Cobaya #55 on Floor 65 with Chef Aaron Brooks

In nearly six years, we've now done fifty five of these Cobaya dinners. I've missed two. One of them was Experiment #25 with Chef Aaron Brooks of Edge Steak and Bar, almost exactly three years ago. I was particularly disappointed to miss it because Chef Brooks is precisely the kind of chef we had in mind when we starting putting on these events. Edge is a very solid place  – good enough that locals will regularly make their way to the seventh floor of a Four Seasons resort on Brickell to visit – but the restrictions of running a hotel steakhouse limit the range of what Brooks can do there.

And his range is quite broad: he's an Australian native with an affinity for the flavors of Southeast Asia, which he put on full display in his last Cobaya dinner. He also has charcuterie skills that would rival anyone in South Florida, something you'd never know from a glance at the restaurant's menu. This time around, he kept things a bit closer to home, looking to the ingredients of his native continent for inspiration, and also put his charcuterie game on full display for us.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya #55 @ F65 with Chef Aaron Brooks flickr set).

Experiment #55 started in the lobby of the Four Seasons, with flutes of champagne and a procession of little bites, some of which were enhanced by products from a soon-to-open tenant of the property: Caviar Russe. Anzac biscuits (the first hint of the Australian theme) topped with rounds of cured foie gras. Pork rillette grilled cheese sandwiches dolloped with caviar – an unlikely but delicious combination. Smoked salmon and ramp cream cheese layered between crepes and topped with everything spice. And at least one other that moved so fast I didn't get to taste it: toasts topped with morcilla and trout roe. Yet again, I miss out.

From there, the Four Seasons team led us out the front of the lobby, around the side of the property, into the entrances of the Residences, and up the elevator to the 65th floor. As we exited the elevator, we were welcomed into the open door of an empty condominium unit, with floor to ceiling windows on two sides looking out across the bay to Key Biscayne on one side, and down Brickell Avenue towards Coconut Grove on the other. Several round tables were set throughout the room; a DJ played in the corner. This was where we were to have our dinner.^[1]

As Chef Brooks and his crew finished plating the first course in the condo kitchen, our guinea pigs sipped some more champagne and ogled the views.

This inspired some ogling too: Chef Brooks' first round of charcuterie. Wow. What good stuff. From top to bottom: duck heart and Sicilian pistachio terrine; smoked hock and head cheese; truffle stuffed trotter; soy cured pig's face; chicken, eel and peanut terrine en croute; and foie gras, chicken liver and truffle pâté, encased in truffle butter. Between this and the charcuterie spread at our last Cobaya dinner at Quality Meats, I'm thinking a charcuterie showdown may be in order. Edge's downtown neighbor, DB Bistro Moderne, would surely be invited, and maybe their cousin Café Boulud in Palm Beach would come down too. Maybe Miami Smokers? Who else wants in?

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best thing i ate last week: charcuterie at Quality Meats

It wasn't any one thing in particular (though they were all pretty excellent); it was the sheer joyous abundance and variety of the charcuterie spread that Chef Patrick Rebholz laid out for his Cobaya dinner at Quality Meats last Tuesday.

There was a smoked soppressata, topped with a cornbread cream. There was suckling pig coppa di testa, topped with fried sage leaves. Cured foie gras torchon, rolled in malted barley and a mango gastrique. A hearty pork headcheese with rounds of slivered onion. Hickory smoked duck bacon. Coppa, topped with aerated mozzarella. Calf liver mousse with pickled ramps. Merguez "prosciutto" topped with preserved lemon. Pork jowl corn dogs with tabasco mayo. Popcorn drizzled with melted dry-aged beef fat. All of it made in-house, all laid out up and down a roll of butcher's paper stretched along a forty foot table as we entered the room.

It was the best thing I ate last week. (You can read more about the dinner here).

Quality Cobaya with Chef Patrick Rebholz

The scent – well, let's be more blunt – ripe, animal funk of cured meats as we entered the room was a good sign. It soon became apparent from whence it came: a spread of charcuterie laid on top of butcher paper that stretched all the way down a table set for forty guests.

We were in a private second-floor room in the old Bancroft Hotel on South Beach, a beautiful property whose Art Deco features have been pretty respectfully preserved. It's now the home of the Miami outpost of Quality Meats, a New York restaurant with some historical legacy itself: its owners opened the original Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York in 1977.^[1]

The chef was Patrick Rebholz. Before joining QM, Rebholz had spent most of the past decade cooking in Charleston, most recently as the chef de cuisine at the Peninsula Grill. We got a hint that Chef Rebholz had big plans for his Cobaya dinner when he asked for an early start time. Sure enough, we didn't wrap up until nearly four hours after our 6:30pm commencement. It was time very happily spent.

