Chicago Foodies

The Unique Dinner Series at Moto with 16 Courses of Black: Recap

The Chicago Foodies Unique Dinner Series launched January 28th with "16 Courses of Black" at Moto. The Unusual Dinner Series was created to give chefs an opportunity to do something a bit "different". In this case I asked Chef Homaru Cantu who is known for doing things differently, "What hasn't worked?" His answer focused on an all black dish that was off-putting for many reasons. From unseen and unexpected  textures to an unappetizing appearance while being eaten, it seemed to be "too different". The next question was "How do you feel about 16 Courses of black?"

I didn't know what to expect when putting the Unique Diner Series together but that was part of the idea and Saturday night, after 7 hours at Moto, in the company of Moto's staff and Chef's Cantu, Jones and Farina I came away amazed.

From his introduction asking the diners to be kind, Chef Cantu demonstrated what the Unique Dinner Series is all about. The audience of 24 came willing to taste something new, experience something unusual. While a dish or two might make it to the main Moto menu, the majority of them were simply inspired by the concept of black. They were one-shot dishes more fun than refined... interesting, surprising, and risky.

As you can imagine after 16 courses, including one we were explicitly not allowed to photograph, I can only do a disservice by trying to re-compile each dish's ingredients, and preparation. Simply enough, I'll let the pictures do the majority of the work and try to add what I can with specifics, pairings, etc.

Walking downstairs into the lab for the first time you would see a large prep-table and around it smaller tables and chairs for patrons. In the corners are several machines, including a freeze drier and a couple of gas tanks. Throughout the evening the staff was plating and prepping dishes and able and willing to answer questions.

White Wine Tasting at Oceanique

Last week the editor-in-chief of Chicago Foodies and I met Philip André, the wine director of Oceanique, an intimate French-American seafood restaurant situated in the city center of Evanston that has been in business since 1989.

Philip was kind enough to show us a few wines on his day off, and most of them were from Alsace.   While I've shifted my tastes in red wine over the years, for whites it was love at first sip for me when it came to Alsace, and I haven't looked back.  In fact I may even take top Alsatian grand crus over first-growth Bordeaux, but I'd have to think about it first.

Next Restaurant – "Childhood" Teaser

Anne Trimbach Wine Dinner – Alsatian at the Penninsula

Penninsula Hotel Wine Director, Michael Muser has picked a great time of year to host Anne Trimbach. A cool crisp pre-autumn day is the season for Alsatian wine.

On Tuesday September 27th, the Penninsula Hotel's Shanghai Terrace Restaurant is hosting a 4-Course Cantonese and Shanghaiese dinner featuring Trimbach wines. The 13th generation Alsatian wine producer will be on-hand to answer questions and share information and stories about her family, the business and the grapes.

There will be 5 wines poured and private dining room is limited to 25 guests so act fast. Price is $125 per person. Email for reservations.

Next Restaurant – Tour of Thailand, Not Bangkok 2060

I'm not sure where I had it in my head that the next concept from Next Restaurant was Bangkok 2060.  When I asked the waitstaff about what makes this restaurant "futuristic" they said that it's more of a tour of Thailand, not futuristic. I'll confess that I was disappointed. A big part of what really worked with Paris 1906 was the believability of that history in the food. The flavors were big and French but also conveyed authenticity and laborious techniques which are simply not done anywhere else anymore. It made it more than the Next Restaurant's "take" on French food. A restaurant set in the future, in Bangkok, when the Bangkok Post states that "the planet may be unrecognizable by 2050" –what a concept! How do you cook with no abundance of fresh water? Half of Bangkok will theoretically be underwater by then... not to mention placesettings! In any case it wasn't to be.

What is at Next now is a broader-stroke interpretation of Thai cuisine and while I'm sure I can get into a fight about just how good our Thai restaurants are in Chicago, all this said, I wasn't looking for an authentic dish.

Next Restaurant's Official Bangkok 2060 Menu

Fresh off their website... sound good?

Next Restaurant – Paris 1906... In Pictures.

