Alinea (part 2)

I did a poor job of photographing this dish, but if you look carefully you can see a whole vanilla bean protruding from the fried banana and hamachi. The menu listed ginger and "West Indies spices" as well, but I think they were only used for flavor. I was afraid that the hamachi would be noticeably cooked, but it wasn't, and the banana was the stronger element anyway. There wasn't a noticeable vanilla flavor; in fact I kind of wished I could have taken the bean home with me as it appeared to be completely intact.


The next course was served with a glass of Pont Neuf red in a fancy glass:


As you can see, the tableware for this "Canard a la Cussy" was equally elaborate, and seemed pretty out of place compared to the rest of the very modern serving pieces. It only made sense when the waiter explained that this particular duck recipe was over 300 years old. The light and airy puff pastry was stuffed with fois gras, braised cockscomb, and duck innards, and then topped with several slices of tender duck breast and a tiny piece of fried skin. The dots of wine sauce were a little heavy; I only used about half of them, but everything else was delicious.


We were a bit confused when presented with this container of eucalpytus leaves. The waiter told us not to eat the leaves (as they are poisonous to humans) but to pull out the silver pin. On the end was a piece of venison cooked with cherry and cocoa nib. A few seconds after we finished our bites of venison, we all had a funny look on our faces. The venison was gamey (and I normally love venison), it overwhelmed any hint of cherry and/or cocoa, and the eucalptus aroma didn't really come through. In the end, this was the only dish that I thought was just plain bad. Interestingly I went online and read some reviews from other people who seemed to like it. I wonder if the venison was just off that day.


The waiter later told us that the next dish was his personal favorite (and he'd been with the restaurant since it opened in 2005). It was called "black truffle explosion"; the raviolo was filled with black truffle sauce, and topped with romaine and parmesan. We were warned to eat this in one bite with mouths closed, and sure enough, when I finally bit through the pasta, the black truffle juice exploded all over my mouth. It was very good, but I actually liked the "hot potato, cold potato" truffle preparation more.


They again used very unique servingware for the truffle explosion, so we asked the waiters where all the dishes came from, and they told us that Chef Achatz owned an interest in a servingware company, so he actually custom ordered a lot of the dishes for the restaurant, such as the three-tier sphere for the rabbit course.


A palate cleanser of yuzu snow marked the end of the savory courses. We were specifically told not to lick the metal as they had used liquid nitrogen to freeze the juice. I wonder if anyone has actually done that before, and gotten their tongue stuck to the bowl?


The first "dessert" course was actually still quite savory. There were bits of sweet potato, sweetened pecan, and brown sugar. There was a puff of jalapeno cotton candy on top, and dabs of cayenne goo on the plank, from which the "heat had been removed" but the flavor was still present. The plank itself was made of smoked cedar, and indeed the aroma contributed heavily to the autumn-y flavor of the dish. It was almost like a deconstructed sweet potato pie.


This was my second favorite dessert. Each side of the tube was stopped up with a different flavored jelly. The "near" side was lemongrass, the "far" side dragonfruit, and in the middle was a cocktail of those two fruits, plus finger lime, cucumber, and I believe some basil. I had to suck pretty hard to unstop the lemongrass end, and as soon as I did, the entire tube came rushing down. It was a refreshing and delicious combination.


The next three desserts were served together, and we were told we could eat them in any order, but I think this one should have come first. It was a piece of bacon infused with butterscotch, apple, and thyme. I would have been a lot more impressed with this a few years ago, but I've been having lots of yummy bacon flavored desserts recently, including at work. I also had a little trouble trying to get the bacon off of the wire.


This is the one I ate first; it was entitled "nutella, bread, banana, chocolate". It doesn't look like much, but when you put it into your mouth it transforms from dry and bread-like into a blob of tasty nutella-y goodness. I liked this best of the three.


This paper-thin preparation of lychee and jasmine tea was a little too sweet for my taste, and I couldn't taste much tea flavor. It was fun to eat, though.


By this time we'd figured out that Chef Achatz wasn't just visiting tables, he was doing some kind of very elaborate dessert preparation. When the waitstaff cleared off our table to lay down a gigantic silicone mat, we knew it was our turn.

After they put down tons of little white pots of ingredients, the chef (and one of his sous chefs) appeared and started painting the table with them. There was chocolate sauce, cream sauce, caramel sauce, dehydrated blueberry paper, fresh blueberry compote, honey, and peanut powder.


The caramel sauce in particular was always spooned in a circular shape, but would form little squares or rectangles as it spread. We've yet to figure out why. There were little glass cylinders in which the chefs poured creme anglaise, which was later bruleed after it had set. Towards the end, blocks of liquid nitrogen frozen chocolate mousse were brought in, engulfing the table in vapor, and then broken up with utensils into smaller pieces.


