Augieland

St. John: 742 soulzillian stars

Not long ago I had an old friend call me because he was in an argument with his wife about steak. He wanted me to tell her that steak was from a cow. Now a good friend would have agreed with him so that he won the argument, since at this point in the common American consciousness steaks are indeed beef. Sadly, being a guy who gets all irate about the dumbing down of food, I was compelled to explain that a steak was a piece of any meat cut across its grain from a larger piece, and that it was possible to cut steaks from anything. Then I reminded him of tuna steaks.

Two years ago Peter Hoffman invited Fergus Henderson to come to Savoy in SoHo, New York, from his restaurant St. John in Smithfield, London, to make a meal. I attended, because Fergus is a hero to me and many. Fergus is a hero because in a boring world of boring people eating boring foods with names like steak and chicken Fergus has made a hugely successful career serving things called heart and smoked eel. Having not had an opportunity to get to London since I first became aware of St. John through Fergus’ book “The Whole Beast,” I jumped at the opportunity to sample his food locally.

The evening went well, the food was great, Fergus was charming, and Savoy, our local Mecca for real food traditionally made, served as an apt venue. In the end, I was grateful for the opportunity this occasion afforded, yet it left me wanting for the experience of the actual St. John.

In London last week the first thing I did Monday night was have a proper meal at Fergus’ restaurant. I had heard the room described before as stark and white, words which take on a new meaning when you are in there. It is feels like a sanatorium, large, white, and loud, screaming “clean.” The exact room you would want your rolled spleen prepared in, so that’s what I started with.

Rolled Pigs Spleen & Bacon: deep red spleen is rolled around bacon and braised, then sliced into disks and served cold with red wine vinegar, cornichons, and sliced red onion. It has a flavour much like most cold pork terrines; tougher than liver but not as chewy as snoot.

Roasted Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad: this was served at the dinner in NY and I have since made it at home with the recipe from Fergus’ “Nose to Tail Eating.” From the limited selection of Fergus’s food I have sampled, I think this dish speaks most to what I appreciate about his style. Other marrow preparations I have had – things like marrow whipped with roasted garlic, or served with fruit jams – seem to embrace the ingredient’s richness but apologize for its flavour, covering what is really just the isolation of beefy richness at its best. Here, Fergus roasts the bones, encouraging carmelization, and serves them standing on a plate with grilled bread, sel gris, and a salad of parsley leaves, sliced shallots and vinegar; things that contrast the richness making it more profound while highlighting the flavours. Using a lobster pick, you pull the sumptuous marrow from the bone, spread it on the toast and top it with the salt and salad. I personally always seem to overdo it with the salt and parsley, meaning the first bite is dominated by these flavours, but even after a heavy hand, my mouth adapts and it becomes all about the nuance of this warm unctuous fat and its roasted flavour.

As my entrée, I chose the Tripe & Chips: lightly battered tripe pieces immersion-fried and served with thick-cut French fries and shallot malt vinegar. Some people just don’t like certain foods, and for me for the longest time it was tripe. Tripe was the chink in my omnivorousness and no matter how many times I tried it and who prepared it I just wasn’t pleased so finally I gave up, I just accepted I would never like tripe. Then in one week Frank, Peasant’s chef, sent some over during a dinner and I attended Savoy’s Fergus dinner at which this dish was served. My tune changed. Frank’s was a traditional long slow simmering in spicy tomato sauce, Fergus’ proved there is nothing I don’t like fried. When first served and blazingly hot the pieces don’t have their typical chew, but as they cool they become more chewy, and the flavour of tripe (I have nothing to compare it to, it is a most unique flavour) come forward to play with the very potent black pepper taste of the breading. After seeing merit in these two preparations I have become an eater of tripe, once you have had something made well a search begins for more versions at a top level no matter how you have been let down before.

Late in the meal Pichon dropped by to say hi and insisted for dessert I have the Queen of Puddings. Well insisted, indeed. Under small meringue peaks is bready vanilla lemon custard with raspberry. Simple and perfect for it.

In the long run, all of Fergus’ food tastes very good; not good for what it is but good for food. It would be shame if a guy could get famous simply for selling the less pretty parts of animals, which is what makes Fergus’ simple preparations so important. This is not just novelty food to be eaten on a dare, this is food prepared to celebrate the natural flavours of the more flavourful parts of the animals. Nothing is being hidden or covered up: the tripe tastes like tripe, the spleen tastes like spleen, and (when I had them in NY) the ox hearts tasted like ox hearts, all of it deep, honest and pleasing on a very basic level.

Jean Georges: 784 masterfulillian stars

There is a shortcut to becoming a regular at a place, a “regular pass” if you will, and that is being friends with a chef or owner outside their roles in restaurants. One of Pichon’s very good friends is Deputy, and Deputy is a Jean-Georges Vongerichten chef. Jean Georges has always been one of those it-will-be-there restaurants I knew I’d get to but felt no rush. I knew it would always be there (it has very recently had its fourth star reaffirmed by the Times), and the couple of times I had made forays into JGV restaurants I had not had my socks knocked off, so it was on my hit list but not at the top. Then, over a glass of wine Deputy said, “Pichon, Helmut, Ringwald and you should come in for dinner” (do you hear beautiful music when you read it? I did as I typed).

So the other night Helmut and I saddled up to the bar at Jean Georges for ginger margaritas while the staff helpfully sought out a stylish blue blazer for him to wear. The night was already complete for me as I snacked on olive rosemary popcorn enjoying my margarita, while Helmut denounced his drink as too gingery (though I suspect it was just the first time he had dressed off the rack in a while, and not the drink, which may have bittered him a little). Once joined by Pichon and Ringwald, we were led to our table in the dining room. After we were sat we had a visit from a waiter to check on our water requirements and establish any allergies. The next visit was from Hristo, the sommelier, wondering as to our drink needs. We established with both the servers that it was their restaurant, that between them and Deputy we imagined they had a plan for us to follow, and that we were more than willing to give ourselves over entirely to it. So we did; regulars by proxy due to our association with Pichon, our amuse was brought in from the kitchen by four servers and placed in front of us simultaneously.

Jean Georges
Summer Tasting Menu
July 20, 2006

Amuse Bouche
Strawberry Mint Soup: a shot of strawberry soup with a crystallized mint sugared rim; a bite of mint followed by a cool strawberry sweetness.
Fluke, Yuzu Chili: a piece of fluke sashimi dusted with powdered yuzu and chili; quite spicy dots of powder on a chill bit of fish.
Cucumber Noodle Salad, Tomato Sesame: cucumber threads spun into a nest with a light sambal spice dressing it.

Japanese Snapper Sashimi, Muscat Grapes, Spring Herbs and Buttermilk: Three thin slices of snapper piled and topped with slices of Muscat grape and spring herbs, drizzled tableside with buttermilk. The buttermilk’s lactic acid played well to brighten the herbal notes in the salad, small bits of tarragon, and dill, while its sour notes made the grape and fish come together. There is a point in every four-star meal where you see something you do in your house done precisely, not better than you do, but done exactly as it should be done; done so well you are not sure you could do it even though in language it is just slicing a grape. The three sections of grape were just that. This grape was sliced with ninja skill, perfectly.