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

After milling around at the bar while our group assembled, we were escorted upstairs to the "Bancroft Room" and its wafting meaty aromas. Moscow Mules in gleaming copper mugs were handed out to everyone. All the chairs were pushed back from the table so that Rebholz and crew could more easily make their way through to apply some finishing touches: cornbread cream on top of the smoked soppressata; aerated mozzarella on top of the coppa.

There was plenty more: silky, intense cured foie gras torchon coated with malted barley and a mango gastrique; thin-sliced suckling pig coppa di testa and hearty headcheese; merguez "prosciutto" topped with preserved lemon; creamy calf liver mousse topped with pickled ramps; pork jowl pastrami; hickory smoked duck bacon; toasty pork jowl corn dogs with Tabasco mayo; popcorn dressed in dry-aged beef fat. Rebholz poured some of his house-brewed beer too, and it was a great match with the charcuterie.^[2]

It was a crazy good way to start a meal, and folks dug in pretty rapaciously. Then Chef Rebholz just rolled the paper down to clear the table.^[3]

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best thing i ate last week: shrimp and eggplant dressing at Mignonette

I don't always think to take a picture of the side dish. It is, after all, just a side dish, right? And when there's a huge, whole roasted redfish literally flopping off either end of its plate as the main course, well, that has a tendency to draw some attention to itself.

That was the scene at Mignonette last Tuesday, as the restaurant hosted its first "Shucker Series" dinner, the first guest of honor being New Orleans chef Stephen Stryjewski (Cochon and Cochon Butcher).

There were also Pemaquid and Fat Bastard oysters served raw on the half shell, more of those Pemaquids slathered in chile butter and roasted, a ruddy, soul-lifting shellfish and tasso gumbo, a crudo of golden tilefish with favas and mustard greens, and a lemon and blueberry buttermilk pie that would make your eyes cross.

But what hit me hardest was the shrimp and eggplant dressing served alongside the fish. Such a great combination of the flavors of ocean and earth: bits of shrimp, creamy eggplant, surely some Cajun trinity (onion, bell pepper and celery), maybe some cornbread crumbs binding it all together, and a judicious addition of spice.

You can just barely see it, blurry and out of focus, in the bottom of this picture, as Stryjewski and Mignonette chef Daniel Serfer move one of those redfish out to the dining room. (You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this Mignonette Shucker Series flickr set). As I was busy dissecting our fish, Mrs. F was surreptitiously eating almost all of the dressing. Not fair. Because it was the best thing I ate last week. If you're in New Orleans any time soon, it's a staple on the menu at Cochon: get it.

Mignonette
210 N.E. 18th Street, Miami, Florida
305.375.4635

best thing i ate last week: dim sum at BlackBrick

For Father's Day, the kids indulged me and let me pick where to go for brunch. It had been a while since we'd done a dim sum run, and I had it on the brain. The day before, we'd driven past Tropical Chinese territory (after already having eaten lunch) while en route to the Redlands to get the last of the season's lychees. We ended up bringing home about twenty pounds of tropical fruits from Robert Is Here: fantastic jackfruit, mamey sapote, canistel, sapodilla, ciruela, three different varieties of mangoes, and – oh, yeah – some juicy, perfumey Brewster lychees. Not wanting to trek all the way down south once again on Sunday, we headed instead to BlackBrick in Midtown.

Sometimes father really does know best. The dumplings – shrimp har gow, pork shiu mai, jade duck dumplings – were great, their silky, translucent skins encasing steaming hot, juicy fillings.

Runner up: I could have just as easily picked the shattering crisp bean curd skin wrapped around an unctuous mushroom filling, or the char siu pork served with fluffy parker house rolls for some DIY bao action.

BlackBrick
3451 NE 1st Ave., Miami, Florida
305.573.8886

best thing i ate last week: Grouper Cheek at Alter

I've been waiting a long time for Bradley Kilgore to get a place where he could really do his own thing. We first crossed paths when he was the sous chef at Azul, and we did a Cobaya dinner  there with Andrew Zimmern as a guest (who nicknamed Brad "Wall Street" for his slicked back hair). A brief stint at Exit 1 on Key Biscayne, a longer and more fruitful tenure at Jean-Georges' J&G Grill, and now that time has finally come with Alter.

The menu at this roughly 45-seat venue in Wynwood is all Brad's, honed down to seven appetizers and an equal number of mains. A five-course, $65 tasting menu selected from among those items is a good way to try a lot of it at once. That's what I did for my first visit, with a couple add-ons.

Cheeks are like the pork belly of fish: richer, fattier, moreish. This grouper cheek is meaty but giving, substantial enough to stand up to the intense shoyu hollandaise draped over it like a velvet robe. Various seaweeds and flowering dill are scattered about, like it just washed up on a black sand shore (that's actually creamy black rice). A couple twists of cucumber and thin rounds of chile pepper provide a bit of palate-cleansing snap.