The experience of eating off of the table was super fun, making this easily my favorite dessert, especially since we could easily load our spoons up with whatever ingredients we liked best. For instance, my favorite parts were the creme anglaise with honey and the frozen chocolate mousse. The caramel sauce, despite its awesome squareness, was not that flavorful. I think in the end D ended up chasing down every last blueberry.


Before the dessert finale, we had asked our waiter if we could get Chef Achatz to autograph our menus, and also if we could possibly get a photo with him. He told us that it was possible to have a photo, but it would have to be after the meal, in the kitchen. That was very much not a problem for us, so after we were done, he went and chased down the chef for us, and we got our photo, as well as a glimpse of the kitchen.


We were also successful with the menus, and each of us ended up with a different inscription. I think mine says "Toward Creativity". Before we visited, I'd seen menus on the website, and wondered about the little bubbles on each row. When we were presented with our copies, the waiter explained that the sweeter the dish, the further right the bubble (and conversely the more savory the dish, the further left). The darkness of the bubbles indicated intensity, and the size indicated quantity. I thought the whole scheme was really quite clever (I love infographics).


From start to finish, the meal took almost five hours, but we were never bored. Several of the dishes were highly interactive, the presentations were unique and varied, and overall it felt more like dining theatre than just a dinner. To me, only two of the 22-courses were misses; the gamey bite of venison served with eucalptus, and the mint watercress foam part of the urchin dish. Every other dish was creative and delicious. After finishing the second half, my favorites remained the hot/cold potato truffle bowl and the yuba shrimp, but the fancy-plated duck and the truffle explosion were also highlights for me. As for dessert, it's hard to beat the on-table presentation of the chocolate mousse finale, but I also quite enjoyed the sweet potato pecan cedar plank and the lemongrass dragonfruit shot.

We were super excited to be able to not only meet Chef Achatz but also to have him prepare our dessert, sign our menus, and pose for photos with us. I had read some biographical articles about him prior to our visit, and in some of them he came off as arrogant, so I'd been prepared for the worst. Instead, he was friendly, funny (a little snarky, which is a plus in my book), and very accommodating.

On the way out, D said, "We should just stop eating. Nothing is ever going to top this." Of course he was kidding (and he ate plenty for breakfast), but the four of us did later agree that as food experiences go, our dinner at Alinea was arguably the best meal ever.

Alinea (part 1)

As I mentioned before, I went to Chicago last weekend. D had a business trip there all week, and my brother lives in Chicago, so I booked a bunch of restaurant reservations and hopped on a free flight (using United miles to get there and American miles to come back). My brother's girlfriend lives in Cincinnati, so she drove down for the weekend to hang out with us too.

Last time I visited, the four of us went to Moto. This time, we splurged even more and went to Alinea.

I'm going to do my best to do a full recap of the meal, but I don't have access to the phone that we used to do voice recording (yes, we taped the waiters' descriptions) so I may have a few gaps...

We were seated upstairs, at what looked like the best table in the house. It was gigantic; there were four of us but I think the table could have seated eight. The upstairs area was divided into three or four smaller rooms; we were in the most interior room, and were seated against the back wall facing out, so we could easily watch the waitstaff as they served other tables. Halfway through the meal we spotted Grant Achatz at some other tables, and we started to get excited about our prospects of meeting him.

The tables were set without tablecloths, so all the silverware was placed on little pillows:


Soon after we were seated, a waiter came by to ask us about food allergies and constraints. We didn't have many requests, so pretty soon we were served our first course. It was described as steelhead roe with dijon, rutabaga, and grapefruit:

There was also some kind of quinoa-like grain in the rutabaga puree, and some shavings of radish, both of which added texture. At the time we thought it was pretty tasty, but it was soon blown away by the next dish.

The base of this dish was formed out of yuba (tofu skin) and cooked milk. It was wrapped in shrimp, and sprinkled with black and white sesame, miso, and togarashi. This was one of my top three savory dishes of the evening.


Next we were served three courses together. The first was called "oyster leaf", but the waiter assured us that no oysters were used to make the dish. Apparently the leaf itself, which has to be specially imported from Europe, naturally tastes like oyster. (It really did.)


The second shellfish course was a scallop cooked with Hitachino Weizen (a Japanese beer) and Old Bay seasoning. I was afraid the Old Bay would overwhelm but it was surprisingly subtle. I liked this one the best of the three.


Finally, there was a razor clam, accompanied by carrot, soy, and daikon. We were instructed to eat this all in one bite, like a shooter. The sauce smelled a little like hoisin, and was similarly salty, but went well with the veggies.


