A Dinner with Chef Brad Kilgore

It's not often that my photos draw much attention beyond a small group of food-obsessed Miami locals. But when I posted pictures from a dinner that chef Brad Kilgore put together a few months ago, discerning folks around the country took notice. I think Brandon Baltzley, the chef behind the nomadic Crux "micro-restaurant" traveling roadshow, summed it up when he tweeted: "Who the fuck is @brad_kilgore and why is no one following him?"

In direct answer to that question: Brad Kilgore is a local chef who until recently was working at Azul restaurant on Brickell Key. He was a sous chef under Joel Huff when Azul did our Cobaya dinner last year, and along with chef de cuisine Jacob Anaya, took on added responsibilities when Huff left a couple months later. Before coming to Miami for Azul, Brad had been working in Chicago, including stints at Alinea, L2O, and Boka, then became Executive Sous Chef at Epic. For his complete backstory, read here.

But you can't just walk in and order a dinner like this at Azul, for at least two reasons: (1) we had assembled a small group for a "let me cook for you" kind of night, so what you see here isn't on the regular menu; and (2) Kilgore is no longer at Azul. So why am I posting this now?

Well, the good news is that Brad left Azul in order to partner up with Jeremy and Paola Goldberg of Route 9 in Coral Gables and the recently opened Exit 1 on Key Biscayne. Brad has been putting his menu into place at Exit 1, and while that stunning whole pig you see here isn't on it, there should be plenty of other opportunities to taste Brad's handiwork. For just one, he's doing a dinner with Cigar City Brewery next week on Tuesday, December 18.

So consider the meal described here something of a prototype.

Our dinner started with an amuse bouche modeled after one of my favorite unlikely combinations: vitello tonnato. Brad's version substituted a melting puddle of braised veal breast, topped with a frothy emulsion of egg yolk, tuna and lemon, all dolloped with warm goat butter. This rich bite was a preview of the indulgence to come.

And it came quickly. The primary notes of the first dish - cauliflower and caviar - were a riff on the French Laundry's cauliflower panna cotta with beluga caviar.^[1] Kilgore's version started with a puddle of a cold, creamy cauliflower and white chocolate "vichysoisse"^[2] Next to that was a generous mound of really fine royal osetra caviar, topped with a quenelle of a darkly caramelized roasted cauliflower gelato, mounted with a few crisped florets to reinforce the notion. This was rich upon rich, but it still found its balance. I loved it.

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Lazy Bear - San Francisco

When we started our Cobaya "underground" dinners, there was no pretense of originality; we were very deliberately copying things we had heard about in other cities. So for years I've been keeping track of what other like-minded people are doing around the country, including the Lazy Bear dinners in San Francisco.

In many ways, Lazy Bear is very similar to our Cobaya events: it's a set menu, with a focus on creative, contemporary cooking; events are announced only by mailing list and website; seats are assigned by lottery; the location is only disclosed to confirmed attendees.^[1] But there are differences as well: whereas Cobaya was organized by a few avid diners, and features a different chef for every event, Lazy Bear is a chef-driven affair: specifically, David Barzelay, who cooked at Nopa and Commonwealth, and staged at McCrady's and Aldea, before going the underground dinner route.

When the opportunity presented itself to attend one of his dinners on our recent trip to San Francisco, we eagerly did so.

(You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this Lazy Bear flickr set, or click on any picture to enlarge).

The location was a secret, so let's just say that it was a funky warehouse-type space, with two long tables set up for a total of 24 diners. The attached kitchen had plenty of room to work; if the equipment was not exactly cutting-edge, it's still a leap up from several of the facilities we've used for Cobaya dinners.

This is a preview version of the menu from when the event was announced:

Nine courses are listed, though in actuality it was even more generous than that, with several "snacks" and "treats" bookending the start and finish of the meal.

First, a little amuse bouche of a "scrambled egg mousse." Like breakfast in a shot glass, the creamy mousse was infused with bacon and topped with snipped chives, but finished sweetly with a dollop of maple syrup. Some might recognize this as a variation on the "Arpege egg," Alain Passard's iconic egg yolk poached in its shell with creme fraiche and maple syrup. But you don't need to know the reference to know it's delicious.

Another small bite: tombo, or albacore, tuna, aged and cured in lime ash. The tuna had an intriguing, slightly waxy texture, and a deep, concentrated flavor that was further brought out by doses of acidity and umami from translucent cubes of pineapple compressed with tamari.

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Harding Dinner Series with Chef Jeremiah

It's only going to be around for a week, so I've moved my writeup of the first "Harding Dinner Series" with Chef Jeremiah to the front of the queue. As I mentioned here earlier, the original Chow Down Grill in Surfside is being converted into Josh's Deli & Appetizing during the day, and a pop-up dinner venue for visiting chefs in the evenings. The first guest chef is Jeremiah Bullfrog (of the gastroPod and also a two time Cobaya veteran) and several of us got a preview dinner^[1] on Wednesday. It bears repeating once more:

There are some genuinely interesting and exciting things going on in Miami's dining scene right now.

The format of this dinner was a lot tighter, more focused than the sprawling 17-courser Jeremiah did for his last Cobaya: seven courses plus a cocktail to start. But the style and spirit was very much the same - playful, but with a serious focus on maximizing depth of flavor.

(You can see all my pictures in this Harding Dinner Series flickr set).