It doesn't just look like a seascape. It tastes like one too, but with more butter and umami. It was the best thing I ate last week.

(Full disclosure: this course, a small sample of one of the larger entrées, was a gift from the kitchen in addition to the tasting menu; I did my best to make up for it with the tip).

Runner up: the soft egg dish from the same meal. More to come on that after at least one more visit, in order to do a more fulsome write-up.

You can see all the pictures from my first visit in this Alter - Miami (Wynwood) flickr set.

Alter
223 NW 23rd Street, Miami
305.573.5996

best thing i ate last week: Pork Tonkatsu Sandwich at Vagabond

In the interest of encouraging myself to post more frequently, I'm trying something new, and simple: the "best thing I ate last week." There were a couple other contenders, but this week, it was the pork tonkatsu sandwich at Vagabond Restaurant and Bar.

It starts with a panko-breaded and fried pork cutlet in the Japanese style (most people think of sushi when they think of Japanese food, but they are also expert fryers, and not just with tempura; I'm coming around to the opinion that the Japanese just do everything better). The pork is nestled between layers of sauerkraut brightened with  the citrus-chile sting of yuzu kosho. It's all squeezed between fat slices of Japanese-style milk bread (see?) that's softer and whiter than Brian Scalabrine, spread with a little spicy mustard for some extra zing, the edges of the cutlet flopping off the sides.

There's a lot going on here: Is it a Japanese-style Indiana pork tenderloin Reuben sandwich? I don't know. But it was the best thing I ate last week.

This was originally a brunch-only item at the Vagabond, but you can also now find it at their lunch service which started a couple weeks ago (Tue-Fri 11:30am - 2:30pm).

Runner up: the somewhat unorthodox, but delicious, arroz con pollo at the Matador Room.

Vagabond Restaurant
7301 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami
786.409.5635

first thoughts: Myumi Omakase Sushi Truck - Miami (Wynwood)

For a long time, I've been bemoaning the dearth of good sushi in Miami. I'm not even talking about in comparison to what I had in Japan; just good quality fish and properly prepared rice is frustratingly difficult to find.

On the very high end there is Naoe, but it requires a commitment of at least a couple hundred bucks and a few hours. I'm also a fan of Makoto in Bal Harbour, but it's become a difficult reservation many days. I've actually got an excellent little spot in my neighborhood, but it's so small, its hours are so limited, and it's become so popular that it is now the Sushi Bar That Shall Not Be Named.

Then what? I had a good meal when I went omakase at Morimoto (pictures here), but the sushi wasn't really the highlight. A few years ago I made a return to Nobu after several years away and the sushi was reasonably good, but the value was entirely out of whack, as has always been the case there. I was actually pleasantly surprised by my first visit to the recently opened Soho Bay (pictures here), a Brazilian import that poached a Nobu alum, Ricardo Sauri, for its executive chef. I'll have to go back and try more.

What else? I'm not nearly as enamored of Matsuri as some folks are. I've got a couple izakayas I love – Hiro's Yakko-San and Su Shin – that serve sushi, but it's not their strong suit.^[1] I'll go to Pubbelly Sushi for their reimagined Japanese gastropub stuff – a good rendition of tuna poke, the hamachi ceviche with tostones, the ridiculous but delicious pork belly and clam roll – but it's also not a place to go to for traditional nigiri. Everything else I've tried is crap.

Enter Myumi. It's not your typical sushi bar. In fact, it's a truck – a converted FedEx delivery truck, currently stationed in a lot in Wynwood. Which I suppose makes a bit of sense: I've read that sushi was originally street food. From that truck, Chef Ryo Kato^[2] serves an omakase only (chef's choice) menu with only two choices: do you want to spend $40 or $60?

The omakase-only format means they know exactly what they need to buy, so they buy some very good stuff: fish and shellfish straight in from Japan, uni and ikura from Alaska, tuna from Ecuador. Some items get just a brush of shoyu, others more elaborate garnishes. Our $60, 12-course selection went like this:

(You can see all my pictures in this Myumi - Miami (Wynwood) flickr set).

Madai (sea bream), garnished with a dab of ume (salted, pickled plum paste), finely julienned shiso leaf, and a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds.

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Cobaya Chang at the Vagabond

When I wrote about Chef Alex Chang's work at the recently opened Vagabond Restaurant, I referred to what I call the "Rob Deer School of Cooking:" go for the home run, don't be afraid to strike out. Not every dish I've had there was perfect, but none have failed for lack of ambition. With his willingness to take risks, his creative approach to using the local bounty, and his backstory (he ran an underground supper club in Los Angeles while a student at USC, before spending a few years working in some great kitchens around the world) we figured Chef Chang would be a great fit for a Cobaya dinner. We were right.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Chang at the Vagabond flickr set).