Sea Trout Sashimi Draped in Trout Eggs, Lemon, Dill, Horseradish: a dramatic green dill slide runs down the bowl’s side terminating in a frothy pool of lemon foam with a strong lemon essence bite. Riding the top of the foam is sliced raw sea trout awash in corpuscular balls of roe, dressed in ribbons of fried skin so light I would call them confetti. The light oily fry on the skin tempers the salty/bitter eggs and the ascorbic touch of the lemon cream.

Bluefin Tuna Ribbons, Avocado, Spicy Radish, Ginger Marinade: if you want to cut tuna in order to maximize tenderness you cut across the grain, the grain being the opaque lines separating the muscle striations. However, if you take the time and have the knife skills you can separate a single muscle fiber by slicing the meat out from between these silver skin divisions. What remains is a thin piece of tuna not unlike a scaloppini. Deputy slices this into noodles similar in gauge to udon, which by nature of running the muscles’ length have a chew not unlike a doughy noodle, of course tasting of bluefin tuna. These noodles are then spun into little nests interspersed with summer radishes, creamed avocado, and some wasabi, all dressed in ginger.

Toasted Egg Yolk, Caviar and Dill: eggs which have been slowly cooked till set have had their soft warm supple yolks separated from the albumin. The yolks and fresh dill are secured between micro thin slices of dark buttery brioche toast. Laid down the center of the top of the resulting sandwich is a quenelle of caviar. I never caught the type but have my suspicions based on the clarity of its green-steel grey color, its briny flavor, and the individuality of its bead. Whatever it was, this is the kind of food everyone would eat all the time if the world was perfect.

Tri-Star Strawberry and Feta Salad, Wasabi Ice and Micro Basil: the components of this dish were exemplary – the wasabi ice hot, cold and cleansing, the strawberries gorgeous and beautifully pared, the feta fresh, creamy and salty, the baby basil tops perfect. All together, though, the saltiness of the feta held too center a position, blowing out the wasabi’s heat and the strawberries’ sweetness; perfect with the basil though.

Corn, Jalapeno, Lime Gnocchi and Cilantro: a salad, if you will, of fresh corn kernels, micro cilantro, roasted grape tomatoes, lime gnocchi, and sweet corn sféricos, dressed in jalapeno oil. The jalapeno was prevalent and ballsy, making each of the individual components a study in cooling contrast to the oil’s heat; the sweet/sour light lime gnocchi, the sweet pop of the corn orbs, the sweeter pop of the corn kernels, and the deepened sweet/tartness of the cherry tomatoes.

Red Snapper, Lily Bulb-Radish Salad, White Sesame and Lavender: seared red snapper in a pool of sweet iodiney white sesame sauce, topped with crunchy braised lily bulbs, summer radishes, sea beans, and lavender leaves. A spiced, perfumed, nutty, seawater mélange dressing a sweet fish with a snap.

Sautéed Maine Lobster, Artichoke Hearts and Citrus-Chili Emulsion: under a pile of impressively chiffonaded basil leaves lay shelled lobster studded with artichoke meat. A rich frothy yellow sauce with a lemony lightness and capsicin heat was spooned over the top tableside.

Caramelized Foie Gras, Fresh Lychee, Nicoise Olive and Passion Fruit: evenly browned on all six sides, this piece of foie had a just perceptible crunch containing a velvety smooth interior. Lychees combined with passion fruit seeds to play sweetness and tang off the unctuous foie, while salty earthy olives played the other end of the contrast spectrum.

Caramelized Beef Tenderloin, Young Garlic, Charred Favas and Parmesan: slices of seared beef tenderloin rested on top of favas, toasted garlic chips, and fine diced Parmigiano Reggiano. The contrasting textures of the sticky-when-chewed garlic chips, the soft favas, and the chewy cheese helped maximize the simple layers of flavor in this hash that drew sanguine richness from the simply prepared steak.

Cheese Plate: Constant Bliss, Epoisses, Forme d’Ambert, with toasted walnuts, currants, a gooseberry, and a red berry compote.

The press regarding restaurant Jean Georges often speaks of tableside service, and Chef Vongerichten’s desire to bring it back. In my dining experience, I have often been served tableside and seldom saw huge value in it – being presented a chop whole, then again sliced has never wowed me much except when a disparate amount of food was served than shown (the amount of rib-chop left behind in the interest of only serving the best section can be quite wasteful). Up until this point in the meal, the most tableside service we had had was the saucing of the beef and the lobster, and I was happy for it (both presentations were far more impressive pre-sauce). Then we were served a pineapple and a bottle of Port that will forever change my tune on tableside service, while probably making me more critical. No one better ever pat themselves on the back for making a Caesar for me again.

The pineapple started simply enough. A man in a suit wheeled out a tableside cart with a pineapple and four plates on it. He then set about shaving the rind off the fruit. His shaving work was so shallow and precise that the cuts did not seem to flatten the round fruit’s surface in any way. Once he had finished shaving, the fruit was about 80% yellow, blemished only by the dimples in the skin where the needles are. Next, the bottom was lopped off and two dinner forks inserted in the woody core of the pineapple to act as a handle. Holding the forks’ handles, he set about carving the dimples out with a paring knife by channeling v-shaped sections from the top to bottom in concentric circles. Once this had been done five or six times, the divots and the needles they held were removed and the woody center was cored. The remaining clean fruit was then sliced, set on a plate with a cherry in the hole where the core had been, and dressed with some kirsch and a lavender sea salt, all in about eight minutes. The fact that someone with this level of knife skills is working on the floor in a suit speaks volumes about the restaurant.

The other over-the-top tableside “you sure they can only give four stars?” moment was the service of our Port. We had chosen a ’48 Taylor which was presented on a wheeled cart standing on its bottom, next to a decanter with a filtered funnel in its neck. Then from the kitchen appeared Hristo with what looked like part of an andiron set with narrow pincers made for grabbing thin kindling, glowing bright orange. He set about clamping the red hot circle around the neck of the bottle, about one inch below the bottom of the cork, and talked to us for about a minute as if absolutely nothing unique was happening. Once the iron had faded to black again, he set the pincers aside and rubbed the ring where they had just been with an ice cube. Finally, he simply pulled the top away leaving a perfectly flat break with no worry of the cork or the sugars that attach to it in mature Port befouling our wine.

In general, I may be short tableside service because even in the great restaurants of Europe it feels like people going through the motions of what has been done before because it is expected and for little other reason, much like most four-star food experiences to be had. Here, in both cases what was being done were engaging, exciting, things that took expertise, by confident gentlemen who seemed content simply to be doing what they were doing. There was no “this is your duck and now I will carve; look over here” feeling. You had the sense they would have been just as happy if you went about your conversation and ignored them, as long as you were having a good time, and as a result these moments added greatly to the overall experience.