You want local flavor? How about the "Instagram"? Not a popular new photo app, this was the other kind of gram. But the fine white powder in this baggie, unlike many others commonly seen in Miami, was only baking powder, which reacted with the acid in the drink (Bombay gin and lemon) to make for a fizzy, frothy cocktail. It's the same chemical reaction that powered the volcano you made for fourth grade science fair.

beet composition

The first course, a "Beet Composition," was like a terrarium:^[2] inside a glass jar were beets in various forms - salt roasted garnet beets, sous-vide candy-cane beets, ribbons of pickled red and golden beets, magenta-stemmed micro beet greens, plus bits of creamy cheese, all nestled in a black sesame "soil." Not merely a presentation ploy, this had great vivid flavors, ranging from the more deep roasty notes to brightly acidic pickled notes.

duck pastrami

The next course was one of the best things I've eaten this year. Jeremiah' s duck pastrami was cured  in salt, sugar and pink salt for about five days, then thin shavings of the duck were plated on a long communal plank^[3] with brussels sprout "kraut" and a spiced pumpernickel streusel. It was just a perfect combination of flavors: the duck, meaty and fatty; the sprouts, bright, vegetal and tart; the streusel providing an earthy, spicy anchor for it all. Great stuff.

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Eating House - Coral Gables

A month ago I had no idea who Giorgio Rapicavoli was. It had been a couple years, and a couple chefs, since I'd been to the Angler's Resort where he was last working. I can't stand watching "Chopped," the Food Network cooking competition show where chefs with varying degrees of skill are asked to prepare dishes from mystery baskets of ridiculously incongruous and often unappetizing ingredients; so the fact that he had won an episode did nothing to put him on my radar.

But then I caught word that he was opening a pop-up restaurant to be called Eating House in a hole-in-the-wall café on the outskirts of Coral Gables. And then I took a look at his preview menu. It read like no other menu I've seen in Miami, all sorts of unexpected combinations and flavors.

I went to Eating House a week after they opened at the beginning of the month. I've already been back twice in as many weeks. I know who Giorgio Rapicavoli is now. And at risk of hyperbole, I will say this: at Eating House, he's putting out some of the most exciting food I've had in Miami in some time.

Tuesday through Sunday nights, Eating House takes over Café Ponce, a non-descript breakfast and lunch place near the corner of Ponce de Leon Boulevard and 8th Street. What atmosphere there is - and there's not much - is contributed by some graffiti artworks hanging on the walls and a soundtrack dominated by '90s hip-hop. But it's a pop-up, the point is the food not the decor. Service is also a minimalist but efficient affair - if it's not general manager Alex Casanova, as often as not it'll be Chef Rapicavoli himself bringing your food to the table.

(You can see all my pictures in this Eating House flickr set or click on any picture to enlarge).

The menu is tight as a Snoop Dogg blunt - typically ten items, mostly "small plate" sized, plus a few dessert options. It's changed around the edges each time I've been in, with dishes coming and going or morphing from one visit to the next. The influences are as much Slow Food as Ideas in Food - lots of local ingredients, lots of creative preparations.

A perfect example: local Homestead tomatoes. But instead of a typical salad, Rapicavaoli takes them to Thailand, with lime, ginger, fish sauce, peanuts, fresh herbs, nasturtium flowers, and frozen coconut milk. It's a perfect rendition of the flavors of Thailand in an unexpected format, the frozen coconut milk in particular lending an intriguing icy creaminess to the composition.^[1]

Even better - indeed, one of best dishes I've had in recent memory - were the baby eggplants, topped with a banana miso, vanilla salt, yuzu kosho, sesame seeds and baby greens. Here, the starting point was a classic - nasu dengaku, or Japanese miso-glazed eggplant - but with multiple added layers of complexity. The banana and miso echo back to each other in both texture and flavor, a salty-sweet creamy richness, while the yuzu kosho adds the bright contrast of both citrus and spice, and yet another note brought in by the vanilla salt. This is really virtuoso stuff.

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Best Dishes of 2011

This time last year, I was still basking in the reflection of a trip to Spain that included two meals that will probably always be among my most memorable - Asador Etxebarri in the Basque Country, and el Bulli. Not surprisingly, my "Ten Best Bites of 2010" list had a distinctly Iberian tilt. We didn't venture out of the U.S. in 2011, but nonetheless ate well, at home in Miami, on the other side of the continent during a trip to Portland, Oregon, and during a too-brief sojourn to Chicago.^[1] For much more worldly lists, I'd highly commend those assembled by Ulterior Epicure and Doc Sconz, who in one year could check off my dining wish list for the next decade or so.

It's always a fun task to compile these kinds of lists. The exceptionality of some dishes is immediately apparent, the experience of them firmly and indelibly imprinted on the memory. Others may need the perspective of time to truly appreciate, perhaps seeming simple at first but gaining depth and nuance upon further reflection, like the flavor development of a good braise.

I tried to hold myself to ten dishes last year but cheated, actually listing fourteen. With no editorial oversight here, I've expanded the list to 20 for 2011. A few curious patterns emerge, though I can't say whether it's mere coincidence or holds some deeper significance.

First: I hope it doesn't come off as self-horn-tooting that several of the dishes listed here (seven) were served at Cobaya dinners, a group I help organize. We've had the incredibly good fortune to work with many outstanding chefs in the past year, who have eagerly embraced our simple "mission statement:" "to get talented chefs to cook great, interesting meals for an audience of adventurous, open-minded diners." Our little experiment is now 2 1/2 years old, we had 10 events in 2011, and we continue to be both energized and humbled by the support from both chefs and diners.

Second: there sure is a lot of foie gras on this list; the ingredient is featured in four of the twenty dishes. At least that foie is somewhat balanced out by three predominantly vegetable dishes that also made the list. I have nothing against foie - clearly - but it's the latter that I think and hope is a real trend. The vegetable universe has been coming under increasing focus and attention from chefs worldwide, and with our uniquely upside down growing seasons here in South Florida there is plenty of material to work with.^[2]

Third: the simplest of dishes can still be made outstanding. It's hard to imagine anything more humble and rustic than choucroute garnie or bollito misto; versions of both were among the best things I ate this past year. And once again, one of the very best bites I had all year was basically nothing more than fish, rice and seasoning. This is by no means a rejection of culinary "modernism" - only a recognition that there are many paths to pleasure.