The Vagabond – situated in the wonderfully refurbished 1950's gem of a motel by the same name – hosted us on a Monday (when they're usually closed) so that we could have the entire place to ourselves, and so the kitchen could devote its focus to our twenty-five guinea pigs. After a round of drinks at the bar, we settled into a couple long tables in front of the brightly lit open kitchen.

Chang's first dish didn't look like much: a few slabs of half-cooked fish in a wide bowl. But it was sneaky. The triggerfish tataki was topped with a dab of a preserved key lime purée^[1] and wisps of bronze fennel, then a golden charred onion dashi was poured into the bowl tableside. Fresh, firm fish with just a hint of smoke from grilling; a more defined whiff of smoke and sea from the dashi, bringing umami without heaviness; brightness and tang from the preserved key lime; a subtle, judicious addition of browned butter, a bit of richness to stretch the flavors. Really well done stuff.

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Cobaya Lee at the Forge

The Forge is one of the true grand dames of the South Florida restaurant world. And like a lot of grand dames, it's had a bit of work done here and there over the years. Originally opened in the 1930's, it was the mid-century Miami hangout of choice for celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason. In the 1960's, Alvin Malnik bought it from the original owner (a blacksmith, ergo the name), and remodeled it in the luxe, rococo style that has become its signature. Malnik – with a little help from Baron Philippe Rothschild – also was responsible for filling out its encyclopedic wine cellar. In the 1990's, after son Shareef Malnik took over from his father, the Forge was not only regarded as one of the city's top restaurants – it also was one of Miami's hottest party scenes with its Wednesday disco nights.

Since then, it's had at least one more substantial redecoration about five years ago, lightening up some of that old polished mahogany. It has brought some new life into the kitchen as well: Dewey LoSasso did a turn there, and more recently Chef Christopher Lee took over the reigns. Chef Lee has a pretty full résumé for a guy who's still in the prime years of his career: in 2005 he was the James Beard "Rising Star Chef of the Year;" the following year, after moving from Philadelphia to New York, he garnered two Michelin stars for (now-closed) Gilt; then a couple years later picked up another Michelin star at Aureole.^[1]

So when Chef Lee expressed an interest in doing a Cobaya dinner, we were intrigued to see what he was doing these days – and eager to have an excuse to hang out in one of Miami's most opulent dining settings.

(I am abashed at the lousy quality of my photos from this dinner; I was trying out a new camera and am very disappointed with the results. So with my apologies, you can see all the pictures from this dinner in this Cobaya Forge flickr set).

Chef Lee started light, with a dish featuring radishes in a multitude of fresh, snappy, peppery forms, accompanied by puddles of a tangy goat cheese dressing and a quenelle of a bright orange and fennel sorbet.

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Cake Thai Kitchen - Miami

I've often bemoaned the cookie-cutter nature of most Thai restaurants in Miami. It's as if they all got the same regulation-issue menu from the "Bureau of Miami Thai Restaurants:" there's the "A" version which invariably has a nearly identical listing of satays, spring rolls, "volcano chicken," and choices of proteins with choices of different-hued curries; and there's the "B" version, which also includes sushi and other Japanese items.^[1] The same dull consistency infects the preparation of those menu items: lackluster, tepidly spiced, and invariably too sweet.

There are a couple exceptions: I am a big fan of Panya Thai in North Miami Beach, and Ricky Thai Bistro nearby in North Miami, both of which I've been meaning to write about for a long time. Now I can add another to the list: Cake Thai Kitchen on  Biscayne Boulevard, just north of 79th Street.^[2]

Back in December, after driving by the somewhat mysterious new sign (is it a bakery or a Thai restaurant? A Thai bakery?),^[3] I found Cake's menu listed on an online delivery service website, and got pretty excited. Crispy rice with house-made fermented pork "salami," grilled pork neck, chili paste squid with salted egg ... clearly, the Bureau never sent them the regulation-issue menu.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cake Thai Kitchen flickr set).

And, most dishes were every bit as good as they sounded. When Thai food is made right, there's a balancing of extremes: salty, sour, spicy, sweet, bitter, funky and herbaceous all turned up really loud, ultimately combining to great effect - sort of like vintage Stooges. Cake's food had that going on.

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Cobaya Griese at MM74

One of the reasons we enjoy these Cobaya events is that even as the organizers, we never quite know what direction the chefs will take. You can't necessarily predict where a chef's real passions or interest lie from the kind of restaurant they run.

Thomas Griese is the chef at MM74, a Michael Mina restaurant in the Fontainebleau resort in Miami Beach. It's a "dressy casual" kind of venue, someplace you might go to before heading to Liv (or maybe even after clubbing: it's open until 2am on weekends) and get anything from hamachi "poppers" to a $26 burger to Mina's classic lobster pot pie. Don't get me wrong, the food at MM74 is good – very good, in many instances – but you wouldn't expect a high end, classically French inspired dining experience there.