Dessert Tastings

Chocolate
Jean-Georges’ Chocolate Cake, Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Granite, Gelée, Coffee-Cardamom Meringue
Milk Chocolate-Peanut Cake, Salted Caramel Ice Cream
White Chocolate, Yuzu, Mint, Pink Peppered Sablé

Cherry
Bitter Chocolate, Sour Cherry Sorbet, Brandy
Arugula, Jicama and Cherry Salad
Cherry Sponge, Lavender Ice Cream, Chicory
Local Market Berry Soup, Lime Foam

Rhubarb
Yogurt Pancake, Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
Rhubarb and Lemongrass Sorbet, Almond Meringue
Alsatian Rhubarb Tart, Elderflower Gelée
Rhubarb Soup, Kaffir Lime and Coconut Floating Island

Strawberry
Carbonated Chocolate Mousse, Freeze Dried Strawberries
Local Market Strawberry Sorbet
Strawberry Shortcake, Crème Chantilly, Verjus
Strawberry Consommé, Litchi Gelée, Anise Hyssop Granite

I have heard of people not enjoying the “variations on a theme” approach to dessert, but for me it was perfect. As much as I don’t care for dessert in general, I do love to taste, and in this format I got to taste sixteen things, appreciate them and move on.

Wines

Taittinger Blanc de Blanc Comtes de Champagne 1996, Reims
FX Pichler Grüner Veltliner Smaragd M 2004, Wachau
Jean-Louis Chave 2002, Hermitage Blanc
Vincent Girardin 1er Cru Le Cailleret 2004, Puligny-Montrachet
Trimbach Gewurztraminer Vendages Tardives 1999, Alsace
Mommessin Grand Cru 2002, Charmes-Chambertin
Taylor 1948, Vintage Port

People go to these restaurants expecting a certain type of food a certain way which is why I tend to shy away from them. I expect that the restaurants meeting the expectations of diners in general will run a little standardized for my liking, which I guess is both pompous and prejudiced. If you are ever going to be shown the errors of pompousness and prejudice I hope you are as lucky as I was in this case. My love for the new and creative and inspired made me see limited potential in the possibilities of a classic restaurant. What I experienced at Jean Georges was creative adaptation of current trends in cuisine, fine service, a beautiful room, but above all dish after dish, component after component, striving to be the absolute pinnacle of excellence, thanks to friends and friends of friends.

Alinea: 994 apexillian stars

Last October, Bestfriend and I had a dinner at Alinea which was easily one of, if not the, best meal I had to that point. After that, I came home and talked about it a lot. I made many declarations as to the merits of Grant Achatz and his cuisine, going so far as telling Bear that if Grant stayed on the course I saw in reading about him and from the dinner I had, there was little doubt in my mind that in the future there would be no question that Alinea is the best restaurant in the world, and that it is possibly already America’s. With that gauntlet thrown, it should be of little surprise that less than a year later we (Bear, Bestfriend, Beewife, Wife, Soho, and I) sat down together for the menu they call Tour, here is what we had:

CORN coconut, cayenne, lime: a small frozen cube about one third of an inch on all sides, two-thirds sweet corn and one-third coconut, served on a small silver palette with three small drops on its top corners – one lime, one lime zest, and one cayenne. In one tiny establishing dish, Grant illustrates Alinea’s strongest qualities. A commitment to a subtle, engaging, balance of flavors, served in a manner that involves your brain long before your palate, in a portion sized to stimulate and excite without numbing.

YUBA prawn, miso, orange: The utensil for this course is a fried Yuba (tofu skin) twist. Around the crisp is a steamed prawn, a bit of lemon zest, and a young chive, all lashed in place with thread of orange pith. In the bottom of the bowl it is presented in is a dollop of miso emulsion, adding its sweetness to the dish.

TOMATO several complementary flavors : seasoned breadcrumbs, mozzarella, paprika jelly, dried pepperoni, red pepper puree, pickled cucumber, lemon zest, and a saffron noodle are laid on a filet of an heirloom tomato. The suggestion is to eat each complimenting component individually with its tomato section.

MACKEREL radish pod, lemon, poppy seed: The dish for this service is a round-bottomed bowl with a fork fit into it. On the fork is a piece of Mackerel topped with some lemon leather, a radish pod, a cilantro leaf, a slice of chili, and a section of orange. After you remove the fork and eat the bite, you can drink from the remaining cup the white poppy seed soup in the bottom. With the fork removed and all consumed, the vessel will balance on its rounded bottom à la a weeble.

HAMACHI buttermilk, blackberry, green peanuts: poached green peanuts scattered about a plate interspersed with small dollops of thickened buttermilk. On top of each dollop, a couple of drupelets from a blackberry are placed, with drops of a blackberry sauce. All this surrounds a piece of hamachi with a peanut crust seared to it.

KOBE BEEF watermelon, cocoa, red wine: Small cubes of seared steak, small cubes of watermelon macerated in red wine and rolled in crushed cocoa nibs, pickled sections of watermelon rind, a few drops of a clear smoke-flavored gel, fennel fronds, sliced fennel stalk, and fennel gel, bitters and sweets roasted and raw and of varying intensities; a dish of unexpected extremes.

SQUAB strawberry, sorrel, long peppercorn: captured on the end of a metal stick in a thin sugar film are oxalis (sorrel seed pods) which you are encouraged to taste first as a palate cleanser. If you like sorrel or even general lemonyness, this alone would be a pleasing thing. Once this tart bit with its touch of sweetness has been consumed, your mouth can leave behind the smoke and chocolate of the last dish and move on, ready for: seared squab breast, grilled squab loin and squab rillettes, topped with a strawberry and some micro-greens.

MUSKMELON eggplant, orange blossom: a curl of frozen muskmelon , dotted with drops of a mucilaginous reduction of eggplant and an orange blossom cream, together on a spoon. The consistency of the melon is that of ice rather than frozen melon flesh, while the flavor is that of undressed melon.

VERJUS lemon, thyme, beet: an espherication of beet juice in a pool of verjus with lemon sections and lemon thyme foam, dotted with olive oil. When the beet bubble was pierced, its red liquid spread through the dish combining a lightly astringent, earthy sweetness with the ascorbic components of the rest of ingredients. This dish best illustrates Grant’s layering of flavor. Thyme was a pervasive flavor, yet scattered in the foam were three thyme leaves, just enough so that about every third taste had a spike in the level of that element, which helped make you aware of it being there. Any more would have turned overpowering; without it the thyme may have blended into the background.

MENTHOL angelica, lemon: A menthol puff on the end of an antenna (the eighteen inch needle grant uses for small bites) wound in a strand of lemon leather with an angelica leaf. I am suspicious the taming affects of the angelica on the lemon leather may have also worked on the menthol aspects of the puff; the menthol flavor was subtle, almost imperceptible.

YOGURT juniper, mango: a soft-centered yogurt puff topped with a dusting of powdered juniper and dried mango. The flavors, while light, were very aromatic with a long finish evocative of a gin fizz.