Here, then, is my list for 2011, with excerpts of my earlier comments on each.

1. Quail with Tripe - Le Pigeon (my thoughts on Le Pigeon)

The most memorable dish of the evening (maybe - this is a close call with one of the desserts) was the quail, burnished golden-brown crispy skin encasing tender, mildly gamy meat, served over a tripe and pepper stew with some generous dollops of a (saffron-infused?) aioli. Who'd've thunk to combine quail and tripe? It was simply and unexpectedly perfect.

2. Salmon Nigiri - Naoe (my thoughts on Naoe)

Scottish salmon belly. Cool fish, fatty and rich. Faintly warm rice, perfectly cooked, delicately seasoned. A brush of soy sauce. Perfect.

[Note: I included the same exact item in last year's list. It's hard to pick among the great sushi I've had at Naoe - outstanding aji, aoyagi, Hokkaido uni, among others - but it's this bite of salmon, always the first nigiri served, that perhaps best encapsulates what I love about the place.]

3. Foie Gras Profiteroles - Le Pigeon (my thoughts on Le Pigeon)

The dessert that will raise eyebrows, and should not be missed, is the foie gras profiteroles. Another twist on a classic, these light, faintly crispy puffs (the choux pastry itself enhanced with foie, recipe here) are filled with a rich foie gras ice cream that perfectly balances sweet and savory, and then generously drizzled with a thin caramel, a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, and delicate chocolate shavings. Outrageously good, it was very possibly one of the best desserts I've had all year.

4. Beet Salad - Azul Cobaya dinner (my thoughts)

Chef Huff's beet salad was brilliant, one of the best dishes I've had all year. From three basic ingredients - beets, blue cheese, bread - he crafted a stunning assembly of shapes, textures and flavors which he said included about 32 individual components. There were roasted beets in various hues, pointing their tendrils into the air. There were rounds of thinly sliced raw candy cane beets providing a bit of earthy, vegetal snap. There was beet espuma encapsulated in thin cylinders of beets. There was garnet-hued dehydrated beet paper, thin enough for light to shine through. There were powders, purées and gels of blue cheese, feather light croutons, razor-thin squares of lacy brioche. It was a dish that inspired a lengthy pause at the table, as everyone was reluctant to undo this beautiful construction.


Sometimes when presentation is such a focal point, flavor can get lost along the way. Not so here. This dish really highlighted the flavors and textures of its star ingredient, and was as delightful to eat as it was to look at. A truly exceptional dish.

5. Carrots with Yogurt and Mint - Ned Ludd (my thoughts on Ned Ludd)

If you can't get excited over chard, you probably won't get excited over carrots either, but this was one of my favorite dishes of the trip. A variety of different-hued carrots - orange, golden, garnet-red - were roasted in the wood-burning oven till tender but not limp. The carrots weren't woody, but still had a firm, almost meaty texture to them, reinforced by the hint of woodsmoke. A dollop of yogurt added both a richness and a tangy contrast, further brightened by wide strips of fresh mint. This was nothing complicated, nothing fancy, but it was perfect.

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CobayAzul (a/k/a A.B.C. - Azul Bizarre Cobaya)

The basic idea behind Cobaya is a simple one: let chefs cook whatever they want, for diners who want to experience it. The execution of that idea can sometimes become very elaborate. It did at Azul earlier this week, where Chef Joel Huff and his crew assembled an eight-course dinner that was often as complex as it was flavorful.

Another of the ideas behind Cobaya is to highlight chefs who may not be getting the attention they deserve for doing interesting, creative, inspired work in Miami. This latest dinner was another good example. Azul is one of Miami's few "fine dining" spots, and some great talent has worked there - its first executive chef was Michelle Bernstein, who spent four years there before going off on her own, when the talented Clay Conley took over - but like many hotel restaurants, it's a place that's more popular for visitors than locals.

When Chef Huff took over Azul this year, we quickly put it on the list of places that we thought could fit with Cobaya. Huff helped open up José Andres' Bazaar in Los Angeles, his menu at Azul was a fascinating read, and his sous chef, Brad Kilgore, was posting some great things on his blog, "The Power of a Passion," about what was going on in the kitchen. We were able to set up a dinner, and as usual, gave the chef free reign to create the menu and format.

An additional twist was introduced when we were contacted by a producer for Andrew Zimmern's show, "Bizarre Foods." They were going to be in Miami for a week, and were interested in shooting one of our dinners. The Azul dinner happened to be during the time they were in town. I'll confess, I had very ambivalent feelings about this. Truth is, we don't market or publicize these events at all other than by emails, blog posts and twitter; we make no money from it (everything collected goes straight to the chefs, and the organizers pay for their own seats too); and the group is, purposefully, very self-selecting. There are only so many people who are willing to show up for a dinner knowing absolutely nothing other than how much it will cost. We like it that way.

But when we talked it over with the restaurant, they were excited, and we thought it a worthwhile opportunity to show a larger audience the potential range of dining experiences in Miami. Watching Anthony Bourdain's Miami episode of  "The Layover" sadly confirmed that even as experienced an eater as Bourdain can still have a viewpoint of Miami that's based almost entirely on Miami Vice (a 25-year old TV show) and Grand Theft Auto Vice City (a 10-year old video game that mimicked the look and feel of the 25-year old TV show). It's kind of like doing an episode on San Francisco that's informed exclusively by having watched Big Trouble in Little China.^[1]

Though the lights and cameras were inevitably something of a distraction, Zimmern and the Bizarre Foods crew (and Zimmern's guest Lee Schrager) were overall very well-behaved party-crashers. Zimmern himself, both when doing his routines for the camera and off, was genuinely curious, interested and engaged, passionate in his discussions about food, and effusive in his appreciation. It will be interesting to see how it comes out on the screen.

