vinegar and spice mop, cooked over hot charcoal, then dusted with a heavy shower of dried spices. Except for a small puddle of the meat's own juices, there's not touched by any sauce, though there are a couple squeeze bottles on the table. These are not your fall-off-the-bone kind of ribs; they've still got some traction, matching the assertive flavors of pork and spice.

It's not your typical barbecue (in fact some might say it's not barbecue at all), and the place has a little bit of a tourist trap feel to it, but I've had plenty worse ribs than these. I was also fond of their slaw, which had a pronounced yellow mustard kick, and am grateful to Allison Riley for counseling me not to miss the simple pleasures of a sausage and cheese appetizer plate.

(You can see all my pictures in this Charles Vergos' Rendezvous flickr set).

Charles Vergos' Rendezvous
52 S. Second Street, Memphis, Tennessee
901.523.2746

Our first night in Memphis found us at The Second Line, a New Orleans inspired restaurant from Chef Kelly English. The Louisiana-born chef first started cooking professionally in New Orleans with culinary godfather John Besh, then made his way to Memphis to open his first spot, Restaurant Iris, in 2009. A few years later he opened The Second Line, a more casual place featuring lots of Big Easy staples, right next door to the fancier Iris.^[1]

What better way to start an evening than a sazerac? Followed by some New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp (with a shout-out to English's mentor: "Besh's BBQ Shrimp") and a nice loaf of French bread? All that was missing was, alas, my favorite part: the shrimp's heads. When I'd order these at Mr. B's Bistro in New Orleans or Red Light in Miami, I'd give Mrs. F all the meat and just suck on all the heads.^[2]

English's fried gulf oyster poboy, dressed with lettuce tomato mayo and pickles, was as good as any I've had in New Orleans (seen up close in cross-section here), with a hearty sidecar of red beans and rice. And while much of the menu consists of several other varieties of poboys, there's also a good beet and feta shwarma, and even a "reasonably healthy dinner salad" if you had ribs for lunch and don't see a fried oyster sandwich as an exercise in moderation.

For our first night in town, this hit all the right spots.

(You can see all my pictures in this The Second Line flickr set).

The Second Line
2144 Monroe Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee
901.590.2829

Much like eating dry-rub ribs, you can't go to Memphis and not go to Beale Street. This three-block stretch, with a history as an entertainment district stretching back to the 1800's, feels a bit like a low-budget Bourbon Street. It has its share of kitsch, but it also has its share of charm. I couldn't figure out why I was hearing an extra horn line over the recorded music coming from one of the bars until I spied a wandering trumpeter playing as he walked down the sidewalk.^[3] And a troupe of street gymnasts used Beale as the stage for an impressively athletic series of flips, culminating in this high air in front of the 140-year old A. Schwab Trading Co. store.

(continued ...)

A Very CSA Seder

The overwhelming majority of the time, I’m writing about other people’s cooking here. And for good reason: it’s a lot better and more interesting than my own cooking. Not that we don’t use our home kitchen – contrary to how it might appear sometimes, we don’t dine out every single night, and we do try, with varying degrees of success, to have at least a few home cooked meals each week. Occasionally, the results might even warrant an Instagram post, especially if I’m using something from my Little River Coop CSA, or the backyard garden. Rarely are they worth writing home about. But after cooking a Seder dinner for family and friends earlier this week, I was proud enough of the results to spend a little time memorializing it.

Passover is something of a culinary challenge: the whole prohibition on leavened grains can be pretty limiting, especially when it comes to dessert, and there are certain things that are expected: the matzo ball soup, the gefilte fish, the brisket, the tzimmes. I wanted to be respectful of tradition without being completely straitjacketed by it – let’s be honest, some of those old-timey dishes are better than others (for further reading: Charlotte Druckman, “Can You Update a Passover Menu and Still Satisfy Traditionalists?,” which was a source of much of the inspiration for my menu, though not any of the actual dishes). Also, I had a stockpile of CSA vegetables gathering in the refrigerator bin, and at least one vegetarian joining us for dinner.

So here’s what I came up with, and where applicable, where my recipes came from, with a few I made up myself:

(You can see all my pictures in this Passover Home Cooking flickr set).

To Nosh:

Beet Pickled Eggs - you’ll find a multitude of recipes for these online and elsewhere - my starting point was this Michael Solomonov recipe. I happened to already have a bunch of beet pickling liquid from some fairly ancient brined beets I made using the Bar Tartine recipe,^[1] so I used that as my base, diluting it with some water, reinforcing it with some white vinegar, and sweetening it with some sugar. I stuffed a dozen cooled, peeled hard-boiled eggs into a couple big jars and covered them with the beet liquid, then let them sit for two days in the fridge.

I was expecting our crowd to be skeptical of these – actually, I thought I'd be eating leftover pink egg salad sandwiches for the next week – but they were a big hit. The colors – sunny yellow yolk bordered by a ribbon of white fading into magenta exterior – are really striking, and the flavor has just enough pickle-y kick to let you know it’s there without being overwhelming. These are super easy, beautiful, and a crowd-pleaser.

Chopped Liver - when I was growing up, my grandmother – and then my mom – used to serve chopped chicken liver molded into the shape of a bird. Then everyone stopped eating chopped liver, which came to be regarded as deadly. I think it may be getting a bad rap. Yes, chicken livers, like many organ meats, are high in cholesterol, but they’re relatively low in fat and high in nutrients. Yes, you add some schmaltz, but you don’t need a ton. I followed this recipe from Russ & Daughters, subbing duck fat for chicken schmaltz because we were saving our schmaltz for the matzo balls. It says the yield is 8-10 servings, but you can probably comfortably serve this much to a group of twelve because there's going to be four people who don't eat liver. Besides, because it’s so rich and intense, you don’t need to eat all that much – just a couple shmears on some matzo, and you’ll be happy and fortified. I say “Bring Back Chopped Liver!”