PEAR celery leaf & branch, curry: a hard, waxy, curry orb containing a thin pear flavored liquid floating in celery juice with celery leaves sits in a crystal clear, thick bottomed shot glass with tapering ends. When it was presented, we were warned that because of an optical illusion the orb was actually bigger than it appeared, and that the liquid contained inside was very thin so when we cracked the shell our lips should be closed. Immediately after six grownup English-speaking people took this advice, one by one we failed to open our mouths wide enough to accommodate the pill, then struggled to close our lips quickly as we bit. Laughing ensued. A fun course, well played flavor and presentation-wise, that served as a reset for the dishes that followed, both palate and energy-wise.

PORCINI cherry, ham, toasted garlic: a strand of porcini custard with a chew like soft taffy, with dried porcinis, a slice of dried ham, marinated black cherry, and toasted garlic chips.

LOBSTER puffed, and seasoned with pollen: standing in what looks like a giant’s cuff-link is the flavor of lobster with a touch of fennel suspended in air with a crunchy exterior.

LANGOUSTINE vacherin, litchi, ginger: langoustine with a foamed sauce tasting deeply of iodine and brine on shaved toasted meringue, with a ginger emulsion.

LAMB summer vegetable jam, mastic, mustard peach: the first thing placed on the table at the top of service was a sprig of rosemary set standing upright in a cylindrical setting (something like a place-card holder). For this course, three small bites of lamb come to the table on a hot stone in a metal frame. In order to deliver this, a sort of potholder is used comprised of a stick placed through a hole at its end with a heat resistant fabric attached. Once the sizzling bits of lamb are on the table, the potholder is removed and the sprig of rosemary is inserted in its place. As the rosemary needles meet the hot stone their aroma spreads over the table and fills your nose as you taste the pieces of lamb, each topped with one of the three listed accoutrements.

HOT POTATO cold potato, black truffle, parmesan: on a pin inserted through a hole in the side of shallow wax bowl with cold potato soup in its bottom sits a ball of hot potato with the circumference of a nickel. Also speared on the pin are a tiny cube of butter and a slightly larger cube of parmesan cheese. Balanced on the potato is a slice of black truffle, and a couple of sea salt crystals. By removing the pin from the bowl, the butter, cheese, hot potato and truffle slip into the cold soup, which you then shoot from the side of the bowl as you would an oyster. Generally the favorite flavor of the night.

BISON gruyere, pumpernickel, ramps: roasted bison in sauce under a pile of shaved gruyere and crisped pumpernickel, with pickled ramps and a roasted section of leek.

SASSAFRAS Blis aged sherry vinegar: frozen to the end of a pin on a negative skillet, served in a shallow indentation in a short solid Pyrex cylinder.

CREAM CHEESE guava, black sesame, tamarind: a small cheesecake disk filled with guava syrup on black sesame sauce, with sugared minty cachaca jelly cubes and dried tamarind chips. Here, the Alinea approach to adding variations on a flavor shows in desserts; the addition of seven black sesame seeds adds dimension to the black sesame sauce.

CHOCOLATE elderflower, umeboshi, green tea: a long strand of chocolate somewhere in consistency between pulled taffy and pudding, with umeboshi (dried Japanese apricots often called plums) ice cream, dots of elderflower and green tea gels, and bits of crunchy dried chocolate and tea.

COFFEE mint, buckwheat, passionfruit: the mint is a clear gel cut to look like diamonds, around the mint diamonds is a frozen coffee tube filled with a clear liquid, set on piles of toasted buckwheat and dots of passion fruit gel.

PEANUT five other flavors: at the end of foot-long needles radiating in a stepped pattern from a metal disk are five coated peanut halves with the following accoutrements: celery, grape, honey, chocolate, and sugar/salt.

In my first Alinea meal there was a course based around tobacco that was great in theory and horrible in actuality. Both in spite of and partly because of this daring course, I fell in love with Alinea. This time around there were no such clearly daring steps taken. In fact, in twenty–three courses no one had anything but praise for any dish, the worst that was said was, “well I liked the hot potato-cold potato best.” It is hard to complain about a meal this inspired and exhilarating that pleases so broadly, so I won’t. I will simply say I still consider Grant’s cuisine the most exciting available, and hope that every course pleased because it is well tried and tested before appearing on the table at this point, and not just some amazing version of playing it safe.

This meal came less than a year after my first and there were zero repeated courses, so obviously the menu is evolving with the place. Joe Catterson’s wine parings were again off the standard chart and well suited to each course. I think at this level of flavor there will never be a dud course, the reaction will always be great or horrible; the commitment to flavor is that serious. I would happily swallow a couple more tobacco courses to insure a future of meals like this. I just hope passionate reactions to the bad don’t tame the Alinea team’s commitment to experimentation, and I hope the fear of losing praise doesn’t scare them into a rut.

(the size of bubble represents size of dish and the further to the right it is the sweeter the course)

Green Zebra: 281 tomwagnerillian stars

About two years ago, immediately before departing for a trip to visit Bestfriend, I bumped into Mario Batali sitting at the bar of Otto and asked him where I should eat whilst in Chicago. He emphatically declared “Blackbird!” So around 5:30 PM on a Saturday we stopped into Blackbird to sample a couple of appetizers and a bottle of wine at the bar, as our third stop on a day that was intended to have about seven total.

It ended up being our final stop of the evening, except when we wandered next door to Avec with Paul Kahan the owner/chef of both restaurants. As great as this evening turned out to be, it is tale for another time. This much I relay because, having had such a wonderful experience started by a chef’s recommendation, I asked Paul where else merited a visit and his suggestion was Green Zebra.

Two years later I made it to the little garden-centric restaurant named after an open-pollinated tomato. Every conversation I have had regarding Green Zebra in the two year interim has called it a vegetarian restaurant, which although not necessarily a turn-off may have contributed to the length of time it took me to finally get there.

The first thing I noticed while having a non-alcoholic fizzy lavender drink at the bar was many bottles of Fiji water in the ice. This of course struck me as disparate in what I believed to be a veggie place (the amount of fuel involved in moving water bottled in plastic from Fiji to Chicago is such an obviously poor environmental decision that even some places that pride themselves on corn-fed beef do not make it). Reading the menu, I saw certain non-vegetarian items like anchovies and halibut. Turns out Green Zebra is focused on the garden, with some vegan options, but is not strictly vegetarian.

From a simple, white-heavy wine list we went with a young Chinon, suspecting it would be the most universal with the variant (oft-bitter) flavors of a vegetable focused meal. From a selection of small plates, we chose a tasting option of four savories and one sweet which they turned into eight and two, four choices for boys and four for girls.

Girls: Spring Artichoke Salad, friesago grana, preserved lemons & red pepper foam

Boys: Fresh Burrata Salad, charred shishito peppers and pickled peppercorn vinaigrette

Girls: Chilled White Gazpacho, seckel pears, white anchovies & grilled peppers

Boys: Creamy Cauliflower Soup, cauliflower “angel food cake” and marinate berries

Girls: Warm Blue Cheese Cake, pea tendrils, almond “ice cream” and Riesling reduction

Boys: Creamy Salsify Agnolottis, meyer lemon, black walnuts and extra virgin olive oil

Girls: Roasted Halibut, yellow wax beans, spring onions & creamed watercress

Boys: Grilled Trumpet Royal Mushrooms, roasted white corn polenta & herb vinaigrette

Girls: (dessert) Pea arancini with orange sorbet in carrot juice

Boys: (dessert) Cinnamon beignets with rhubarb, black raspberries, and rhubarb juice.