Here, in the meantime, is my take on our meal. You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this CobayAzul flickr set.

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If You'd Like More Food and Drink ...

It had been a while since I had passed any of these along, and now there seems to be a wave of really good looking dinner events coming up. To supplement the list from earlier this week:

October 30: The Local + Brooklyn Brewery

Coral Gables gastropub The Local Craft Food and Drink pairs up with Brooklyn Brewery for a multi-course beer and wine pairing, and Chef Alberto Cabrera looks like he's put together a good one:

Salt Cured Sardines

Bread & Butter Vegetable Relish, Hot Sauce, Smoked Tomato Vinaigrette & Dill Biscuit

Brooklyn Sorachi Ace

Cured Foie Gras

Country Duck Ham, Frisee, Pickled Mango, Scarlet Beet Puree & Duck Fat Vinaigrette

Brooklyn Local 1

Sous Vide Bacon Fat Pork Belly

Farm Egg, Scallion Puree, Peanut Powder & Bacon Dashi

Brooklyn Local 2

Crispy Lamb Sweetbreads

Peas, Lamb Sausage, Pecorino, Spearmint, Polenta Chips & Natural Lamb Jus

Brooklyn The Companion Ale (100% bottle re-fermented)

Pan Roasted Grouper Cheeks

Butternut Squash, Sweet Peppers, Green Beans, Shitake Mushroom Chips, Meyer Lemon Puree & Basil Buerre Blanc

Brooklyn Cuvee de la Crochet Rouge

Iron Skillet Seared Ribeye

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Pearl Onion Marmalade, Arugula & Bone Marrow Vinaigrette

Brooklyn Cuvee Elijah

Peach Trifle

Brown Butter Cake, Basil & Buttermilk Ice Cream

Vintage 2010 Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

Spots are $85, 7pm start time, RSVP (required) to liza@thelocal150.com.

October 30: Share Our Strength Benefit Dinner at Būccan

If you're feeling charitable, Chef Clay Conley is hosting a benefit dinner at his Palm Beach restaurant Būccan for Share Our Strength, an organization dedicated to ending child hunger. Locals Timon Balloo of Sugarcane and Jim Leiken of Café Boulud will be joining RJ Cooper of Washington DC's Rogue 24 and Jonathan Waxman of New York's Barbuto along with Chef Conley to put together a cocktail reception and multi-course dinner.

6pm reception, 7pm dinner, tickets $200 each (but it's for charity!). Contact rcantor@strength.org or 202.649.4356 or do it online.


November 3: Local Farmers' Dinner at 1500°

Fresh off being named to Esquire's latest "Best New Restaurants" list, 1500° celebrates the arrival of South Florida's growing season with a dinner featuring products from local farmers including Paradise Farms, White Water Clams, Palmetto Creek Farms, Jackman Ranch, Swank Specialty Produce, Hani's Mediterranean Organics, Maggie Pons, Lake Meadow Naturals, Seriously Organic, and Teena's Pride:

Crispy Pork Belly Tacos with Kimchee
Florida Wahoo Ceviche
Deviled Eggs with Capers and Pickled Veggies

Garden Leaf Lettuce and Heirloom Tomatoes
with Crispy Calabaza Blossoms and Hani’s Goat Cheese

White Water Clams with Spicy Greens, Grilled Bread
White Wine Butter Sauce

Whole Fried Local Snapper and Lake Meadows Roasted Chicken
accompanied by Cold Cucumber Salad with Fish Sauce and Sesame Seeds,
Anson Mills Black Rice, Braised Local Greens and Roasted Radishes

Palmetto Creek Pork Loin Chops and Jackman Ranch Florida Raised Wagyu Beef
with Anson Mills Polenta and Hani’s Cheese, Grilled Baby Squash, Roasted Carrots, Braised Oyster Mushrooms, and Spicy Smoked Potato Salad with Benton’s Bacon and Farm Egg

Selection of Homemade Pies and Tarts with Homemade Ice Cream

Reception and five courses, including paired wines and cocktails, is $85 per person (excluding tax and tip). 7pm start time.

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CobayaJeremiah with Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog

Though our Cobaya - Gourmet Guinea Pigs events are sometimes called "underground" dinners, that's probably a bit of a misnomer, since we happily have some events in operating restaurants. But we really do strive for each of them to be an experiment. What we want, very simply, is for both chefs and diners to see it as an opportunity to try something new and different, to take chances.

Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog of the gastroPod has been one of our most steadfast supporters and facilitators since we started doing these dinners two years ago. He didn't cook our first dinner, but he did do the second one, and has lent a hand and sometimes even a kitchen to several others. So when Jeremiah came back from a trip to the MAD FoodCamp in Copenhagen and a stage at Noma^[1] restaurant full of inspiration, we were glad to line up another dinner.

There were several firsts for this dinner: it was our first time trying staggered seatings, with rounds of about 8 diners being seated every half hour instead of one big communal table; it was our first time using this particular space, which had some temperature challenges;^[2] and it was our first time with a tasting menu this ambitious, more than 15 courses all told. The idea was that the smaller seatings would let the cooks focus more on each plate as it went out instead of cranking out 35-45 plates at once.^[3]

You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this CobayaJeremiah flickr set.

The dinner started with a cocktail: the "Fernet Sour" mixed clarified Fernet Branca with clarified grapefruit juice, cooled with a blast of liquid nitrogen. Fernet is a profoundly, eye-crossingly bitter digestif, one of those concoctions of roots, twigs, spices and herbs that tastes like it must be either really good for you or poisonous. It is the epitome of an "acquired taste" - one that I sometimes enjoy after a heavy meal for its seeming purifying powers, but not one I've ever had to start a meal. Here, I suppose it could be seen as having the same kind of palate-cleansing effect as Heston Blumenthal's nitro-poached green tea and lime mousse at the Fat Duck. But I couldn't finish a full flute of it.