Smoked Mackerel Dip - Unlike some people, I actually like gefilte fish, but sorry, I’m not going to make it from scratch. We happened to have some smoked mackerel fillets in a drawer of the fridge, so I figured - why not make a fish dip instead? I only stumbled across Felicity Cloake’s “How to Make the Perfect …” column in The Guardian by googling “smoked mackerel dip,” but appreciated the trial-and-error methodology of trying out multiple recipes and taking the best of each of them. It turned out quite nice, though I perked it up with supplemental additions of fresh horseradish, lemon and dill just before serving.^[2]

Traditional:

Matzo Ball Soup - This was Mrs. F’s domain. I tried to pass along helpful tips via Serious Eats for getting your balls to be sinkers or floaters or somewhere in between, but she had no interest. I did well to just leave her alone. Her broth was golden and clear and deeply chicken-y; her matzo balls were just substantial enough to let you feel their presence, but light and fluffy rather than leaden.

Chicken Marbella - Here I thought I was some kind of genius for suggesting we do Chicken Marbella for Passover dinner. Turns out that the Silver Palate Cookbook staple also has a long and well-established history on the Seder table.

Brisket - My mom makes the best brisket. Just saying. One day I'll pass along her secrets.

Not So Traditional:

Summer Squash Kugel - I’d accumulated an assortment of zucchini and summer squashes from CSA the past couple weeks, which nobody else in my family will eat. So I figured, I may as well unload them on my guests. But how? I hatched my plan: a kugel.

Kugels are usually stodgy, dense side dishes of potato or noodles bound with egg. The traditional style is pretty heavy and, let's be honest here, pretty bland. But maybe they didn’t have to be that way. Via the almighty google, I found inspiration in this Spring Zucchini Kugel recipe. The result was exactly what I was looking for: lots of layers of vegetables, bound but not weighted down by the eggs – almost like a very veg-intensive frittata or strata. And the lemon zest and mint really brighten up the flavors. Here’s how I did it:

Recipe:
4 lbs zucchini, summer squash or both
2 tbsp olive oil
4 eggs
½ cup matzo meal
1 tbsp lemon zest
2 tbsp mint, chiffonade
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400°.
Thinly slice the squash crosswise (a mandolin might be too thin, you want them to have just a little substance), toss in a large bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil and salt, and then lay out in a single layer on a sheet pan and roast at 400° for about 5-10 minutes. I didn't want to brown them so much as just to soften them and get some of the liquid out. You might need to use multiple sheet pans or do them in batches; a Silpat comes in handy. Remove to a colander and let them drain any additional moisture.
Reduce oven to 350°.
Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and stir until the white and yolk are blended. Add the cooked squash, sprinkle in ½ cup matzo meal, lemon zest, mint, and a good pinch of salt, and gently stir to blend (hands probably work best).
Coat the bottom and sides of a baking dish with the remaining olive oil, then gently dump the contents of the mixing bowl into the baking dish. Try to arrange the squash slices so they are laying flat rather than pointing up (most seem to settle into the right position on their own, and in any event, precision is not essential).
Bake at 350° for about 45-60 minutes, until browned on top and cooked through. Can be made in advance and reheated.

Kohlrabi Anna - Kohlrabi is arguably an even bigger CSA challenge than a load of zucchini. I actually love the odd vegetable, which looks kind of like an alien turnip, and tastes a lot like broccoli stems, but it can be a tough sell. I had an idea: Kohlrabi Anna. The classic Potatoes Anna involves thinly sliced potatoes layered with lots of butter and cooked in a pan until the outer surface is browned and crisp, and the potatoes are tender. I basically did the same thing, but with kohlrabi. I would have liked to have gotten a little more browning – I may have been too timid with the heat – but I really liked how this came out, the kohlrabi tender and nutty and sweet and suffused with butter. This also can be made ahead and reheated though it may lose whatever crunch it may have had.

Recipe:
4 kohlrabi
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp fresh thyme
Salt

Preheat oven to 375°.
Peel and thinly slice the kohlrabi into rounds.
Melt 1 tbsp of butter and toss the kohlrabi with the butter, salt and 1 tbsp of thyme.
Rub bottom and sides of a 10" cast iron skillet with 1 tbsp butter.
Arrange kohlrabi slices in circles around the bottom of the skillet, shingling them and overlapping the edges. Dot each layer with butter, sprinkle with salt, and continue layering kohlrabi slices until they're all used up.
Put the skillet on a medium-high heat burner on the stove for 10-20 minutes to brown the bottom. Then move skillet to the oven and cook for another 30-40 minutes, until kohlrabi are tender.
Remove from oven, and when feeling sufficiently bold, put a plate or cutting board over the top of the skillet, then flip the plate/cutting board and skillet – the kohlrabi should come out in one piece, like a cake.^[3] Garnish with more fresh thyme, cut into wedges, and serve.

Roasted Carrots with Za’atar and Green Harissa Aioli - Charlotte Druckman is right: tsimis is totally broken. Tsimis, or tzimmes, or tsimmes, no matter how you spell it, is usually pretty gross – an insipid, cloyingly sweet stew of carrots and dried fruit, often supplemented with other sugary vegetables like yams. There's no contrast in flavor (just sort of generically sweet) or texture (just sort of generically soft). I don't think anyone actually likes tzimmes.^[4] I was not going to make a tzimmes.

Instead, I took a few different varieties of CSA carrots, halved the fat ones, tossed with some olive oil and salt, and roasted them (400° for about 20-30 minutes, until the biggest ones were just barely fork tender), then sprinkled them with za'atar spice, and served them with a green harissa aioli.

My inspiration came from the fact that dessert involved a meringue, and I had a whole bunch of egg yolks left over.^[5] I saved one of them for a favorite kitchen trick: immersion blender aioli. The recipe I've linked to is on Serious Eats, but the first time I saw this done, it was by José Andrés. Kenji uses the stick blender for half the oil (the canola portion), and then blends the olive oil in by hand. This seems unnecessary to me – I dumped it in all at once, and it came out just lovely. For some real excitement, make it right in a jam jar that's barely large enough for all the ingredients. If you start with the immersion blender at the bottom of the jar, and slowly, gently move your way up, it perfectly emulsifies all the oil without any splatters, and no need to decant into another container.