But that's what Chef Griese did for his Cobaya dinner, drawing inspiration from his stage at The French Laundry and other fine dining venues^[1] to put together a meal that was as luxurious and fancy as any we've had.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Griese at MM74 flickr set).

The theme was set from the start as we settled into several tables cloistered in the back of the subterranean restaurant downstairs in the Fontainebleau (our first actual "underground" dinner). A kusshi oyster blanketed in a silky truffled yuzu sabayon, with a dollop of osetra caviar perched on top, was a subtle nod to Keller's classic "Oysters and Pearls."^[2] That striking lurid blue is from infusing curaçao into the salt on which the oyster is plated.

From oysters, caviar and truffles to foie gras, of course: in the form of a crème brûlée, blended with mellow white miso. Brioche toast soldiers with slivers of banana and some fresh herbs and flowers were plated alongside for dunking into the creamy custard after you pierced through its burnished sugar cap, with dots of a sweet ruby port reduction circling the dish. The combination of liver, miso and banana might sound unlikely but made perfect sense: a matching of similarities instead of contrasts, with their rich, creamy, unctuous qualities merging into something positioned right between savory and sweet.

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Who Wore It Best?

In a post earlier this year, I mentioned a recent experience I had at St. Petersburg's Dalì Museum: seeing some of the artist's early works, what was most striking about them was how derivative they were. Several of Dalì's paintings from the late 1920's looked like lesser works of whichever contemporary he was currently in the thrall of, including many that bore remarkable similarities to Picasso's and Miro's works. It was not until the following decade that one of the most distinctive artists of the twentieth century actually found his own style – when Dalì started making paintings that looked like Dalìs.

The delicate subject of inspiration versus copying in the cooking world is one I've explored often here. Few, if any, artists start their careers with a fully formed vision of their style together with the technical ability to execute it. There's plenty of exploration, experimentation, and, yes, copying, that usually comes first. And I suspect it's much the same in the kitchen.

The complicating fact is that in the restaurant world, chefs generally aren't doing it in the privacy of cloistered artists' studios: they work in a public setting, serving up their creations on a plate to paying customers. Does it matter if those "creations" are sometimes very similar to dishes actually created by other chefs? If the primary focus of a restaurant meal is flavor, then perhaps not: a great-tasting dish tastes great, regardless of who thought it up first. And indeed, many outstanding dishes are the product of one chef taking another chef's idea and making it even better.

Some chefs unabashedly fess up to copying others. The Mission Street Food (the pop-up precursor to Mission Chinese Food) book talks about how they did "homage" dinners centered around their "phantom culinary heroes" including Rene Redzepi. Not having actually been to Noma, they had to "piece together our recipes by poring over images online and culling bits of information here and there, not unlike teenagers learning about sex from porn."  In Fancy Desserts, Del Posto's punk rock pastry chef Brooks Headley talks about how it can even happen subconsciously. He draws a cooking:music analogy between Noma and the Dead Kennedys as having unique and "un-rip-offable" styles, then notes how that didn't stop everyone – including himself – from trying to copy Noma: "For a long time, seeing sorrel and sea buckthorn berries on fine dining menus really pissed me off. (You can't rip off the Dead Kennedys, man!) But then I realized that I was doing it, too. I was so guilty, and I didn't even realize it." The incriminating evidence: pickled green strawberries.

So there shouldn't be any shame in it. But if you are copying (or paying homage, depending on how negative or positive a spin you wish to apply), how much, if any, credit ought you give? Should you do like David Kinch does when he serves an "Arpege egg" at Manresa? Can you be coy, like Pubbelly when it lists "dates AVEC chorizo" on the menu? Or is it sufficient to just assume that knowledgeable diners will be in on the joke (and oblivious diners won't care)? And with creativity an increasingly common component of the marketing pitch for new restaurants, what of Ferran Adríà's maxim, "creativity means not copying"?

I don't know all the answers. But I do know when something looks and/or tastes a lot like something I've had before. So, inspired by Us Weekly (and with a hat tip to JSDonn), here's my version of "Who Wore It Best?" Let me know what you think.

Who Wore It Best? (Round 1)

1. Roasted baby carrots, mole, hazelnut, yogurt, za'atar at Vagabond Restaurant, Miami.

2. Roasted carrots with mole poblano, yogurt and watercress at Empellon Cocina, New York.

My latest mantra is that "carrots and yogurt" is the new "beets and goat cheese" – a combination that seems to appear on every new menu in some form, and which despite its increasing ubiquity I'll still order because it's usually pretty darn good. But the similarities between a dish at chef Alex Chang's new Miami restaurant, Vagabond, and Alex Stupak's Empellon Cocina in NY go further: not just the carrots and the yogurt, but also the distinctive use of Mexican mole sauce, plus the tepee presentation, though some other components differ. (Note: Empellon has been serving this dish since at least 2012).