There followed an extensive progression of various "snacks," starting with a pickle plate clearly inspired by the Noma aesthetic. Pink radishes were topped with paper-thin, faintly crisp shards of (Benton's?) ham. Pickled okra was coated in a light tempura batter and fried. And tiny beets were halved and pickled, served with a sphere of rosewater-infused yogurt spheres resting on a nest of noodle-like beet strands. I liked the bold flavors, the interplay of salty and sour, the variation in textures, and the communal presentation on a long plank.^[4]

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Jeffrey Brana Vegetarian Dinner

I am nothing if not omnivorous. And so you may be wondering why it is that I elected to sign up for a vegetarian dinner hosted by chef Jeffrey Brana and his wife Anna, who are running a Saturday night Private Dining Club with a different theme for every dinner.

The answer lies in that very omnivorism. While I eat everything - really, truly, just about everything - that certainly includes vegetables, and I enjoy a vegetable dish prepared with care and attention equally as much as any bit of pork or foie. Indeed, particularly in a tasting-menu format, there is often something exhausting about the parade of multiple animal proteins that so often serve as the centerpiece of multiple courses. I'm clearly not the only one who feels that way, as several notable restaurants now do vegetable tasting menus (Thomas Keller's French Laundry and Per Se, Charlie Trotter's, Curtis Duffy's Avenues, to name just a few).^[1]

Plus, I was curious to see what Chef Brana could do when limited to flora without fauna. Brana's name might be familiar to South Florida diners with good memories. Back in 2004, he was named a Starchefs Rising Star while serving as the chef de cuisine at Norman Van Aken's now-closed "Norman's" in Coral Gables. In 2006, he went out on his own and opened Restaurant Brana (in the Gables space that is now Mint Leaf), but by January 2007 it was closed due to family medical issues.^[2] Brana spent some time out of the spotlight, but recently resurfaced with this series of private dinners.

Prior events have had decidedly more carnivorous themes, including Wagyu Beef and "Kiss My Pork Butt" dinners, and this was, I believe, the first time Chef Brana has done a vegetarian themed dinner. I didn't know when I signed up that the dinner would in fact be not only vegetarian, but entirely vegan, with no animal products whatsoever.

You can see all of my (disappointingly grainy) pictures from the dinner in this Jeffrey Brana Vegetarian Dinner flickr set. Here is the menu and my comments:

Oak Lettuce Salad with Carrot Vinaigrette and Pickled Green Tomatoes

Watermelon with Watermelon Radishes, Fennel, Micro Basil and Miso

Zucchini Soup with Spicy Relish

Pink Eyed Peas with Cherry Tomatoes and Wilted Lettuce

Polenta with Okra and Tomatoes

"Ugly Carrots" with Farro, Charred Onions and Coconut

Brûléed Mango

Blackberry Crostata with Toasted Almonds

Our menu was limited not only by the vegetarian theme, but by timing. Chef Brana is dedicated to local sourcing, but with our upside-down seasons, there is not much growing in South Florida right now other than mangoes, lychees and sweat rings. As a result, much of our menu was the product of a field trip he took up to farms in Central Florida.

We started simply, with a salad of delicate dark green oak lettuce, plated with a puddle of a thick, orange-hued carrot vinaigrette. Nestled beneath the leaves was a cluster of slivered, lightly pickled green tomatoes, providing an extra dose of tartness.

Though the primary component of this dish were the planks of fresh juicy watermelon, I suspect the watermelon radishes Chef Brana found up in Central Florida were the inspiration. So named for their greenish-white exterior which hides a vibrant pink-red center, these radishes sometimes have a potently peppery kick. These were not quite so feisty, but provided a nice snap and freshness against the fruit, which was tugged in both sweet and savory directions by dabs of a (honeyed?) miso dressing. Batons of fennel and its fuzzy fronds, as well as some aromatic micro basil, provided complementary herbal notes.

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BGR The Burger Joint - Coral Gables

Some people ask me why there aren't more negative reviews here at Food For Thought. Or, to put it another way, they give me grief because I like most of the places I write about. I think most of my commentary is balanced: I'm not a cheerleader, and even most positive write-ups will offer some criticism too. But it's true that I don't often outright pan restaurants here, even though those kind of rants can be the most fun to write (and read).

Why is that? There are a few reasons. First, I see it as my primary mission to help people find good things to eat. The easiest way to do that is to write about good restaurants. Yes, I could also write about bad restaurants and warn people away from them, but that kind of process of elimination seems rather inefficient.

Equally, if not more important: I like to eat good things. I really hate having a lousy meal. And as a rather dedicated eater, one of the things I've learned to do pretty well is to figure out how to avoid them. Here, there definitely is a process of elimination at work. If I look at a menu online, I can pretty quickly tell if there's nothing that's going to interest me (for instance, yet another generic Italian menu or another uninspired steakhouse will not be a draw). Another tell: if a restaurant just opened their first location and are already trying to market franchise opportunities on their website, that's a good sign that they're more about business than food.

So I've gotten pretty good at "advance scouting," and while some restaurants may not live up to expectations, I'm generally pretty successful at avoiding outright bad meals (unless, as inevitably happens sometimes, I don't get to choose the place).

And finally, I am not a professional critic. Nobody's paying me to do this. I won't typically write up a restaurant unless I've visited multiple times, and if I've had a bad experience, there's usually not much reason for me to go back and repeat it.

All of which is a very long preface for this: I did not like "BGR The Burger Joint."