Once the aioli is made, just stir in prepared green harissa – or any other flavoring you like – to taste. I used a couple tablespoons of this Mina Green Harissa, which I like quite a bit. I also cut back to just three garlic cloves in the aioli recipe, as I didn't want the garlic to be dominant. Not to set the bar too low, but this was better than tzimmes.

Bitter Greens with Horseradish Ranch - the traditional Seder plate includes bitter herbs – maror and chazeret – for which we now customarily use horseradish and romaine lettuce, respectively. I started thinking about how I could incorporate these flavors into a dish, and while staring at the latest bag of lettuces from my CSA, decided on a bitter greens salad with horseradish ranch dressing. Crunchy, peppery fresh radishes also seemed thematically appropriate. This is my go-to formula for a creamy salad dressing, which welcomes all manner of variations – different herbs, finely chopped chile peppers, a dash of hot sauce, some mashed avocado. No doubt it's a common formula, but I think I arrived at it by way of Andrew Carmellini's buttermilk dressing recipe in "American Flavor."

Recipe:
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp grated fresh horseradish
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
½ cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp Fresh dill, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt, to taste
1 big bag mixed salad greens, washed and dried
1 watermelon radish, thinly sliced
3 breakfast radishes, thinly sliced
3 hakurei turnips, thinly sliced

Add vinegar to mixing bowl. Add horseradish and garlic and steep for 5-30 minutes. Add buttermilk, yogurt, mayo, dill and stir until combined. Add lemon juice and salt to taste. Add radishes and turnips to salad greens,^[6] and toss with dressing.

Dessert:

Walnut Chocolate Dacquoise - I am not a baker. Dessert is generally the least exciting part of a meal for me, and I'm even less enthusiastic about making them. But I've been watching lots of Great British Baking Show on Netflix lately, and it's boosted my confidence a bit. And besides, Passover desserts are already pretty terrible (no leavened flour), so how badly could I do?

For whatever reason, meringue is a little easier for me to wrap my head around than most desserts, so I settled on this variation on a dacquoise. We had a big bag of walnuts in the house, and Mrs. F likes walnuts, so I substituted them for the hazelnuts. It was actually pretty easy: toast and chop the nuts, whip the egg whites to soft peaks, add sugar and whip to stiff peaks, mix in vanilla and almond extracts, then fold in the chopped nuts, chocolate chips, and melted chocolate. Then you spread the mixture out into three circles on parchment paper^[7] – as far as I'm concerned, they don't need to look perfect – and bake at 225° for 2 1/2 hours, then let them cool and dry out in the oven.

When you're ready for assembly, whip three cups of heavy cream with 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar until you have whipped cream; then spread a layer of whipped cream over one of the meringues, top with a second meringue, repeat, top with the third meringue, and repeat once more. I then stuck it in the freezer overnight, sliced it straight out of the freezer (some bits will break off; save the crumbs), then moved it to the fridge the morning of Seder dinner. Before serving, I sprinkled the top with chocolate shavings, crumbled toasted walnuts, and the pulverized crumbles of meringue that had broken off during slicing.

Folks: it was ridiculously good. The meringue was maybe a bit dense, but it had a good crunch and crumble, the flavor of the walnut and chocolate carried through, the whipped cream was an airy, fluffy contrast, and even if it kind of looks like it's falling apart around the edges, it sliced very nicely to show the alternating layers of meringue and cream. I may be stuck with Passover dessert duty now.

Chocolate Toffee Matzo - this was a recipe I pulled from Bon Appetit, and accomplishes the unique feat of making matzo actually taste good (though of course it's not the matzo, its' everything you put on top of it). The idea is you make a toffee from butter and sugar (with a pinch of Aleppo pepper), spread that on the matzo, bake it for about 10 minutes, then melt chocolate over the top in the residual heat, spread the chocolate, and sprinkle with pistachios, coconut flakes, cocoa nibs, flaky salt, and more Aleppo pepper. Great flavors here; the toffee component left something to be desired – whether because the instructions are flawed (I don't think a "simmer" gets the toffee thick enough) or my own failed execution, the toffee wasn't spreadable, and wound up more like a soak in a hot, sweet melted butter bath for the matzo. Sticking it in the freezer after it was fully assembled and cooled helped it firm up.

So we got to share the holiday with family and friends, we got to tell the story of Passover one more time, we drank wine and reclined, we used up a whole bunch of our CSA produce, and we discovered I can actually make a dessert. That was the fun part. Now comes the hard part – not eating bread for a week. Chag Sameach to all my fellow tribespeople, and as for the rest of you: please stop posting pictures of delectable baked goods for the next week.

^[1] Oh my gosh - could these have been the same pickled beets I wrote about making two years ago? Maybe.

^[2] While this menu is "kosher for Passover," it is not actually "kosher" – we’ve got both meat and milk all over the place at the same time. Hey, we each observe in our own ways.

^[3] When you pull it from the oven, give the skillet a little shake to make sure the kohlrabi isn't sticking (if it is, I'm not sure how to help you). If you flip it onto a cutting board (I find this easier than a dish because the cutting board is flat), you can then slide it from the cutting board onto a serving dish.

^[4] This is a big part of why Chicken Marbella makes so much sense as part of a Seder: you can offload all that sweet stuff into a meat dish where you at least get some contrast from the olives and capers and herbs.

^[5] Pro tip: with the rest of the yolks, make a lemon or other citrus curd (I had blood oranges, and used this recipe as a starting point, but used five yolks instead of the three yolks and three whole eggs called for in the recipe, and cut the sugar back to 1/4 cup); then dollop spoonfuls of the curd on macaroons.

^[6] The radishes can be sliced the day before and kept in ice water, they'll remain nice and crisp and this makes last-minute assembly easier.