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Vagabond Restaurant - Miami MiMo District

When chefs from other cities open restaurants in Miami, there's often a sort of "I'm going to show you how it's done" swagger that locals can find off-putting. You hear lots of broad brush "Miami doesn't have ____" and "Miami doesn't do _____" statements from people who sometimes have spent less than a week here. That limited experience doesn't keep them from professing to educate us all about ourselves and what we're missing.

I was worried we were getting more of the same when I read a pre-opening interview with Alex Chang, the young chef^[1] selected to run the Vagabond Restaurant & Bar inside the newly renovated and restored Vagabond Hotel on Biscayne Boulevard.^[2] Here's the brash newcomer telling us, "So ... it's different compared to other big cities... I think the food here is not quite as progressive and innovative. I think there's some great chefs here and a lot of people doing some really great stuff, but I think what I found is that there's something missing in the middle to me." And "I just don't think there are restaurants that are super unique here .. like, oh this restaurant bleeds Miami."

At least it was balanced by some humility too: "I'm just trying to really, really figure out what Miami is made of and what it can be..." So I was willing to cut the guy some slack. And if I'm going to be completely honest, though I may not completely agree with the categorical statements, there's an element of truth to what he says.^[3] But more important, I wanted to try the guy's food. Let's see what you've got.

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

There's a "DINER" sign outside the Vagabond Restaurant, keeping with the 1950's era style that's been so faithfully restored throughout the property, and the atmosphere inside is delightfully Jetsons-inspired, staying just this side of kitschy. But Chang's food is decidedly contemporary. Consistent with the "Vagabond" name, inspiration is pulled from all over the map: you'll taste flavors from Mexico, Japan, Italy, Cuba, Thailand, Jamaica, Spain and more – including South Florida. It was interesting to hear from my CSA farmer, Muriel Olivares of Little River Cooperative, that Vagabond has become one of their best customers, and is always interested in the more unusual items they're able to provide. That was a good sign.

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Cobaya Five 0 with Chefs Jeremiah Bullfrog and H. Alexander Talbot

I will save most of the nostalgic reminiscences for another post, but this was a special one: our 50th Cobaya dinner. When we started this little experiment nearly six years ago, I had no idea if we'd get enough people to show up for a single dinner, much less be able to do it 49 more times. So it was particularly appropriate that we got to do Cobaya Five 0 with some people who have been a big part of our story.

Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog was one of the first people to reach out to us when we started on this endeavor – this was before gastroPod v.1.0, much less v.2.0 in a shipping container in Wynwood (and the new v.2.5 in Aventura Mall). He cooked for Experiment #2, made a return a couple years later for Experiment #19, and has helped out on countless other events.

H. Alexander Talbot – one of the co-creators, along with wife Aki Kamozawa, of the Ideas in Food blog, and co-author of "Ideas In Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work" and "Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook" – has been an inspiration and mentor to many of the chefs with whom we've worked. He was also back for a reunion with us after doing Experiment #10 almost exactly four years ago.

And Kurtis Jantz, Executive Chef at the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, was really the original inspiration for these dinners. Before there was Cobaya, there were the "Paradigm" dinners that Kurtis and then-sous chef Chad Galiano were doing. It was while waiting in the valet circle at the Trump that the idea for this Cobaya thing was hatched. The Cobaya Gras dinner Kurtis and Chad put on remains one of my favorite of any of our events. So it was great to have him churning out the snacks for #50.

Another guy who was at Chef Jeremiah's Experiment #2: Steve Santana. Back then, he was a coder who had convinced his firm to play host to one of our dinners in a penthouse office in Midtown. Now he's the chef at Taquiza, a great taqueria in South Beach, and has also had a backstage hand in many of our events. I was really touched to hear in an interview on ChatChow.com that he credits that Cobaya dinner with steering him toward a career in the kitchen.

But I said I would save the trip down memory lane for another post, so let's talk about this dinner, because it was a great one.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Five 0 flickr set).

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Saison - San Francisco

There are few meals I've looked forward to with as much anticipation. Between the reports from trusted friends both virtual and flesh and blood, the three Michelin stars conferred late last year (which many thought were overdue), and myriad other raves and recognitions, my expectations for Saison were quite high.

Some reputations are so lofty that I fear the reality cannot possibly compare. But Saison did not disappoint.

Ingredients. Focus. Smoke. Pleasure.

These are the words that keep coming to mind as I look back on our meal.

Ingredients: With a menu that uses primarily seafood and vegetables, prepared in a minimalist style, every item that makes it to the plate has been selected with fanatical attention and care. Many are sourced from nearby: sea urchin from Fort Bragg, seaweeds from Mendocino, vegetables from the restaurant's own farm plot, milk "from our cow."

Focus: Instead of dozens of components thrown together, Saison's dishes have a unity of purpose: nearly every course is about one thing, how to bring out, concentrate, and enhance its flavor. Vegetables are cooked in their own juices, fish are served with sauces infused with their grilled bones, all with the goal of honing and focusing the flavor of the primary ingredient.