Preparations in general were simple, creating very ingredient driven dishes. All the flavors were alive in harmony and interesting, and after 5 plates I was nicely full but not stuffed. I imagine those drawn to near-vegetarian restaurants want exactly this. For me, on the back of two huge meals (Alinea and Moto), it suited.

A little Gotham porn

Stopped into Gotham for dinner this week. Got the shrimp risotto, was sent an heirloom tomato and watermelon salad, and had the halibut with mustard greens (and heirloom tomatoes that were skinned, so cool). Great as always, here's the porn:

InTent: 542 ambrosillian stars

A couple of weeks ago Wife informed me that we were invited to the opening party for InTent restaurant by a friend of hers that works for their PR firm. I had been looking forward to eating there and reporting my feelings on it for a while, but that visit did not exactly fit the bill. Those parties are fun but they are distractingly social, and although you have the chance to sample food there is too much going on to assess it properly or fairly. At the end of the party I left very well entertained, appreciative, and interested in returning but had learned little more than a couple of things about the place:

1. The little bits of food I had were quite good. I particularly liked a monkfish mousse.
2. Devoid of tables and chairs, the space is very much about varying types of stonework. It feels somewhere between a modern Greek American trying to recapture the marble glories of ancient Athens, or the dream spec house of a contractor that believes the current market is pro rock.
3. The leather (or close facsimile) banquettes lining the walls of the main room are likely the most comfortable seating I have ever encountered in a restaurant.
4. Francois Payard is the owner, Craig Freeman is the chef de cuisine, and Eric Estrella is the pastry chef.

All good notions, but not enough to go on to suggest or discourage friends from trying the place out. For that, I would obviously have to go back, sit down, have full servings of the food and contemplate. Having been invited to the party by a friend, I hoped to end up on a positive slant so as not to have to apologize for my opinions. Then I had the crab…

Wife and I wandered in around eight on Sunday night without a reservation, which meant we would need to sit in the front room as every seat in the back was taken. So we traded those buttery couches for café chairs, and the river stone waterfall for the backlit red marble wine wall, as well as the removable copper-colored Bedouin tent for glass doors open to the summer evening. Since the menu is the same in both rooms, a pretty easy switch except for the chairs. (The seating in back really is that comfortable).

WARM CURRIED CRAB NAPOLEAN CRISPY POTATOES Man is this dish good. The fine fingers of crab flesh perfectly married to the flavor of clarified butter, studded with diced celery and apple and stacked on long, thin crisped potato slices, surrounded by a yellow emulsion tasting lightly of saffron and curry. However it was intended to be eaten, I went with spreading the crabmeat onto the potato chips and eating it with my hands as if it was some crab dip at a bar near the shore. The lavishness of the warm crab salad on the perfectly thin, perfectly crispy, perfectly salted, just thick enough to support the weight of the crab when covered with an equal portion of the meat, potato chip was delightful. The redolence of the sum of these parts was profound. The question of would I recommend this place to a friend was answered as I finished this dish and snuck a text to Bubby that read “if you haven’t eaten dinner yet run to InTent and get the crab appetizer.”

For her appetizer, Wife had ISRAELI COUSCOUS SALAD TOMATO, CUCUMBER, ONION PARSLEY OIL and liked it very much, I was to wrapped up in the crab to bothered to try it.

As an Entrée I had TANGINE STYLE EGGPLANT RAISINS, PINENUTS AND PRESERVED LEMON COUSCOUS. I like dishes that combine the richness of toasted nuts with the tangy sweetness of raisins, especially when these flavors are ameliorated by the dividing texture of the small beads of couscous. The eggplant flesh favored the meaty end of the texture spectrum, while the other components of a ratatouille combined with the disparate flavors and textures of the raisins, nuts and lemon, offering sharp peaks and broad valleys in a harmony of Moroccan fragrance that encompassed the whole dish.

As her entrée Wife had SAUTÉED FILET OF DAURADE WRAPPED IN BRIC DOUGH CRUSHED POTATOES, SPICY MEDITERRANEAN VEGETABLES AND TOMATO OIL and declared it the best piece of fish she has had this year, particularly for the textural interplay between the crisp dryness of the dough and the moist softness of the fish and pulpy potatoes. I would have to agree based on the two bites she let me steal before finishing it.

For dessert we split SUMMER FRUIT SALAD WHITE BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE, SEA SALT AND WATERMELON GRANITE, little flakes of watermelon ice that perfectly fit into molars for crunching set in a nest spun of black cherries, apricots, figs, and strawberries. Even I, who care very little for dessert, was going to try one at a Payard restaurant, and was happy to find one as refreshing as this, allowing nature’s sugars to display without attempts to overdo it.

So I went in afraid I would not like the restaurant and was served one of the most pleasing dishes I have had in a long time, with the added benefit of Wife being delighted by one of her dishes. If there was a downside, it was the length of time between Appetizers and Entrées, but apologies were made early and the food showed before it was too late. Net-net I would consider that a positive enough experience on a restaurant’s third open night to plan a return trip, which I have done.

Supertasters?

The New York Sun has reported that Jancis Robinson has declared and had herself medically certified a “supertaster,” only to be closely followed by Robert M. Parker Jr. Apparently Jancis has two times the taste buds of 65% of the other women on the planet. Robert, not to be left out and sadly lacking a plethora of glossopharyngeal nerves, has declared the grooves of his tongue deeper than everybody else’s. Wrong for two pretty major reasons, I think it is time we as the consumers of their products rescind their invitation to our little food-and-wine-are-fun party.

In the first case, these claims are deleterious because they say to the common tasters, those looking to these pundits for guidance, you need to be special to taste. I like to believe I have an ability to relay the experience of flavors to people well, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the bumps on my tongue or some unique ability. The truth is I taste a lot, many things, and often, and because of my love of tasting I often do so in the company of other people passionate about gustation. We then discuss our experience and through these discussions become better at describing sensations. That’s it, nothing fancy. Consuming and BS-ing, that’s how you identify aromas like raspberry, Band-Aids, pencil lead or salamander, not by being born with more taste buds than three-fifths of the rest of the world that share your gender.

In the second case, these claims are imbecilic because they show a fundamental lack of knowledge of the basic process they are claiming to be so fantastic at. I have never really studied the physiology of taste seriously, but I do read copious amounts about food and wine and as a result have learned plenty on the fundamentals of the subject. The reality is taste buds and tongue grooves serve six simple purposes in the way we perceive sensations of flavor. They sense sweet, bitter, salty, and sour, they offer a sensation of richness when met by certain protein strands, and through an interesting geometric fit with the chemical structure of capsaicinoids they tell the brain to produce endorphins everything else about taste happens in the nasal cavity. That is it. Neither of the situations these two are declaring would make you particularly good at seeking out nuance in wine, just extra sensitive to the balance of tannin, acid, alcohol, and sugar (possibly to a fault if this supposed increased sensitivity makes touches illusive to us average tasters glaring to your touchy buds). So all they are claiming is extrasensory perception of exactly the things people at the beginning of wine comprehension already know their preference for. Ask anyone if they prefer their wines sweet or dry, they will have an answer.