^[7] I actually made a piping bag from a Ziploc with a corner cut off, but my piping was, well, pretty inartful (let's just say I was reminded of walking the dogs) and so I then spread it out into circles using an offset spatula.

travelogue: three days of dining (and other things) in Louisville, Kentucky

We finished 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee. We started 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky. Of our three-stop Southern road trip, Louisville was the only city I'd visited before. In fact I'd been there a few times, but only on work-related matters, and never saw much other than the New Albany, Indiana courthouse (just on the other side of the Ohio River) and my hotel.

That hotel, though, was a pretty special one. The 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville is very possibly one of the greatest places I've ever stayed.^[1] Its name is not just a marketing ploy: the basement is a gallery dedicated to 21st century art featuring both rotating exhibitions and selections from the hotel's own collection, and the focus on contemporary art permeates the entire space.

In addition to the gallery downstairs, artworks are incorporated throughout the property. Their signature red penguins (originally a commissioned art work for the 2005 Venice Biennale created by Cracking Art Group) lurk everywhere (and the staff regularly moves them around, so that you may exit your room in the morning and find one staring at you). The area in front of the elevators features an interactive digital video installation called "Text Rain" by Camille Utterback, in which letters cascade down upon a projected silhouette of the people standing in front of it. A chandelier festooned with menacingly pointed manicure scissors hangs in an upper floor common space.

(You can see all my pictures of the hotel in this 21c Museum Hotel flickr set).

The 21c also has a great restaurant – Proof on Main. During my earlier visits, the chef was Levon Wallace – who recently left Louisville to open a Cochon Butcher with Donald Link in our last stop, Nashville. The Proof kitchen has since changed hands a couple times, first to Michael Paley (who recently moved on to Austin, TX to open Central Standard), and now is run by Mike Wajda. Despite all the turnover, it's as strong as ever.

The food at Proof has a southern accent, but not an overwhelmingly strong one: enough that you can tell where it's from. It's also picked up several other curious inflections along the way: Chef Wajda plays around with Korean, Caribbean, even North African flavors, but the patois somehow feels natural, not contrived.

These "roasted bones" are a good example. It seems like 90% of the bone marrow dishes I see on restaurant menus simply recite the Fergus Henderson liturgy of parsley salad and coarse salt. Here, instead, Wajda brushes the bones with an XO butter, then plates them with an assortment of pungent house-made kimchis. There's a subtle nod back Fergus' way with a light salad dressed in a sesame miso vinaigrette, but also a bunch of strong, assertive flavors to play against the sticky richness of the marrow. It was an outstanding dish.

(All my pictures from the restaurant are in this Proof On Main flickr set).

Other appetizers are equally creative, like a sweet potato pop-tart with a chicken liver pâté "frosting" and a sprinkle of crispy cracklings, which was a hit even among the non-offal fans at the table. Even the more traditional stuff, like a smoked catfish dip or the house-made charcuterie, is well done and tasty.

I'm accustomed to a fall-off from the appetizers to the mains, but that wasn't the case at Proof. In fact, even a potentially nebbish dish like a stuffed chicken was done exceptionally well. This hen roulade (the bird came from Marksbury Farm in Lancaster, Kentucky) was one of the best iterations I've ever had: flavorful, juicy chicken, crisp skin, a savory smoked pork stuffing, a dappling of jus, some roasted and fresh winter vegetables underneath. The "hog and dumplings" was also great, a Caribbean -Southern hybrid with a brightly jerk-spiced pork sausage ragu topped with big puffy featherweight dumplings that were like oversized gnudi.

Pecan pie can be cloyingly sugary, but Proof's finds a nice balance with a shot of Kentucky bourbon for a bit of an edge, and a scoop of buttermilk gelato for some creamy tang. If that's not sweet enough for you, every dinner finishes with a big pouf of pink cotton candy.

While many hotel restaurants mail it in for breakfast, we ate well in the mornings at Proof too, like their southern take on eggs benedict with a cornmeal biscuit, country ham and red-eye hollandaise, and an inspired smoked salmon and egg salad sandwich on everything-spice brioche. The bar at Proof also lives up to the name, and stocks one of the broadest – and most fairly priced – bourbon selections I've encountered, some of which can be sampled in themed tastings like the "Bottled In Bond" flight.^[2]

Proof On Main
702 West Main Street, Louisville, Kentucky
502.217.6360

The following day featured more bourbon, as we started the morning at the Frazier History Museum down the street. In addition to a nice Lewis and Clark exhibition (I am a sucker for things Lewis and Clark related), there was also an exhibition on Prohibition and Kentucky, sponsored by the (completely impartial) Kentucky Distillers Association. It featured some great pieces of temperance propaganda, like this "Moral and Physical Thermometer" of temperance and intemperance. Clearly, the descent is quick from idleness and peevishness to suicide, death and the gallows. It was also interesting to see the federal prohibition permit issued to Frankfort Distillery, then the producer of Four Roses Bourbon, which allowed it to be one of the few distilleries that could continue selling bourbon for "medicinal" purposes throughout prohibition.

The exhibition makes a pretty compelling argument that prohibition was counter-productive in many ways: it depressed the economy, encouraged excessive illicit drinking, fostered organized crime, and overtaxed the court and penal systems, which spent an overwhelming proportion of their resources dealing with prohibition-related crimes.

All of which just made me want to have a nip of the stuff. Fortunately, we'd made arrangements to do a tour at Willett Distillery in Bardstown that afternoon.

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Quince Restaurant | San Francisco

Quince Restaurant is something of an anachronism. In these days of bare tables and and backless stools and leather-aproned servers, here there are still white linens and cushions and tailored suits. Refinement. Elegance.

I wasn't so sure I cared about such things so much any more, but a solo meal there a few months ago left me feeling happily coddled like a soft, warm, perfectly cooked egg. It's not just the trappings, it's the entire gestalt of the place: you don't feel so much like a customer as the guest of a wealthy, thoughtful friend. If fine dining is dead, Quince never got around to reading the obituary.