Smoke: Almost every dish here is kissed with smoke or fire: grilled over open flame, cooked in the wood-fired hearth, preserved in the smoke that makes its way up the hearth's chimney. This is not just some Luddite counter-reaction to the last decade's increasing focus on kitchen technology. Rather, it's a rediscovery that ancient ways of cooking have powerful ways of highlighting, punctuating, amplifying flavor and texture.

Pleasure: Maybe it's just because these are things that I really like to eat, but Saison's menu feels like it is designed to coddle rather than confront. No doubt, a tremendous amount of thought has gone into the preparation of the dishes; but it doesn't require a lot of thinking to enjoy them.This is not a meal whose purpose is to show you how clever the chef, Joshua Skenes, is. Rather, it's about how much pleasure the diner will take in his work.

(You can see all my pictures in this Saison - San Francisco flickr set).

The pleasure principle kicks in from the moment you enter Saison. There's something delightfully unstuffy about the restaurant. Yes, it's an elegant, beautiful space, filled with live edge wood tables and ornate flower displays; many of the seats are arranged to provide a vantage on a kitchen filled with more gleaming copper than a Mauviel warehouse.^[1] But there's also something about it that's very welcoming and even homey: the foyer area is framed by a woodpile, around the corner of which is a cozy little bar where you can start with a cocktail before your meal; that open kitchen feels not so much like a stage with cooks performing for an audience, and more like the open floor plan of a (very rich) friend's loft apartment.

After a pause at the bar, dinner begins with a sort of tea service: an infusion of "some herbs from our garden." Bound with twine, the herbs release a heady aroma as they are dropped into the hot water. The Japanese aesthetic sets the tone for the meal. It's a remarkable thing: there's no dish in particular that is overtly Japanese, but the overall impression is uncannily reminiscent of our meals there last year.^[2]

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Cobaya SoBe with Chefs Andrew Zimmern, Chris Cosentino, Michael Schwartz, Makoto Okuwa and Kaytlin Brakefield

It was more than three years ago that Lee Schrager – grand poobah of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival – joined us as a guest along with Andrew Zimmern for a Cobaya dinner featured on Zimmern's show, Bizarre Foods.^[1] A seed was planted then that took a while to germinate, but emerged in full bloom this past Friday.

We nearly did a dinner with the SoBeFest last year, but it didn't quite come together. This time around, all the pieces fell into place: Lee Schrager and the SoBe folks helped round up a great group of chefs and a gorgeous setting (at the Perez Art Museum Miami, which I think is one of Miami's most stunning pieces of architecture), and Andrew Zimmern did double duty as both chef and unofficial curator of the dinner lineup, which included Chris Cosentino (of San Francisco's Cockscomb), local hero Michael Schwartz (of Michael's Genuine), Makoto Okuwa (of Makoto in Bal Harbour, and an alumnus of Cobaya #32), and Kaytlin Brakefield (of Verde restaurant at PAMM). Though we couldn't follow our usual modus operandi of "Here's the date, here's the price, everything else is a surprise," this group put together an outstanding dinner that was still very much in the Cobaya spirit.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya SOBEWFF flickr set).

As guests arrived, each chef had prepared a passed appetizer for a reception in the PAMM lobby: local tuna with puffed wild rice, pickled kohlrabi and tangy "green juice" from Michael Schwartz; sweet Island Creek oysters topped with a smoky, funky n'duja vinaigrette from Chris Cosentino; hamachi crudo with tomato, cucumber and basil from Kaytlin Brakefield; foie gras bonbons with a shiso cake and a neon-bright, cherry-red yamamomo berry glaze from Makoto, a great one-bite wonder; and haystacks of carciofi alla giudia (Jewish style fried artichokes) with a zippy aioli from Andrew Zimmern.

When we first saw a preview menu, I was a bit surprised to see this was Zimmern's chosen dish: the champion of food exotica doing something as pedestrian as fried artichokes? Then I tried them and I understood: crisp, browned petals giving way to that grassy artichoke flavor, cut through by a creamy but high-acid sauce? Sure, I'll have another.

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Cobaya Proof with Chefs Justin Flit and Matt DePante

This is really why we do it. Justin Flit and Matt DePante are a couple guys you probably haven't heard of. But Justin spent years as the sous chef at Bourbon Steak, and Matt had the same role at another of Miami's top restaurants, The Dutch. And you might not expect much from their new restaurant, Proof Pizza & Pasta, by the name, anyway. It seems like a pretty simple place, with a short menu of mostly – you guessed it – pizzas and pastas.