So why then (assuming Bob and Jancis have done at least as much wine reading as I have, and know that these claims are baloney) would they announce super genetic predispositions that, even if true, have little to do with actually tasting wine? Well, I am proud to say because of me. Me and all the other people writing blogs about the pleasures of wine without asking to be praised as geniuses, people who have never felt the need for silly acts like insuring our palates, just women and men who love wine and love interaction with other people that also do, and therefore seek it out.

In an attempt to fortify their brands against us interlopers, these two have turned their backs on the one truth all we wine lovers hold most dear: wine contributes to a quality of life and is accessible by all. So, sorry people, spend the next couple days finding places where wine is being discussed by people with no motives other than enjoying wine and join in those conversations. Once you have, turn your back on these two scared old folks, desperately grabbing at straws to save their place as know-it-alls. It’s a new generation where everyone is capable of enjoying wine to its fullest without paying for subscriptions.

Moto: 783 ingenuitillian stars

People, at least men, saying in their biographies that “as a child I took things apart” is almost a cliché at this point. I think young boys just take things apart and for some reason men think people find this charming. In his defense, I have never heard Homaro Cantu say this about himself, but eating his food it is what comes to mind (except I imagine Homaro started with something like an old Ma Bell phone, took it all apart and put it back together looking just like an avocado; still working perfectly as a phone, but now cordless).

There is no way to talk about Homaro and his restaurant, Moto, without discussing the current trends in cuisine. There are many comparisons that can be made with what Ferran, Grant, and Katsuya are doing and I am not sure that without the current popularity of the new cuisine Moto could exist. The movement is so new a market is needed to help it gain acceptance and diners seem to associate all cuisine not served on a plate or prepared in an oven or sauté pan with the "new," but what Moto is doing is more different from the rest of the new cuisine than it is similar. Each chef has a strength he plays to when he works in this realm - Kats decomposes, Ferran reinterprets, and Grant serves. Homaru seems to be working with the hardware.

It is as if Homaru does nothing without thinking about cooking. At the moment, most of the inspiration seems to be coming from something like Omni or Discover Magazine. Once you have experienced Moto, though, it is not hard to imagine Homaru’s wait for a train one day resulting in an experiment with preparing bacon between a ten ton steel wheel and an iron track at 85 mph in his kitchen somehow. If it goes well, it is a safe bet he will both work it into a dish for dinner and patent the process. As much as he is a chef, Cantu is an inventor, maybe even more.

Late on a Friday night, Wife, Bear, Soho and I sat down to the Grand Tour Moto tasting menu and experienced:

It all starts with an amuse, and a menu, inasmuch as the menu is part of the amuse. On the right side of a divided plate is a shot of cucumber juice, on the left is a menu with your three choices of tasting flights scrawled in an edible vegetable-based ink on a curry- flavored crisp with the consistency of thin corn chips. Once you have chosen your menu (five, ten, or GTM) you break up the page and eat the French lentil dhal and preserved lemon lying under it with the resulting chips. When you have finished this, the juice serves to clean your palate.

VIETNAMESE egg drop soup: micro greens and whipped egg come to the table cradled in small colanders immersed in liquid nitrogen contained in copper pots. These are then sprinkled into bowls of hot, brown, pungent, sweet and sour broth tableside. As the pellets of egg melt, they move from sensation to flavor, from interestingly icy in the middle of the hot broth to mellowing of the broth’s high notes.

SCALLOP & fruit salsa: a scallop in a well-executed tempura accompanied by sections of effervescent grapefruit and pineapple on a vanilla scented sunchoke purée. At the moment I believe only Moto is carbonating fruit, but I expect we will see it around more. Homaru has figured out that through a process involving fresh fruit and gasses with each other under pressure, the fruit will absorb the gas giving it a sparkling aspect (more so in the citrus).

SYNTHETIC champagne: as much as I resist the temptation to draw lines between Homaru and Willy Wonka, this is unavoidably the fizzy lifting drink. A syringe of vert jus (unfermented grape juice) is plunged into a glass with cider in its bottom. When the two meet, the resulting solution foams, creating a light tart beverage reminiscent more of a sparkling cider than a champagne.

GOAT CHEESE snow & balsamic: first, thin goat cheese with milk, then feed it into a pressurized house-paint sprayer. Next, turn the sprayer on and shoot the contents into liquid nitrogen. Place the resulting hail on a plate and drizzle with aged balsamic and you will have this frozen dish that instantly turns into a tangy lactic liquid when it hits your tongue.

HAMACHI & blood orange: hamachi thinly sliced with micro greens, shiso flower, fried shallots, and salmon roe in a dish, with bubbling blood orange on the side to squeeze over the top. As good as it was all together, I have to admit to rushing through it with the simple thought that the fried shallots were interestingly out of place and good for it, in order to get to eating the orange half with a spoon. Straight from its skin, the fruit tasted like the canned Pellegrino orange drink.

PASSION FRUIT & crab: a very delicate passion fruit noodle about the same gauge as buccatini makes a loop on the plate enclosing plump sections of buttery Alaskan crab leg and coconut powder a little finer and drier than confectioner’s sugar. On the outside is chlorophyll, straddling the interior and exterior is buttered popcorn sauce. All interesting in themselves, when combined these are pleasingly contrasting and complimentary flavors, as well as textures.

SAVORY dippin dots: once you know how to make the goat cheese snow, the dippin dots seem to be a simpler version (except much colder and far more familiar flavor wise). I assume because the vegetables lacked fat more ice crystals could form so they felt or were colder. Either way this was probably the coldest thing I have ever put in my mouth. I actually did that hot thing where you try to keep food in a void between your teeth and tongue. Once it did melt, it was eerily savory like straight from the ground raw peas and carrots.

BASS baked tableside & paprika: a brown polymer box is placed on the table in front of you and you are advised that in the 200 degree bottom is a secret sauce. On the 300 degree top is sprinkled Spanish paprika so that it may offer its aroma over the next two courses while the Hawaiian bass suspended between the two halves on a wire rack inside cooks. Later, after the Jalapeno course, the servers open the box to reveal a perfectly cooked piece of fish which is then placed in a bowl on a spoon. With the fish safely in the bowl, the wire rack is removed and from the bottom half of the box the secret sauce (revealed as red pepper during the presentation) is poured into the bowl around it.

In this dish is the conundrum of Moto’s weaker points. Sure the fish is perfectly cooked, and was done in an innovative way entirely at the table, but the sauce overpowered the fish and was a little salty – aspects a chef would have controlled had everything been done conventionally, completely under his control in the kitchen. So is the uniqueness of a polymer box and tabletop cooking without the aid of a heat source worth the trade for a fish and its condiment being out of balance?