I was basically killing time before a red-eye flight home from San Francisco, and Quince might not have been on my radar but for several people mentioning it when I went fishing for suggestions on twitter. Then I recalled that on our last visit to San Francisco, we'd stayed just up the street from its more casual sibling, Cotogna, right in the path of a cloud of intoxicating aromas which emanated from the kitchen every afternoon. So I'd booked an early reservation, and now settled into a banquette (one of the joys of solo dining is getting to sit in the comfy seat) and watched as the room slowly filled. A cut crystal coupe was also filled with champagne, as an assortment of amuse-bouches was brought to the table.

(You can see all my pictures in this Quince Restaurant flickr set).

A finely minced steak tartare wrapped within a cylinder of bric pastry, dabbed with a tart gribiche sauce; a bon-bon of pickled persimmon with marcona almonds; a delicate croqueta of jamón ibérico dabbed with sweet onion jam; a featherweight chicharrón cracker, with a delightful crackle.

There was a stretch of a few months where every tasting menu I tried started with an oyster. If it's a good oyster, I'm OK with that. This one – from Fanny Bay in British Columbia – was a good one, its fluted shell also bearing some little horseradish pearls, a pink peppercorn mignonette and tiny tarragon leaves (a great accent mark over the cucumber-y flavor of the oyster).

Light and delicate, this little salad of empire clam^[1] with purple borage flowers, fennel and meyer lemon, all nestled over a bright green borage leaf purée, arrived in a long, skinny dish reminiscent of a razor clam shell. For an eating utensil, they provided the same item with which it was plated: tweezers.

Clearly, Chef Michael Tusk likes caviar.  If you're not up for a full tasting menu, Quince has a salon where you can order several items a la carte, including an entire menu devoted to caviar selections. In the dining room, it was served two ways: on one side, a ring of tender brioche adorned with generous quenelles of Tsar Nicolai reserve caviar, buttons of creme fraiche and vibrant flower petals; on the other, a bed of creamy sea urchin, topped with an even more generous spoonful of steely grey roe, with a fine julienne of fennel and apple which provided a beautiful lift and brightness to the dish.

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Best Dishes of 2014 - Part 1

Sixty dishes? Really?

Well, it's been a really good year. 2014 started with a snowed-in fairy tale of a weekend in New York City. In February, Mrs. F and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary with a two-week trip to Japan that was every bit as thrilling as I had hoped, and then some. The next month, college visits for Frod Jr. over spring break provided a good excuse to visit Los Angeles for the first time in ages. Then the summer included a quick return to New York as well as visits to Toronto, Boston, Maine and Quebec. A brief Chicago jaunt in October served up a couple of my best meals of the year.

In between all of that, my hometown Miami has had a great year too. Several new restaurants have quickly become favorites, a new generation of young talent is starting to emerge, and established chefs have added to their repertoires. This may have been as good a year for Miami's food scene as there has been in the five years since I started writing this blog.

These dishes are presented in the order I ate them (this first batch is pretty Japan-intensive); you can see a full set of pictures in my Best Dishes of 2014 flickr set.

Whole-Roasted Chicken for Two – The NoMad (New York) (see all my pictures from NoMad)

We arrived in New York just after New Years Day as a massive snowstorm was overtaking the city. Safely ensconced in the NoMad Hotel, we scurried around the corner for oysters and a carta di musica at the John Dory before settling in for drinks at the NoMad bar and then dinner at Daniel Humm's restaurant. The NoMad chicken is famous, and justifiably so: it is among the best birds I've ever eaten. The gorgeously burnished skin holds a layer of foie gras, brioche and truffle stuffing which perfumes the tender breast meat. The legs are made into a rich ragout with morels, a soft egg, and a tangy hollandaise. We awoke the next morning to an eery silence: not a single car on Broadway, all the streets still blanketed with snow. I can't imagine a better way to start the new year.

Ikura – 15 East (New York) (see my pictures from 15 East)

As a sort of warm-up for our upcoming Japan trip, we spent one of our nights in New York at 15 East for an omakase sushi fest with Chef Masato Shimitzu. It may not get the same attention as the astronomically priced Masa or fashionable upstarts like Sushi Nakazawa, but it was one of the best sushi experiences we've had outside of Japan. All the fish was excellent, but the standout was the ikura, glistening like jewels, enhanced but not overwhelmed by a dashi, soy and mirin cure.

Egg Salad and Mojama on Matzo; Mussels Escabeche – Estela (New York) (see all my pictures from Estela)

For the past year, everyone in New York has been going nuts over Estela. From the outside, it was hard to tell exactly why. The dishes drawing raves sounded, and often looked, so plain. But having paid a visit, I now understand that Chef Ignacio Mattos likes to deliberately conceal the restaurant's charms. Descriptions are minimalist; his plating style is often almost aggressively unphotogenic (to say nothing of the dim, candlelit dining room). And yet his food is unique and delicious, in a trend-less way that is a welcome respite from the cookie-cutter approach you see in many restaurants around the country these days. We especially liked his rich, creamy egg salad served over crisp matzo garnished with a generous shaving of dried, salt-cured tuna; and the mussels escabeche served with a garden of herbs and vegetables over olive-oil drenched toast.

Pastrami Tartare – Josh's Deli (Surfside) (read my thoughts and see all my pictures from dinner at Josh's)

I unabashedly love what Joshua Marcus is doing at Josh's Deli. He cures his own corned beef, smokes his own salmon, bakes his own bagels; but despite the anachronistic focus on all house-made everything, this is not just a nostalgia trip. Classics share space with esoterica like "Jewban" sandwiches and zucchini latkes topped with tzatziki and salmon roe. On and off this past year he's rolled out a dinner menu that was very much in the same spirit. The best thing I had was this pastrami tartare, topped with a raw quail egg, bound with an oyster caesar dressing, and presented with a crisp bagel chip for scooping.