But these two – who met at the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center) and both worked in New York before finding their way down to Miami – can flat out cook. The restaurant exceeds expectations, serving some of the best pastas I've had in Miami (you can see some pictures from a regular dinner at the restaurant here). And when we talked to them about doing one of our Cobaya dinners, I had a high degree of confidence they'd do it right. Actually, both are veterans of a couple Cobaya dinners themselves: Justin was in the kitchen at Bourbon Steak for Experiment #6, as was Matt for Experiment #24 at The Dutch. So they know the drill.

My confidence was rewarded: Justin and Matt and their team at Proof put together a really exceptional meal on all fronts: food, service, pace, atmosphere.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Proof flickr set).

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A Weekend of Dining (and other things) in Tampa / St. Petersburg - Edison Food + Drink Lab, Ted Peters Smoked Fish, Fodder & Shine

I was shocked when I learned that Mrs. F had never been to Bern's Steak House, a Tampa institution that goes back to the 1950's, looks like a bordello, serves excellent in-house dry-aged steaks, and has one of the most remarkable wine lists of any restaurant in the world.^[1] I resolved the next time we had a free weekend that we'd remedy that oversight. So over the MLK Day long weekend, we reserved a room at the Vinoy in St. Petersburg, a Mediterranean Revival style grand old dame built in the 1920's (of the same era and in much the same style as the Biltmore in Coral Gables) and made plans to hit the road.

As it turns out, Bern's was fully booked the entire weekend. But even though the motivating purpose of the endeavor was defeated, I still had a list of places along Florida's west coast to visit. It's only a few hours away, but I've not spent a lot of time on Florida's Gulf Coast, and in my admittedly limited experience the dining options seemed dominated by chains and tourist traps. But with a little more digging, I found plenty – both old and new – that intrigued.

edison food + drink lab

On the new side, we visited edison food + drink lab, a two-year old restaurant that sprang out of a pop-up called KitchenBar. But it seems that new and old are not so easily separated: the chef/owner behind Edison, Jeannie Pierola, had been the chef at Bern's and then its more casual sibling SideBern's for several years before going out on her own. The restaurants couldn't be more different: where Bern's is all red velvet and filigree, Edison's design motifs run to corrugated metal and unfinished concrete. Bern's is for the most part resolutely, delightfully stodgy; Edison is much more contemporary in spirit.

(You can see all my pictures in this edison food + drink lab flickr set).

Edison's menu consists mostly of small plates, happily not so precious and dainty that they can't be shared. Escargot and cipollini onion crostini were doused with a black garlic bagna cauda. A salad paired fried green tomatoes with preserved lemon goat cheese, together with arugula and shaved fennel.

Oysters were dappled with ink-black charcoal butter and a sweet corn mignonette. I loved these flavors – I only wished the oysters themselves were either warmer or cooler, not in-between. A New England-meets-the-Caribbean chowder, swimming with slices of fat sea scallop, plump clams, shrimp, corn, hearts of palm and serrano chiles, smartly used a coconut bacon dashi as its base, loaded with flavor but avoiding the heaviness of the typical cream-laden version.

Squash blossom "rangoons" were stuffed with lump crab meat and fried, served over a blood orange ginger jam. Avocado leaf seared tuna came with a crash scene of ingredients that actually mostly worked: green mango salad, aji amarillo sorbet, fish sauce caramel, tamarind peanut crunch. For dessert, the components of rocky road ice cream, and then some – dark chocolate cremeux, marcona almond nougat crumbles, frozen marshmallows, torched meringue, vanilla ice cream and lashings of chocolate sauce – were taken apart only to happily be put back together again.

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CobaYeo at Khong River House

For Cobaya experiment #47, we returned to the site of experiment #30, almost exactly two years ago: Khong River House, just off Lincoln Road on Miami Beach. In the interim, there had been changes in the kitchen – owner John Kunkel had lured Chef Patricia Yeo down from Chicago to head up the restaurant – and we were excited to see what was new.

Chef Yeo worked with Bobby Flay at several of his New York restaurants before opening several of her own places, first in New York and then Boston, including Om and Moksa. In 2012, she left Boston to join Chicago's Lettuce Entertain You group, for which she served as creative director of a fast-casual Asian mini-chain, Big Bowl. Some of you may also remember her from her appearance on Bravo's Top Chef Masters show. She only recently joined Khong and has been in the process of making its menu her own.

But when we do Cobaya dinners, we don't want the restaurant menu, and I was happy that Chef Yeo did not constrain herself. Rather, she put together a "belly" themed menu for our dinner featuring some form of belly in each course.

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

To start things off: clam bellies. Served family style for the table to share, these plump, juicy clams were lightly battered and fried, together with a zingy aioli spiked with lemon and capers. I've paid one visit to Khong since Chef Yeo took over, and from my limited sample size, this dish (even though there was nothing Asain about it) is characteristic of her style: very bright, defined flavors. There's an angularity rather than a roundness to her cooking, if that makes any sense: you taste each component distinctly and vividly.

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