BISON & aromatic utensils: served on a metal contraption (not unlike half a Battleship game) that brings plates into a third dimension, is a roasted bit of bison loin on great northern bean purée, with favas, great northern beans and puffed jasmine rice. Pegged into two holes at the top of the vertical access of the plate are a fork and spoon with corkscrew handles. Threaded into these handles are sprigs of fresh sage. Held in your hand, the sage’s aroma becomes more powerful as it warms, also becoming more prevalent as you draw the utensils toward your face.

JALAPENO, avocado & lemon myrtle: Jalapeno avocado ice cream sitting on puffed quinoa with lemon myrtle dressing. Early in this course Wife decided it tasted like lemon fruit loops, and that stuck with me.

BEEF with kielbasa: this dish could be a cliché for the flavors of Chicago. Moto sits smack in the meat packing district of the town, a fact the almost Zen-like simplicity of its design encourages you disregard until this dish is served. I am not sure a dish comprised of triple-seared rib eye steak on a pile of mustard and sauerkraut in a pool of Kielbasa sauce could exist anywhere else. This dish is as Chicago as Bad Bad Leroy Brown, too much so. Interesting and exact in its interpretation of these classily Chicago flavors, I found it overpowering, and was worried if I finished it I would feel exactly like the front of Chris Farley’s Cubs jacket from the old SNL skit “Swersky’s Super Fans Show.”

MAC & cheese: lychee rigatoni, a berry, beet, and chocolate mint salad, a cheese-dusted rice paper crisp and a mixture of white chocolate and Explorateur triple cream cheese share a plate. No matter how many times and ways I try to tell you the cheese and chocolate combined well you won’t believe me, so I will simply say it did and that it was made even better by the other contrasting flavors and textures accompanying it.

FETTUCINE alla dolce: a coconut fettuccini noodle and chocolate gelato, together on a fork, rest on a pistachio pesto.

3 COTTON candy stages: A piece of edible paper with a picture of cotton candy on it that tastes exactly like cotton candy, a hard shell bob-bon filled with a thin liquid that tastes exactly like cotton candy, and a taro root tumbleweed dusted with confectioners sugar that tastes exactly like cotton candy.

FLAPJACKS prepared tableside: the explanation is that pancakes made in the morning are turned into liquid and then negative fried tableside. What you see is a small flat piece of metal that is so cold it is smoking, onto which a thick buff liquid is extruded from a wide gauge syringe, flipped once, and set onto a spoon full of vanilla-tinged Canadian maple syrup sitting in a bowl in front of you. What you taste is pancakes, pancakes with a glorious maple syrup.

PEANUT BUTTER & jelly: a large purple orb sits on a plate with mascarpone cheese and a small piece of French toast. When you pierce the orb, peanut butter flavored liquid pours forth. Both the peanut butter and jelly components to this dish are lighter versions of the actual flavors, but what it lacks in amplitude it has in appearance.

BANANA split: a roasted banana in shredded filo dough, topped with a maraschino cherry marshmallow.

DOUGHNUT SOUP & pancake: there is a place in America that has a neon sign indicating when its doughnuts are hot. This warm viscous liquid tastes exactly like the fourth or fifth one of those (I still have never taken the time to learn what the first three taste like).

CHILI-CHEESE nachos: Sweet corn chips with kiwi made to look like guacamole, sorbet made to look like sour cream, and mango sorbet grated into liquid nitrogen so the little strands look like melting cheddar as it warms on the plate. So good at recreating the image it isn’t until the third or fourth chip you realize that this is a tasty desert.

BROWN BUTTER & white chocolate: it wouldn’t be the new cuisine without a foam, and here it is. A small brown butter cake with a hollow center filled with white chocolate ganache, topped with a strawberry foam, and rhubarb sauce and powder.

How much do you enjoy experimental cuisine? Enough to be experimented on? Besides Moto, Homaru’s other business is Cantu Designs and in the end Moto feels somewhat like a test lab for the design business. The more interesting the preparation (the kielbasa purée or the polymer box) the more the dishes seem to strive simply to be exactly as good as if they were made conventionally, as if to prove the new way is as good, posing the question: do you go out for exceptional food or exceptional preparation? This cannot be answered without considering aspects like the utensils on the bison and the edible menu, both creations of Homaru only available at Moto, unique, and pleasing enough to probably merit the trip and expense.

The worst thing that can be said of Moto is that some of the dishes miss excellence because of their focus on ingenuity, but it is just as easy to say that it is one of the most creative meals to be had, and an entirely unique dining experience. I find it hard to imagine not checking in periodically to see what is being done, and my test of a good restaurant is how much it makes you want to come back.

Devin Tavern: 381 generousillian stars

Dylan Prime makes an awesome cocktail, sadly that’s all I remember about my visit to the restaurant a couple of years ago. A large group of friends and I attempted to and succeeded in having one of each of their dozen or so cocktails apiece. Some food was consumed and I remember it being pleasing, but when I think back on the evening I spent at Dylan Prime the memory is of a jubilant time fueled by great cocktails. Blurry as this memory may be it is a fond one, so when I heard the Dylan Prime team would be opening Devin Tavern I was definitely interested in checking it out. Last night, check it out is what we did.

Of course it all started with a cocktail. From a list of nine cocktails (happily not one erroneously named a martini), I chose with the bartender’s direction a Pepper Basil Caipirinha. The classic adapted to be a little more savory, playing up the aromatic aspects of the Cachaça, it was a great variation. Then cocktails moved on to wine. Not knowing the food, we went with an American white (Seven Hills Viogner ’05) and a red (Ridge Geyser ’03) that seemed fairly priced and like they could straddle a menu that read as straightforward American fare, echoing the list on both counts.

The menu and the space of Devin Tavern are both grand and comfortable. There are fifteen appetizers, thirteen entrées, six sides, two verbal appetizer specials, and one verbal entrée special. The space is comparably huge: from the bar you not only see that there is at least one more large room in each direction, but sense there may be more. When you travel to the restroom, you find yet another good-sized bar, and dining room sub terra. From the tables’ perspective, though the space is well managed the actual surfaces are ample and the room around them is generous. The resulting feeling is spacious more than outsized. The menu, daunting when first approached, shakes out to make sense as American gastronomy leaning toward the hearty, seasonal, and artisanal.

From the left side of the menu, I chose Chicken & Biscuits Bobo Farms Chicken, Morel Mushrooms, Double Cream which turned out to be an open face potpie. In a bowl were all the components of a chicken potpie – the creamy sauce, the diced mirepoix, and pieces of skinless chicken meat. Studding this mélange were small morels and served on the side were country biscuits, which I crumbled into the bowl and used to soak up the creamy sauce. Prepared in this method the aromatics were able to retain some of their bite, making for a more interesting combination than the homogenous softness of a typical potpie.

From the verbal appetizer offerings, Wife chose a summer salad of artichokes accompanied by some of the mirepoix they had been braised with, asparagus and heirloom tomatoes. This excited her in theory more than execution. I found it astringent with the Viogner; good salad, bad pairing on my part (better, I guess, with her Shirley Temple made with the house made grenadine).

Because I couldn’t resist, we also split Barents Sea King Crab Legs Broiled with Radish, Mint, Parsley, Tarragon, Lemon Salad. It is not hard to make king crab legs taste great, but it is simple to make them taste less than great. These were perfect; the herb salad was on the side, leaving just the sweet flesh with tints of caramelization, some drawn butter for dipping, and a lemon wedge.