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In the Test Kitchen at Paradigm (Part I) - Sunny Isles

This is the first of a multi-part series of posts. Click here for Part II and for Lessons Learned in the Test Kitchen.

“Paradigm – the Test Kitchen” is a once-a-week “restaurant within a restaurant” in Neomi’s Grill at the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, featuring multi-course tasting menus that explore some of the more contemporary concepts and techniques being batted about the culinary universe these days. I’ve been wanting to write about “Paradigm” since I started this blog, but had been lacking new material. I have been to a couple of these dinners already (as well as a pre-Paradigm birthday party dinner, which in retrospect turned out to be something of a dry run for the Paradigm format), but those were several months ago and I’d already given extensive recaps of them elsewhere.

Paradigm is an “interactive” dining experience – the chefs come out to explain several of the dishes, many involve tableside final prep (smoking guns, espuma garnishes, consommé poured at the table), and some even involve diner participation like the nuoc mom “noodles” extruded from a squirt bottle into a warm broth that we had at one dinner (modeled after Wylie Dufresne’s “instant noodles” at wd~50). As an amateur cook and curious diner, I’m always interested in seeing and learning how the food actually gets to the plate. Give me a choice between a seat at a bustling kitchen bar where you’re at risk of being jostled by waiters picking up orders at the pass, or a plush banquette with white tablecloths, and I’ll take the kitchen bar every time. I like to see, and smell, and hear, the transformation from raw ingredients to finished dish; I also just enjoy watching the rough ballet of a well-coordinated kitchen.

Neomi's Chef de Cuisine Chad Galiano and I tend to have the same online reading lists, and when Grant Achatz started a discussion about open kitchens and interactive dining, it prompted some thinking. The Achatz column, and a follow up, traced the evolution and implementation of a new idea at Alinea, where a big silicon “plate” is unfurled over the entire table and the chefs come out of the kitchen to do the final assembly of a dish on the gigantic “plate.” My initial reaction to the Achatz piece was that it was interesting, but more akin to the traditional tableside service than it was to a genuine open kitchen (though seeing the pictures piqued my curiosity further). While it sounds like fun, I’m not sure that it’s what some diners – myself at least – seek in the “open kitchen” experience. It may not be true of everyone – and it may defuse some of the “mystery” of the textural and other transformations that are among the hallmarks of much contemporary cooking – but some of us actually want to see the whole process, and see the kitchen actually at work instead of putting on a show.

We traded some emails, which led to the following proposal from Executive Chef Kurtis Jantz and Chef Chad: come in for a Paradigm dinner, but there would be no seat at the table for me. Instead, I would join them in the kitchen, watch (and possibly “help”) as dishes were being prepared, and they’d make an extra plate of each dish for me and I could eat it standing up in the kitchen. As an extra bonus, Chef Christopher Windus of BlueZoo in Orlando would be in as collaborating guest chef. Now this would be an interactive dining experience. Needless to say, this was an offer I accepted eagerly.

After spending 6+ hours in the Neomi’s Grill kitchen for a Paradigm dinner service this past Friday, I have much to tell. First off, let me again express my gratitude to Chefs K, Chad and Chris, as well as the entire staff at Neomi’s, for putting up with me as I got to experience my “chef’s fantasy camp.” Everyone was tremendously friendly and accommodating. I’ve been kicking around how best to share the experience, and eventually arrived at a multi-part approach; a “running diary” a la Bill Simmons’ NBA draft diaries, and then perhaps a list of “lessons learned.”

A complete set of my pictures from the evening can be found here on flickr.

5:30 pm – I get to the restaurant, ask for Chef Chad, and he comes out and brings me around back into the kitchen for a quick tour and introductions. The kitchen is a bit of a maze and I’m thinking I should be leaving a trail of bread crumbs. Chad introduces me to the rest of the folks – Pablo working sauté, Moe working pantry, Kenold working the grill, Marianne working everywhere. Pastry Chef Fabian di Paolo pops in and out. The kitchen is about 15 degrees warmer than the restaurant, and I almost immediately break into a sweat. This is one of my great talents - Mrs. F calls me "alpaca" because I'm a heavy sweater. Howie Kleinberg's got nothing on me.

5:33 pm – a look at tonight’s menu. Eleven courses total (a little more elaborate even than the typical Paradigm dinner). Chefs K, Chad and Chris have been brainstorming on the menu for most of the past week. There are handwritten notes here and there and drawings for what plates will be used for each course. I’ve had these meals before but never really thought about the logistics in any great detail. They are confounding. Eleven courses, each of which has on average about five components, makes for more than 50 moving pieces. Wow.

5:34 pm – Chef K is in his office (I’ve seen bigger broom closets) with one of the assistant chefs, Osnel. Chef K is going on vacation for a few days and is debriefing on everything that will need to happen in his absence.

5:36 pm – Chef Mike (nice to see him back in the kitchen) brings me a chef’s jacket and apron to wear. OK, I’ll admit it. I feel pretty cool wearing a chef’s jacket. I’m like a kid at Wannadoo City. And, yes, I'm a dork.

5:38 pm – Chef Chad is ready to put me to work. At a station he’s set up a squeeze bottle filled with Emmental cheese thinned down with milk to a loose fondue consistency, a couple bowls filled with what looks like water, a tablespoon, and a spoon that looks like a metal Chinese soup spoon but slotted, with holes in the bottom. I’ve got an idea of what’s coming – spherification! One of the bowls has had some sodium alginate (a product derived from seaweed) added, producing a reaction with the calcium in the cheese (a little extra is added) so that when a blob of the cheese goes into the alginate solution it forms a firmer skin or membrane around the outside, but remains liquid in the center. Presto – a liquid-filled cheese orb! And no sharp objects involved.