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Cobaya 31 - Area 31 with Chef E. Michael Reidt

It's always exciting when we have the chance to get a nationally recognized chef like Michelle Bernstein to cook for Cobaya, like we did last month. But for me it's equally exciting when we can find someone who may not be on everyone's radar screen already. From the number of our diners who weren't familiar with Chef E. Michael Reidt, or hadn't been to Area 31 at all, our dinner this past Monday would fall into the latter category. I hope they feel like they've made a happy discovery.

Area 31, a restaurant with a sustainable seafood theme, opened about two years ago; but being hidden away on the 16th floor of the Epic Hotel in downtown Miami it can easily elude notice, particularly by locals. John Critchley was the chef until about six months ago, when he departed for Washington DC (he's now at Urbana) and was replaced here by Chef Reidt (who was traded from Baltimore's B & O American Brasserie).^[1] Chef Reidt actually has some Miami connections from earlier in his career: ten years ago he was the chef at Wish on South Beach.^[2]

Chowfather, a fellow Cobaya instigator, was particularly excited about having Chef Reidt do a dinner for us and was instrumental in making this one happen. And Chef Reidt really delivered. Here's our menu for the evening (you can see all my pictures in this Cobaya 31 flickr set):

Amuse Bouche

Heirloom Tomatoes, Peaches, Truffle Cheese, Flowering Basil

Roederer NV Brut Premier

Cobia Ceviche

Pressed Avocado, Puffed Rice, Granny Smith Apple, Red Pepper Sorbet

Pio Cesare Cortese di Gavi 2010

Foie Gras "Fluff"

Smoked Peach, Crispy Basil Sponge, Pineapple, Tamarind Gastrique

"Cobaya Cocktail"

Flounder

Maine Lobster, Green Asparagus, Grapefruit, Vanilla Turnips

Luca Chardonnay 2007

Diver Scallop

Crab, Farro, Chorizo, English Peas, Coconut Broth

Turkey Flats Rose 2008

Sous Vide Duck

Confit Pork Belly, Carrot, Curry, Pistachio

Bell Syrah 2007

Dark Chocolate

Truffles, Dehydrated Mousse, Yogurt, Cherry Sorbet

Lindeman's Framboise Lambic

Starting with the amuse bouche, Chef Reidt encouraged us to really dive into the experience, and in this instance to literally stick our noses right down into the bowl. It was a sensible instruction, as the flowering basil from Paradise Farms offered up a potent spicy fragrance. The basil was the highlight of a simple, pure composition of heirloom tomatoes, slivered peaches, a couple thin shards of truffle cheese, and pea tendrils, floating in a limpid tomato water. Crisp, racy Roederer NV Brut Premier Champagne played along well (and the wine pairings were mostly spot on with each of the courses).

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Michybaya - Cobaya Dinner with Chef Michelle Bernstein

Sometimes, with her radiant smile, former-ballerina perfect posture, and national (Top Chef judge) and local (Check Please host) television presence, it's easy to forget. But let there be no doubt about it: Michelle Bernstein is a badass chef. Yes, it's the quality of her cooking that cemented her national reputation and led to those TV gigs, and her namesake restaurant Michy's on Biscayne Boulevard and the Spanish tapas-inspired Sra. Martinez in the Design District are regarded as among the top restaurants in Miami. But neither of those restaurants are "new" any more, and in a somewhat magpie-like food community, restaurants that are five, or even only two, years old are sometimes overlooked in favor of the latest shiny objects.

That's stupid. Thirty-four of us got to see just how stupid earlier this week, as we finally connected with Chef Bernstein for one of our "Cobaya" dinners. Since we began doing these events nearly two years ago, we've been trying to get Michelle to cook for us. Indeed, we first started talking about it back in the summer of 2009; but then she was busily gearing up to open at the Omphoy in Palm Beach, and any number of things intervened thereafter. The stars finally aligned recently, particularly with her new bakery/café down the street from Sra. M, Crumb on Parchment, turning out to be a perfect venue for the dinner.^[1]

As we always do, we gave Chef Bernstein complete free rein to come up with the menu and the format, and she put together one of the most elegant, polished, and satisfying dining experiences we've had so far. You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this "Michybaya" flickr set, and find links to some other pictures and recaps over at the Cobaya website.

The space at Crumb (basically the airy, open atrium of a collection of home furnishings shops in the Melin Building in the Design District) was rearranged for our dinner into one long table, with 34 of Crumb's artfully mismatched chairs lined up on either side. The table was set with naturalistic centerpieces that actually incorporated some of the mise en place for our dinner (OK, not really, but those were real mushrooms), and enough silverware to baffle even Emily Post.

Chef Bernstein said that she doesn't like to overstuff diners with too many courses, so she held it to five (actually six if you count a pre-dessert, which I would):

Oyster Chawan Mushi with Scallop and Uni Ceviche

Julien Fouet Saumur^[2]

Whole Roasted Foie Gras with Garden Vegetables

and Carrot-Orange Sauce

Kiralyudvar Tokaji Sec

Chupe de Mariscos with Squid Ink Croquetas

Mercy Pinot Noir Arroyo Seco

New York Steak with Truffle Butter and

Gnocchi with Celery Leaf, Lily Bulbs and Budding Chives

Mas Sorrer Montsant

Calamansi Soup with Pineapple and Mint Ice Cream

Banana Tarte Tatin

Rock Wall Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc

This was a very nice way to start things, an oyster "chawan mushi." Chawan mushi is a savory Japanese egg custard, often a bit more watery than a Western custard with the addition of dashi and/or soy sauce. Here, Chef Bernstein steamed the custard right in the oyster shells, with the briny (Kumamoto?) oysters nestled within, and a little cap of softened enoki mushrooms and green onions. This carried all of that wonderful "taste of the ocean" of a good oyster, but with the flavor stretched and prolonged by the creamy custard. Mrs. F doesn't particularly like oysters, but she loved this dish. For a bit of contrast, between the oysters was a small bowl of a scallop ceviche (not a "true" ceviche, Chef Bernstein qualified, which I think means the scallop was very lightly poached rather than just "cooked" in the acid of citrus juices), given an extra dose of richness with a tongue of orange uni laid over the top.