From the right side of the menu, I ordered Beef Short Ribs Kansas City Glaze, Cast Iron Potatoes, Roasted Garlic Slaw. The ribs were off-the-bone, deeply caramelized, luxuriant, and tender, with hints of smoke more than smoked flavor and a tangy sauce with some heat of black pepper rather than capsicum. The slaw was straightforward; the potatoes were fingerling and bliss, halved and browned.

For her main, Wife chose Bobo Farms Organic Chicken Pan Roasted, Fontina Mash, Wild Mushroom Ragout. Both the chicken and the mashed potatoes were a little dry, not unforgivably so, but noticeably.

  For Dessert, we split Savory Cheese Cakes & Sesame Bread Sticks Rosemary-Sage Goat Cheese, Walnut-Pecan Maytag Blue. Alone, the goat tasted strongly of sage and the blue of salt, but with the sesame crisp these extremes were tamed and the cakes became enjoyable.

The best part of the night may still have been the cocktail, but this time I remember the food, fondly. From this early vantage it would seem Devin Tavern is a large comfortable space, solidly making substantial American cuisine and a great drink.

Chicago dogs

I place the Chicago dog very highly and confidently at the top of the world of junk food, up there with the likes of the Philly steak, the NY slice, the LA roadside taco, and NJ’s disco fries. The basic ingredient list for a Chicago dog is a dark red Vienna Beef hotdog on a poppy seed roll with shredded lettuce, sliced tomato, celery salt, thin yellow mustard, a pickle spear, chopped onions, neon-green relish, and sport peppers. Starting with just the colors of the relish and the dog and moving into the fact that, except for the sausage, it is largely a hand-held salad, it is a truly unique food. Someone at some point took the direction “everything” to an existential level.  There are contrasting, bold, forward flavors like the smoky salty dog, and the vinegary acerbic mustard, there are aromatic notes to the celery salt and piquant notes to the little peppers, similar flavors compare in the natural sweetness of the onions and tomato next to the sugary sweetness of the ridiculous relish. All come together to make a pretty involving portable treat.

On this trip I made four stops for dogs:

When I land at Midway airport I usually find a reason to grab a dog at Gold Coast Dogs in the little food court area. Most often I am traveling to Illinois to catch up with Bestfriend and to do some destination dining so I am never sure when another opportunity will arise. Sometimes the excuse is as simple as it’s a better use of the next ten minutes than standing at the carousel waiting for my bags. In this case, I had landed at 10:15pm and figured it was the easiest way to grab a late-night snack. When I arrived and found them cleaning the steam table I thought I had missed my opportunity, but happily came to find I could still get a dog.

I ordered a steamed dog with everything and got a pretty straightforward, sadly not exactly hot, dog. At best, it was tepid which allowed it to become mostly about the flavors of the mustard and the celery salt. Not the best dog I have had, even from Gold Coast.

Watching the Mets-Cubs game from the Sheffield Rooftop afforded another dog opportunity. Because of the nature of the open spaces around Wrigley some of the adjacent buildings have taken advantage of both their vantage and proximity by building watching areas on their roofs. Included with the price of admission to the super-fourth floor perch is all you can drink (canned beer till the 7th inning stretch) and all you can eat (grilled cookout fare, and frozen pizza).

I had a grilled dog with everything. A wide-gauge dog with that kind of plasticy bite topped more with burger fixings than dog toppings. It had chopped tomato, sautéed onions, pickle chips, sauerkraut, and raw onions, with Heinz yellow mustard in packets and ended up tasting more of bitter over-cooked white vinegar than anything else. I tossed it after two bites and got a cheeseburger, which while only mediocre by cookout standards, passed as a burger (something the dog couldn’t).

I went to Wiener’s Circle for the first time after I saw Dave Attell on his Insomniac show cutting up with the rather brash counter ladies in the wee hours of the morning a couple of years ago. This time I went because Nellie insisted after reading my Italian Dog post that it was definitely worth my trying their Char Cheddar Dog because it is one of the possibly greatest dogs in the world. I of course agreed to try it, as long as she committed to sample the wurst genius to be found at the Windmill in Long Branch, NJ.

At the Weiner’s Circle I asked the (not necessarily ingratiating but nowhere near as hostile as they are at 3am) counter lady for a Char Cheddar with everything. I was served a Vienna Dog with its ends quarter-split and nicely blackened, with all the standard accoutrement plus a double pickle spear, noticeably ripe tomato slices, and a drizzle of a bright orange sharpish cheese product. Besides violating the integrity of the bun with moisture, guaranteeing you eat 30% of the dog from the paper carrier tray, the addition of cheese brought an oleaginous salty quality that played very well, adding another dimension to a dog that already sits at a good balance point of the flavors. I have no doubt had I stopped here on the way home from some of those many “too much cheap American beer from large plastic Solo cups” nights of my youth, I would with great regularity and conviction espouse the merits of this tasty bite.

The last stop of this journey was Hot Doug’s. When Chicago area magazines do surveys, Hot Doug’s often appears on the “favorite places to eat” lists of the Chicagoland chefs I respect most. On a little corner far from the city center (the 3300 north block), across from an empty field with a crew using a backhoe to dig a hole deep enough to fit an extension ladder, is a small (about a dozen four-top tables) lunch-counter kind of place somewhat haphazardly decorated with things like pictures of Brittney Spears, an 8x12 print-out of sausage-centric German phrase translations, and in large white lettering the slogan that “the two nicest words in the English language are encased meats.” There are two menus at Hot Doug’s: one, about ten square feet painted in yellow and red on the wall, offers about a dozen options; the other, a chalkboard about a foot-and-a-half square written in all the colors of an eight-pack of chalk, offers about 8 selections. The larger menu has pretty standard options ranging from “The Dog,” a run of the mill Chicago dog, to “The Ace Patrick,” an immersion-fried corn dog. The shorter list has gourmet sausages as varied as Thai or crawfish and chorizo. All dogs are offered steamed, charred, fried, or fried and charred. On Friday and Saturday they also offer duck fat fries (this couldn’t go unmentioned).

I got The Dog, charred, with everything. Leaning more to brown than red, the link at the center was all the things a dog should be, smoky, spicy, and salty, with a snap to the casing and a juicy stuffing with a resilient chew. If there is an aspect you want to play the center of the mélange of components in a Chicago-style hot dog it is the dog, and this one does so well.

The best part of Chicago dogs is they are all over the place and are made by many people. There is no one dominant place franchising stands all over town. Without straying far from Bestfriend’s apartment, I think I could try 50 made in 50 ways by 50 people, so setting a favorite would just limit opportunities. That being said, although I probably enjoyed Doug’s most this trip, he does himself a disservice in the “best” category, because when I return I will be busy trying his other sausages; they look very interesting. When I want a prototypical, this is what I think of when I crave a Chicago dog, dog I will be heading back to Wiener’s Circle, probably for a Char Cheddar with everything, extra sport peppers (it seems to make sense with the cheese).