CLICK TO ENLARGE. PICTURED IN ORDER: Gougeres/Hors d’Oeuvres (assorted bites)/Potage à la Tortue Claire (turtle soup)/Filet de Sole Daumont (filet of sole)/Suprêmes de Poussin (chicken supreme)/Caneton Rouennais à la Presse (pressed duck)/Gratin de Pommes de Terre à la Dauphinoise (potato gratin)/Salade Irma/Bombe Ceylan

At this point a review of Next Paris 1906 is a bit late. The best I can do is provide my photos from that night's dinner and say that the reserve wine pairing was worth the money. From the gougeres-amuse through the mignardises (unpictured), it was terrific. The accessibility of the meal reminded me of a meal I had at Grant-era Trio.

Setting Expectations Higher for NEXT Restaurant

This is a neat video about Alinea on their Anniversary from the staff at Next. It really sets the bar even higher for Next. Considering I'm looking forward to a dinner there this weekend, I am kind of re-grading my expectations quite higher. I'm curious to see how well the disciplines from Alinea can be "taught" and how comparably mindblowing the food will be.

14-Course Underground Valentine's Day Dinner

Chef Iliana Regan is trying something a bit different from her usual for Valentine's Day. Instead of a communal table, seating is by couple.

Not only that but wine pairings are included courtesy of Tracy Kellner from Provenance. If you're looking for something unique, this may be it. Of course seating is really limited so be quick.

It's $110 per person again for 14-courses and wine pairings. Not really beat-able. Email for reservations.

 

Les Nomades

Les Nomades is one of those places that falls beneath the celebrity chef and media hype radar.   Owned by Mary Beth Liccioni since 1989, acquiring what was at the time Le Français, the restaurant is in some ways very established.  Its Streeterville location is very unassuming, tucked away on Ontario Street, hidden behind a garden, that one would miss if not paying attention to it.    Chef Chris Nugent also remains behind the scenes, despite a pedigreed resume of Zealous and Tru, as well as stellar reviews of his cooking at Les Nomades by Chicago Magazine, which gave 3-1/2 stars, four stars by Phil Vettel at the Tribune, and 2010 Restaurant of the Year by Pat Bruno at the Sun-Times.

The clientelle, when we were here, tended to be more senior, which is often the case for jacket-and-tie places, though perhaps a bit more at Les Nomades, whose long span sometimes receives unwarranted assumptions that it is long in the tooth.  Despite the undeserved assumptions of French food being stuffy, Les Nomades is anything but with its seamless fusion of contemporary with traditional.

Super-Premium Blended Whisky Battle: 30 year Canadian Club vs. Blue Label

Lately I have been drinking whiskeys from all over the world and while I am developing a taste for Santori (and for God's sake, all things Japanese), I'm tabling the single malts and cask-strength bourbons for a particular head's up contest. This evening, I finally got a chance at a sip of Johnny Walker Blue Label. It wrapped up the tasting that began with Black and went to Red, Gold & Green before the Blue. Needless to say it wasn't bad. I came straight home though and poured a nose of my Canadian Club 30 year. While it's an ocean apart literally in location and in style, I felt that as it was a blend and at the same price point it would be an interesting comparison. Even though they're apples and oranges, they're both fruit.

The thing that I really noticed about the Blue was the mouth-feel. My hunch is that when a whisky is described as buttery or 'evaporates on your tongue'-type talk is used, it translates to mouth-feel. It leaves your mouth coated and maybe a bit fuzzy. The blue does this a lot. It's not a sweet scotch but it's also not very peaty. It's a blend and that's exactly what you get. If you're a big single malt guy, you probably would get more out of the Green label. While it's the only Walker that's all malt, it doesn't catch you with the smoky peat like Laphroaig or Lagavulin. It's pretty mellow with the peat taking a back seat to a woodiness that starts to walk back to a barrel-flavor. Blue is nothing if it's not balanced and while it's not overly anything, you taste everything, sweetness, smoke, wood, peat, floral, honey.

BOKA: Second Annual Chicago Chef Week

I finally got over my post-Restaurant Week blues only to relapse with the Second Annual Chicago Chef Week. My cohort and I searched for a resto where we had not yet been, and could be a good deal for Chef’s Week (rather than choosing a restaurant where you can eat all three courses for close to the $30 price). We decided on BOKA, and, needless to say, Executive Chef Guiseppe Tentori (Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2008) did not disappoint.