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Room 4 Dessert 2 Pop-Up w Chef Will Goldfarb

I suspect when you're around Chef Will Goldfarb, you often feel like you're playing catch-up. He always seems to be about three steps ahead - he thinks fast, he moves fast, he works fast. Last week, he made a quick stop in Miami for a one day pop-up, dubbed "Room 4 Dessert 2." The name, anyway, is a spin-off from his well-regarded if brief-lived New York dessert-and-drinks place from about five years ago, but trying to keep track of everything Chef Goldfarb has done is a bit like trying to nail jelly to a wall - a stage at El Bulli, a tour of Australia including work with Tetsuya Wakuda, back to the U.S. at Morimoto in Philadelphia, Cru in New York, his own sandwich shop, Picknick, a sojourn in Bali to work as pastry chef at Ku De Ta, a business supplying provisions for the contemporary cupboard, WillPowder, and the list continues to go on.

Chef Goldfarb is an unabashed practitioner of what goes by the various misnomers of "molecular gastronomy," "science cooking," or most recently "modernist cuisine."^[1] Which is simply to say that he eagerly uses any and all ingredients or techniques available to him - hydrocolloids, gelling agents, emulsifiers, stabilizers, liquid nitrogen, and so on (much of this stuff is conveniently available for purchase at WillPowder).

It's interesting to me that even less adventurous diners seem to take a little less umbrage to the use of such things in a dessert format. When used in savory courses, you often hear complaints that people don't like their food "manipulated" and that it doesn't "look like" food any more. But we're already accustomed to eating desserts that are manipulated, and to using processed ingredients in desserts that don't taste good on their own (baking powder, cocoa, or even flour for that matter). Everybody loves a chocolate mousse, but very few people think about the processing of the ingredients that leads to its creation, or complain that it doesn't resemble its "natural" form. As Chef Alex Stupak (former pastry chef at wd~50, now running his newly opened taqueria, Empellon) put it: "Birthday cake is the most denatured thing on earth."

Here's a run-down of the event; you can see all of my pictures in this R4D2 flickr set. You can also get a look from inside the kitchen via Chadzilla, and another take on it from Mango & Lime.

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Tomatoes, Top Chefs and Pop-Ups

A few upcoming events that may be of interest to discriminating eaters:

March 23, 2011: "Celebrate the Florida Tomato," a Slow Food Miami event at Sustain Restaurant + Bar. Sustain will be putting together a 4-course menu featuring local heirloom tomatoes from Teena's Pride Farm. Starts at 7:30pm, $90pp including cocktails, four courses and wine. Click the link or the invitation below to reserve.

April 1, 2011: Johnson & Wales Distinguished Visiting Chef Dinner with Chef Kevin Sbraga, winner of Top Chef Season 7 and a graduate of J&W's North Miami campus. The menu preview includes lobster bruschetta and veal sweetbread hors d'ouevres, caesar salad with sous vide chicken, fish and chips with "a variation of tartar sauce," meatloaf with chanterelles, bacon marmalade, pickled onions and truffles, and a banana split with strawberries, chocolate ganache and pineapple. The event, which is a scholarship fundraiser for the University's College of Culinary Arts, starts at 7pm at Johnson & Wales' North Miami campus. Seats are $85pp, RSVP to 305-913-2108.

And, perhaps most intriguing of all:

April 2, 2011: "Room4Dessert 2" - a 6-course, pop-up dessert tasting by Chef Will Goldfarb, the self-styled "ultimate outlaw of pastry." Two seatings (8pm and 10pm), $75pp, with assistance from some local suspects and paired wines. Click the link above or the picture below for more info.

The preview menu:

Key Lime Margarita

Geisha 2011: Geishysoisse of coconut with black sesame and raspberry

Rouge featuring hibiscus, cherry, beet, red wine and Campari

The Sugar Refinery

Nobody says I love you anymore with shortbread and epoisses

And introducing:

THE JEFFREY

That’s the best part about the Jeffrey, it goes away and then it comes back

Cobaya / Ideas in Food Dinner

While the teeming hordes invaded the sands of Miami Beach for the South Beach Wine and Food Festival last week, fifty intrepid souls ventured to the Wynwood Arts District for a very different dining experience. When we heard that Chef Alex Talbot of Ideas in Food was interested in coming in to town to do a dinner, we jumped on the opportunity.

The names of Alex Talbot and his wife and partner Aki Kamozawa may be more familiar to chefs than to diners. But for anyone with an interest in contemporary cooking, their blog, their classes, and now their book serve as an indispensable source of inspiration and guidance. Just one small example: I recall a couple years ago sitting at the kitchen bar of the now-closed, and missed, Talula, watching sous chef Kyle Foster roast off some marrow bones. When I asked what he doing with them, he gave me a sample of a dish he was playing with, pairing marrow and pickled bananas. Where did that idea come from? Right here. There are probably countless other similar instances of dishes where Aki and Alex provided the ignition spark for their creation, or the practical guidance for their execution.