5:39 pm – Chef Chad shows me the technique of squeezing some of the cheese into a tablespoon filled with the alginate solution, then unloading into the bowl, then, after a short time to let the membrane form, scooping it with the slotted spoon into the second water bowl to hold for service. And away we go – I’m spherifying! Actually reverse spherifying, if we want to be precise (“normal” spherification adds the sodium alginate to the flavored liquid, then puts it into a calcium chloride bath; “reverse” spherification has the calcium in the liquid and uses a sodium alginate bath). I announce to noone in particular that I am going to add “molecular gastronomer” to my business card.

5:42 pm – Chef Chad introduces me to Chef Chris Windus from BlueZoo. If Chef Chris weren’t wearing chef’s whites, I would have guessed that he was an NFL linebacker. He’s got a smirk on his face that seems to say, “Who let this joker into the kitchen?” Over the course of the evening, I’m somewhat relieved to see that this may just be an expression of perpetual bemusement. Or maybe I’m letting myself off too easy.

5:54 pm – I’m still spherifying. I can only do a few of these at a time as they seem to want to stick together. And I’m nervous. Whenever I’ve seen spheres, they’ve always looked so perfectly round. Mine? Not so much. Chef Chad comes by and looks at one, kindly says “It looks like a heart.” OK, not really what we’re shooting for but still it’s cute, right? But to me it just looks like it’s got a butt crack. I’m hoping these smooth out some as they soak.

6:00 pm – I’ve got about 30-some-odd Emmental cheese spheres done now. There’s only 10 diners and only one of these is going on each plate for a particular dish, but I want to give them a high margin for error. Besides, it’s fun.

6:23 pm – Jacob Katel from New Times shows up. His food porn on Short Order often makes me drool. I’m astonished to see the tiny little camera he uses for his work.

6:30 pm – feels like the calm before the storm. Marianne is working on a pistachio brittle for one of the dishes. Marie, who usually works banquet garde manger, comes in and starts helping out. I later find out she's doing this off the clock just to learn. She also gives me the “Who let this joker into the kitchen?” look.

6:36 pm – maybe for some, being an Executive Chef is all just glory, appearances at food festivals and guest judging on Top Chef. If you read Eric Ripert’s “On the Line,” for instance, you don’t get the impression he’s actually stepping behind the line and cooking all that often any more. But there’s Chef K, chopping onions. Maybe he’s just putting on a show for me.

6:42 pm – so much of this meal is planned, and indeed many components are prepared well in advance of service, and yet you always have to be ready to improvise. Chef K is unhappy with how the batter for some onion rings is setting up. It worked fine yesterday, but today it’s just soaking up oil; has me try one – it’s greasy. Going to try adding more flour but may just start from scratch.

6:47 pm – I notice that Chef Chris has been wheeling around the Anti-Griddle (it’s like a griddle but with cold instead of heat, so that you can quickly freeze liquids on its surface) brought down with him from Orlando and plugging it into different outlets. About 30 seconds after he flips the power switch, it makes a sputtering sound. That’s not good.

6:53 pm – Chef Chad brings me one of Chef Chris’ liquid corn ravioli to try – straight out of a buttery sauté pan. It is fantastic. The pasta texture is silky but still has some substance to it, and the corn filling is oozy, salty, sweet and bursting with fresh corn flavor. One bite and I know where I’m eating next time I’m in Orlando.

6:58 pm – Chef Chris is still hauling the Anti-Griddle from outlet to outlet, trying to find one that will make it happy. So far, no such luck.

7:04 pm – Chef Chad invites me to help with assembly of the first course, the “raza’ chowda.” This dish has all the components of a clam chowder, but they’re going to be assembled in a hollow glass tube; you slurp on one end, and get all the contents in your mouth at once. Diced razor clams, tiny mirepoix dice, and a gelatinized smoked tomato water have already been assembled in the tubes. I think five of us (Chris, Kurtis, Chad, Jacob and myself) crowd into the little walk-in cooler to help set these up, or to take pix. A little “cork” of potato is stamped out for one end of the tube from planks of potato cooked sous-vide at 83C. At the table, the chefs will add a bacon foam to the tube to complete the chowder flavors. I get one to try – the flavors are spot-on and the delivery method is really clever. You first get each component one-by-one, and then as you get all of them, the flavor combination perfectly duplicates a clam chowder.

7:08 pm – Steven, the food and beverage manager, comes into the kitchen to let everyone know the Paradigm guests have started to arrive. Someone who had been to an earlier Paradigm dinner bought out the whole table for tonight. They’re also expecting Malka Espinel, Pastry Chef at Johnny V in Fort Lauderdale, to be paying a visit later tonight.

7:11 pm – Chef Chris breaks out a Level Vodka bottle that is filled with a neon-pink liquid. What is this? Bubble-Yum bubble-gum infused vodka. Pours a sample for us. Lord – keep this away from my children. It tastes just like bubble gum. Unreal. For good measure, we also try a sample of the Wild Turkey American Honey bourbon. Yes, this could be dangerous stuff.

7:16 pm – Chef Chris is still moving his Anti-Griddle from outlet to outlet, but everyone is quickly sizing up Plan B. The Anti-Griddle was going to be used to make a frozen blood orange disk for a “refresh” intermezzo course; Chef K finds a silicon hemispheric mold sheet which he cuts in half and puts in a tray of ice with some kosher salt. The blood orange puree will be scooped into the molds, laid over the ice, and then put into the freezer to set up.

7:21 pm – several things are taken out of the walk-in to come to temperature, including Shropshire blue cheese “cheesecakes” for course II. I get to sample one – fluffy cheesecake texture, vivid blue cheese flavor. This is going to get paired with a riff on buffalo wings. I think it’s going to work.

7:32 pm - Steven advises that the guests have sat down for dinner. The show is on. Meanwhile, the kitchen hums with the constant background sounds of room service and dining room orders going out. While I came for Paradigm, there’s still a hotel to feed.

7:35 pm – the chefs go out to the table to meet-n-greet and do the tableside presentation for the “raza’ chowda’” in a tube.