The dimly lit restaurant was chic and timeless – with a strapping young group of staffers greeting you upon arrival. The food was delish – as was the wine. There were two choices per course on the Chef’s Week menu, and it was tough to decide between them.

Moto's Future Food Premiere: We Sea Food Differently

Hold on to your cornstarch-fluffed, flash-frozen hats; Moto is unveiling their TV debut with the series Future Food. The show premieres on Planet Food at 9 pm on Tuesday, March 30. On Monday, Chicago Foodies was invited to attend the premiere preview party, and it was a blast (literally).

If you are unfamiliar with Moto, they are one part magician, one part mad scientist and two parts chef extraordinaire. Place in a Pyrex beaker, heat over a Bunsen burner until the solution is denatured, and serve over a warm bed of wonder. Helmed by Executive Chef Homaro Cantu and Pastry Chef Ben Roche, Moto is one of the restaurants most often associated with the molecular gastronomy movement, and unlike those other stodgy codgers, they embrace and play up their images as scientists and experimentalists. Forget fancy china, and pick up a test tube and beaker instead. On the lower level of the restaurant, there is a full-fledged research laboratory, where no whim is too fanciful to be carried out in real life. Krispy Kreme in an espresso cup? You've got it. Mushrooms without the squishy texture? Even the most die-hard mushroom haters are won over. This is a step inside Willy Wonka's factory, where the boundaries of cooking are constantly redrawn, and shot to pieces with lasers. To protect his technological innovations, Cantu has filed for dozens of patents, including ones for a "food replicator" ink-jet printer that produces edible prints and self-heating utensils with a carbon-dioxide-based charge.

But hold on, why is Future Food being aired on Planet Green of all places? Moto's use of additives and radical alterations seems like the antithesis of the slow food movement classically associated with sustainability, which emphasizes the use of raw ingredients in their natural state. What does all this high-tech wizardry have to do with environmentalism?

Restaurant Week: Blackbird

So I found out too late that Blackbird was serving dinner in addition to lunch specials for restaurant week. But, no matter, I was in for the typical Blackbird treat.

I hit about 4 places every restaurant week. I find the choices made to be very indicative of the caliber of restaurant. You can tell when certain menus seem chintzy. It sometimes is a type of ingredient or a very common dish. Broad examples would be pasta-heavy options or maybe lots of chicken. It could maybe be dishes with very few ingredients or big hunks of grilled something ie. burgers, etc.

Blackbird offered roasted chicken, grilled trout or a sweet potato agnolotti and in doing so could suggest some prix fixe adjustment. But it just goes to show how perceptions are unreliable. It may have been one of the best lunches out that I've had (the last one also being at Blackbird).

The 'Right' Wine vs. A 'Great' Wine at Tru

Last week, courtesy of Mirassou, I had an interesting experience pairing $12 (approximate) wines from Mirassou with a 6-course tasting menu at Tru. It was an opportunity for wine to transform into something more through simple guilt-by-association with the wonderful food and while I'm not sure if that happened, what it showed was how paired wine actually adds to a meal.

 Mirassou offers your standard varietals: Cab, Merlot, Pinot, Chardonnay, SauvBlanc, Pinot Grigio, Riesling
They were each paired with our dishes: scallops, venison, crab, short ribs, halibut, skate & duck, and a nectarine and sour cream dessert.

How could you match them up? Mind you I already had this meal with the pairing but in all honesty I can't recall what went with what so before I look it up let's guess. The point of this is that different wines can be paired for different reasons and there really is no 'right' way to do things.

Riesling has to be with the fruit forward dessert. I'm cheating here because I remember this pairing clearly... Consider it a 1-varietal handicap. So now you have 3 whites and 4 fish courses... so which goes with skate and duck? It's very 'French' so I'd guess the sauv blanc... the scallops were served with quinoa and broccoli so I think pinot grigio with it's slight citrus... leaving the halibut and a leek emulsion and chardonnay reduction with, what else, the chardonnay. But what about the crab? It was in a clear tomato broth... that's more of a pinot grigio given the tomato acid? But we're out of whites... that means a red needs to be somewhere in here. And with the acidity of the tomato broth I'm putting it here. I'm guessing the Pinot Noir. It's lighter than the merlot or the cab. But let's assign reds and see which is left.