So it was a particularly exciting experience to be able to try their cooking first-hand. Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog of the gastroPod lent his shiny Airstream trailer to serve as the kitchen for the evening and also was a huge help with sourcing, logistics and cooking; still more prepping, and schlepping, was done by local chefs Kurtis Jantz and Chad Galiano of Sol Kitchen, Albert Cabrera, and others. GAB Studio provided a great venue, with two long tables stationed in the middle of their photography studio, surrounded by works from local artists. You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this flickr set: Cobaya / Ideas In Food.

the dining room



the diners

The whole meal was prepped on the gastroPod, with everything served on recyclable disposable plates. It was interesting to me that Chef Alex arrived in Miami with no food prepped in advance, and no menu planned, with everything from idea to execution taking place in the few days after he arrived.


the kitchen

Here's the menu he put together:

Surf and Turf

steak tartare, seaweed mayonnaise, bean sprout batons

Clams in Green Sauce

parsley, coconut, garlic-mustard

Steak and Eggs

beef tendon, onsen egg, culantro

Kimchi Cavatelli

kimchi gravy, torn basil, benton's ham

Twice Cooked Scallop

pumpkin, citron-sriracha, furikake

Sweetbreads

green mango, rum raisin, lime vinaigrette

Sticky Pork Belly

cream soda, crunchy turnip, charred scallions

Powdered Goat Cheese

strawberry relish

Malted Milk Custard

the menu

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The Ravenous Pig - Winter Park, FL

Ever since rave reviews began appearing a couple years ago on Chowhound, I've been meaning to get to The Ravenous Pig in Winter Park, just outside of Orlando, Florida. It sounded like my kind of place: it's got "Pig" in the name, it styles itself as an "American Gastropub," its menu shows a strong focus on locally sourced product and in-house charcuterie - what's not to like? It took a while for the stars to align, but they finally did a couple weeks ago as we took a two-day jaunt up to Orlando before New Years'. All the raves proved completely justified: this is a place that does what it sets out to do exceptionally well.

The Ravenous Pig doesn't really look all that much like a pub, rather more like a tony suburban restaurant: lots of burnished wood, brick walls, and taupe fabrics. There is indeed a lively bar as you walk in, though, with overflow perching itself around a long bar-height table. A second dining room is more civilized and peaceful, with an assortment of booths and tables. Winter Park is apparently far enough away from the amusement park tourist magnets that the crowd seemed to be made up much more of locals than out-of-towners. And the menu holds pretty true to the "gastropub" concept. It's an assembly of mostly hearty, straightforward dishes, using carefully selected ingredients and prepared with panache. Much of the produce comes from local farms, many meat products are cured in-house.

We were torn on whether to start with the house-made soft pretzels or the gruyere biscuits, and so opted for both. The pretzels were good - toasty, with a litle bit of crispy bite to the outside while still pleasingly chewy within, and served with a grainy mustard and a tallegio-porter fondue for dipping. But they were outshined by the biscuits, warm and perfectly flaky, with a nice whiff of salty, nutty gruyere, almost like cheese gougeres. The smoked sea salt butter that came with them was a superfluous but welcome addition. Salads include a "Farmer" or a "Gatherer" - the former turned out to be a frisée aux lardons in drag, with some sprightly bitter greens tossed with house-smoked bacon and a Caesar vinaigrette, crowned with a perfectly poached egg and a dusting of grated parmesan cheese. It was, according to Mrs. F, the best frisée aux lardons she's ever had, and that is not a short list.

There was a charcuterie plate, all house-made, and really quite impressive. It featured several different thinly sliced cured meats - a soppressata, a coppa, a salami redolent with spiced orange - as well as a nice rich country pork terrine, topped with some stout-macerated cherries. The plate was rounded out by a couple different cheeses (one a rich triple-cream, the other not quite as memorable), some nice mustard, pungent house-made pickles, and grilled bread draped with melted lardo. It was all very well done, nearly on the same level as the boucherie plate I'd had at Cochon in New Orleans.

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Point Counterpoint - updated

This will be a short one. Yesterday, Shola Olunloyo, an opinionated and thought-provoking Philadelphia chef who is in the process of opening a restaurant called Speck, put up a post noting "We are desperately trying to find a reason why we should not cook virtually every piece of meat in this restaurant sous-vide." And the same day, chefs Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa of the creative hive that is Ideas in Food, though not apparently in response to Shola, provided an answer:

Sure, functionality, speed and consistency are important, but there is something special about a gorgeous piece of meat (or two) cooked properly in a salt dusted skillet; it's fat renders into the pan and the constant turning (a la McGee) allows for uniform cooking and a beautiful crust. A quick pan sauce made with wine and butter, finished with fresh herbs snipped from the garden and a warm rest (we used a pyrex pan with a lid) resulted in different textures and flavors playing off one another with delicious results. The depth and consistency of the crust changes with each bite and the inner meat is supple and juicy. It may take a little more effort by the cook but every so often old school is the only way to go.

Hmm.

So how do you like your steak?

UPDATED: It's been suggested (by Chef Olunloyo, anyway) that I've either  predetermined a conclusion or attempted to create a non-existent controversy with this post. Yes, internet conversations can be slightly odd. So since Chef Olunloyo has not posted the comment I added on his site (which is always a great read), I will try to duplicate it here.

I have no predetermined conclusion on the subject nor any desire to create controversy. I certainly didn't call anything "boiled meat in a bag," and indeed, in context, it ought to be clear I'm no enemy of sous vide cookery. If I'm guilty of anything, it's perhaps an excess of brevity, or stated more simply: bad writing. The fact that I couldn't initially find a good picture of any sous-vide cooked steak (a deficiency I've now remedied, though the photo quality is still suspect) also may have suggested a taking of sides. But it really was intended as nothing other than a simple inquiry as to technique and preference.

Personally, unless I'm starving and iron-depleted, I usually find that eating a bigger cut of steak can become monotonous, and so the textural contrasts of which Alex and Aki speak are indeed something I often find desirable. On the other hand, in other circumstances (and Chef Olunloyo's post does make clear he is talking about skinnier, more flavorful cuts - skirt, deckle, hanger) I may well agree that sous vide cooking with a quick sear to finish is the way to go.

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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