7:37 pm – Chef Chad is starting the plating for the second dish, “food party episode 1”. He explains the inspiration much better than I’ll be able to do. Sounds like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse meets Tim & Eric Awesome Show meets Iron Chef. I think I need to watch this. There is one long table in the very front of the kitchen that is used for all the assembly and plating. Chef Chad starts by making circular patterns of carrot and celery on each of the plates. These are followed by the blue cheese-cake, then a chicken “wing” lollipop (actually thigh meat molded together using Activa a/k/a transglutaminase a/k/a “meat glue”) with a semi-crispy, hot-sauce infused batter, some julienned pickled carrots over the cheesecake, and finally, a hot sauce froth.

7:45 pm – servers return from the table after the tubular chowder experience. Some of the diners are a little squeamish about it, but after trying, they all seem to enjoy it.

7:57 pm – “food party episode 1” goes out the door to the table. I sample one in the kitchen. In prior experiences I’ve been underwhelmed by dishes using “meat glue,” but this chicken lollipop sells me on its virtues. The shredded thigh meat has the intense flavor of dark meat, is incredibly juicy, and has not been so pulverized as to be unrecognizable as chicken. I’d initially thought the hot sauce flavor was coming just from the sauce, but it’s in the batter too. The rest of the flavors are spot on. I especially like the vividness of the carrot and celery drizzles on the plate. They may look pretty, but they're not just decoration.



8:03 pm – Chef Chris drops back to the sauté line to warm his liquid corn ravioli.

8:10 pm – plating starts for course III, liquid corn ravioli over a bed of corn and spaghetti squash, with a thin, square sheet of Laughing Bird shrimp (another Activa trick). I’m invited to help with plating the shrimp sheets. They’re each already individually portioned between squares of wax paper, and just require a little flip onto the plate. Most of mine comply with only minor mangling. Fortunately, Marie notices that the squares are each also covered with a transparent sheet of acetate, and we remove it before service.

8:14 pm – ravioli are out the door. I try the fully composed dish. The ravioli is just as delicious as the one I sampled earlier (though it was more fun to pop a whole one in my mouth straight from the pan); the corn and spaghetti squash hash it’s served over adds another nice sweet vegetable component. The Laughing Bird shrimp used for the sheet, with a little bit of chive in the mix, are absolutely delicious; I’m torn as to whether the presentation and textural transformation really add anything, but polish off the dish before I can decide.



8:18 pm – course IV, “hogs headless cheese” sandwiches, are getting assembled. A clamshell-shaped steamed brioche bun (similar to the ones traditionally served with Peking duck) is topped with a slice of “hogs headless cheese” – so-called because it’s a pork “head cheese” made with trotters and shoulder but no head – then paired with a rhubarb sriracha (made in house, with a nice acidic tang from the rhubarb but needing of more heat, in my opinion, if it is to call itself a sriracha sauce), julienned pickled green peaches, and a garlic scape mayo.

8:25 pm – headless cheese sandwiches go out to the table and I get to sample one. The components are mostly Southern, and yet the flavor composition reflects a distinctly Asian profile. In fact, this is clearly a banh mi with a Southern accent. The head cheese might have been a little too bland on its own and each of the other components a little too assertive, but together – fantastic. They've made an extra of each dish for Jason from New Times too. I've got a sense he's never seen food like this before, but in addition to being a good photographer, the guy's a good sport and a good eater too. He puts away everything with glee.

8:42 pm – each Paradigm menu I’ve seen has a “refresh” course in the middle – a variation on the old-school tradition of an “intermezzo,” often a sorbet, to serve as a “palate cleanser.” This time around, they go old-school with the sorbet, but new school with the flavors. Deborah, Fabian's assistant pastry chef, makes an appearance. A small bamboo serving dish gets a bit of kumquat marmalade, and little globes of the blood orange sorbet (the Plan B as a result of the non-functioning anti-griddle) and a piquillo pepper sorbet studded with black caraway seeds. These go out to the table with a pair of little chopsticks. With the extra one made for me in the kitchen, I opt to just pick up the little dish and do the whole thing like a shot. I think this is the way to go. The flavors play off each other beautifully, doing a great balancing act between savory and sweet.

Coming up next ... six more courses - and do my Emmental orbs pass the test?

Neomi's
Trump International Beach Resort
18001 Collins Avenue
Sunny Isles Beach, FL
305.692.5604

PODZILLA! Cobaya Dinner

The last Cobaya event at Bourbon Steak was a pretty posh affair: beautiful long wood table, glowing candles, fine china, elegant plating. This latest one? Not so much. Coming together somewhat at the last minute, this one put together Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog, and his gastroPod (a mobile 21st century kitchen built into a shiny vintage 1962 Airstream trailer), with Chefs Kurtis Jantz and Chad Galiano, the masterminds of the Paradigm dinner series who cooked up Cobaya Gras a few months ago. Was it a bit rough around the edges? Perhaps. Was it rather steamy eating outdoors, even with a breeze blowing in off Biscayne Bay? Well, I finally stopped sweating about an hour ago. Did we eat some great food? Yes, and that's really what it's all about.

Lining up at the gPod

Our venue for the evening was Harvey's by the Bay, a bare-bones, divey bar in the back of the Harvey Seeds American Legion Post off Biscayne Boulevard and 64th Street. It was a somewhat fitting location given our theme, which was to celebrate American (loosely speaking, anyway) street foods. Given the chefs' propensity to tweak and fluency with contemporary techniques, I knew we could also expect some interesting twists. Here's the menu for the evening:

The event even felt a bit like a genuine street food experience, as Chef Jeremiah served everyone from the gPod, and Chefs Kurtis and Chad (and Mike Marshall, the zen master of fried chicken) did their service either right off the grill, or from a covered otudoor bar in Harvey's spacious backyard looking out on Biscayne Bay. I forgot my camera and so you'll instead have to put up with a few goofy "Hipstamatic" pictures I took on my iPhone, though you'll find better pictures and more recaps at Tinkering With Dinner, or a chef's-eye view from Chef Chad at Chadzilla.

Updated: another recap with lots of pics here at Wokstar.

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