Schwa

I could begin this piece with ample amounts of whining about getting a table through one of America's most difficult reservation processes, but in all honesty, the process was fairly straight-forward. For several days, I called Schwa around the clock whenever I had a free moment. Each time, the voicemail box was invariably too full to record my message. After four days of wondering whether anyone was alive back there, the voicemail box was magically cleared and I gleefully left a message with my name and number. Then I waited. And waited. And woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare that I'd left the wrong phone number. About three weeks later, just as I had given all hope of a call back, the phone rang. "Hey, what's up?" said Michael Carlson. "So I hear you want to come by for dinner?" And with that, I picked a date and was temporarily the owner of a table at Schwa.

If you are wondering why the reservation process is so drawn-out, the answer lies somewhere between Schwa's limited size (26 seats and a tiny kitchen) and owner-chef Carlson's stalwart resistance to technology (Alan Richman's profile of Carlson suggests that he is "inept at anything involving electronics"). Plus, the restaurant is staffed on a skeletal crew of just three chefs and an intern. There is no maitre d', no host, no servers, no bartenders, and conspicuously, no women. In the same article, chef Jonathan Ory said wryly, "We're like a pirate ship, man." Though it may not be the most profitable way to run a restaurant, this idiosyncratic approach is very good at filtering out diners who don't genuinely want to be there.

Sixteen Restaurant: In Perspective

Chicago is a beautiful city, American to the bone, and Trump Tower sits in a perfect location.  The Terrace Bar, outdoors, on a Saturday night at dusk, seemed quite magical.  Despite the long waiting list for a party of two to grab a drink outside, $20 gets you in fairly quickly. 

It was worth it.   My wife and I were there for a very special occasion, with reservations to Sixteen awaiting right after the cocktails at The Terrace.  The staff were extremely nice, and we even got a window table.  After all, the view is part of the experience. 

The first thing that became apparent after we sat down is the true Donald Trump-like nature of the restaurant.  Despite us supposedly getting the only available time slot for dinner reserved a month in advance, there were empty tables around us.  I also realized that the coveted window tables are not worth tipping the host.  There was more than one available, and the windows looked onto the party crowd at The Terrace.  But the famous "We'll try to accommodate you to the best of our abilities" speech, especially on an anniversary dinner, makes one feel a bit jumpy and start fishing for greenbacks in the pocket.

Publican: Part Beer Hall, Part Gastro Pub, Part Fill in the Blank

What Paul Kahan touches seems to turn to gold, and it is largely because whatever he sets out to do he does very, very well. .  His first restaurant in the West Loop, Blackbird, has been wowing diners since 1999, and avec, which was really supposed to have been a wine bar, typically has a very long wait (and always well worth it).   His hidden retro cocktail place in Wicker Park , The Violet Hour, makes amazingly delicious cocktails, and keeps the number of patrons down to a minimum in a very relaxing atmosphere (unlike avec and Publican, ironically).  

Everest: Alsatian food temple in the sky

Those who know me well know that I love Alsatian wine, and Everest has Chicago's largest Alsatian wine list (and, reputedly, the largest Alsatian wine list in America).  Chef Jean Joho is a native of France's Alsace region, and he brings his region's cuisine in one of Chicago's most venerable white tablecloth restaurants.It is a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant that has been around for 23 years atop One Financial Place on South Lasalle.    Getting up there is a bit confusing:  you first of all have to ask the security guard of the office building to let you inside, then he takes you to the thirty-ninth floor, and then you have to switch elevators to the fortieth floor.  The next thing you notice are the "JJ" logos on the carpet and china, ostensibly an homage to Chef Joho.

Mercat a la Planxa

Adjacent to Grant Park and the Blackstone Hotel, Mercat a la Planxa is a recent addition to the South Loop's ever burgeoning roster of swank restaurants. In particular, Mercat a la Planxa brings a taste of Barcelona to Chicago, with a Catalan-inspired tapas menu. Chef Jose Garces has garnered critical acclaim for his nuevo Latin cuisine while cooking at tapas restaurants in Spain and on the Eastern seaboard, but does Mercat live up to the hype and the price tag?