I had a bit of trouble photographing this one. The waiters handed the bowls directly to each of us, and we were told not to put them down, as the bottoms were not flat. On top of the fork was a preparation of urchin in bits of vanilla jello, and then inside the bowl there was a foam of mint and watercress. The urchin was fine but I didn't like the foam part at all; I would say this was one of only two dishes that I did not enjoy that evening.


This was one of the most fun dishes to eat. The waiter explained that although everything looked white, only half of the ingredients were normally white; the other half were normally dark (e.g. coffee, black pepper), but had been processed to remove the color. We basically spent the whole time trying to identify the ingredients as we ate. There was a custard-like substance which was halibut-flavored, something that looked like coleslaw but turned out definitely not to be a vegetable; it was more like chicharrones, and parsnip made into a little fruit rollup-like shape. There were other bits that tasted like sesame, lemon, cream, vanilla, and more. Amazing.


At this point the waiters brought out what looked like a set of flags. They told us that they were merely for decoration "for now".


Also very mysterious was this rabbit parfait. We were told to enjoy the food but "not to move the porcelain". The rabbit flavor was infused into a mousse, which was served with crunchy shredded rabbit belly and squash, a piece of squash paper that was quite tasty, pumpkin seeds, and tiny sage leaves.


After we finished the parfait, the waiters returned to take the top off of the servingware. Inside was a rabbit "rilette" which I liked very much. The rabbit was served two ways; as a bit of fried rilette and in a piece of blood sausage. There were dabs of apple butter and squash puree, lots of black trumpet mushrooms, and a hint of cinnamon.


There were little slits in the dishware, so we suspected yet another course, and indeed the waiters returned one more time to unveil a rich rabbit consomme, flavored with cinnamon and sage, and kept warm with a hot rock.


The others didn't think this wild mushroom dish was that impressive, but I love mushrooms, so I enjoyed it very much. The mushrooms were served with pine, sumac, and ramps, and had lots of textures; spongy, crunchy, powdery, creamy, and foamy.


This was my favorite savory dish of the night. The waiter called it "hot potato, cold potato" and it literally consisted of a piece of hot potato, along with black truffle, butter, and cheese, on a tiny pin, which was suspended above a broth of cold potato in a tiny wax bowl. We were instructed to pull out the pin (releasing the ingredients) and then shoot the bowl immediately; this ensured that we would get both the hot and cold sensations, in addition to the flavors.


We finally discovered what the "flags" were for when the waiters brought out wooden planks that had metal bits inside. We were taught how to assemble the metal parts into a rack of sorts, and then told to place the "tomato and fermented black garlic pasta" on top. The waiters then served us some delicious shortrib, and we were further instructed to add all of the other ingredients, before eating it all together as a roll. This was our "3D food experience" of the night.


The condiments were (starting from the left): sea salt, blackberry, grilled onion, black garlic, pickled turnip, nicoise olive, and cherry. On the spoon was a distilled tobacco gelee, in the middle, a ribbon of turnip, and on the glass, a tomato cream sauce.


Halfway through the meal, my favorites were the yuba shrimp skewer and the hot/cold potato dish, but I had also been quite impressed with the study in white and the 3D shortrib pasta. To be continued!

Chicago wrap-up

During this last trip, I was only in Chicago for four days, and two of them were work days. (As an aside, our Chicago engineering office has a lovely view and really nice engineers.)

Thursday night was the dinner at Topolobampo, and then Friday night we ate at Harry Caray's with some family friends. Despite all the other delicious food that we had that weekend, the dry-aged bone-in ribeye we had there was still a highlight. It was a pretty nice ambiance too; a kind of old-timey sports bar vibe.

On Saturday, we meant to go for a morning run, but by the time we actually got up, it was nearly noon. We decided to do go anyway, and ran over six miles along the lakeshore and then to Navy Pier. The lakeshore was tranquil and scenic, but the air was extremely cold (high 40s), at least by my Californian standards. Afterwards we walked around the Navy Pier area, the Magnificent Mile, and then back to my brother's apartment to shower and change.

At that point it was about 3:30pm and we had yet to eat. Since we were going to Moto for dinner, we didn't want to eat very much, so we decided to try to make it to Hot Doug's before their 4pm closing time, for their super fancy hot dogs. Unfortunately, due to a Google Maps snafu, we didn't make it in time, so we settled for Jim's instead. After that we had just enough time to look around Grant Park/Millennium Park and check out "the bean" before heading back again to change for dinner.

Some of the photos we took in the park:





On the way back, we stopped at More to buy some cupcakes. My brother said that bacon maple and the house special were his favorites, but as it was nearly closing time, they were out of both. We bought some cupcakes anyway, and took them home to save for Sunday's breakfast.

As I already mentioned, the dinner at Moto took six hours! We got home well after 2am and then hung out watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs until we all fell asleep.

We had an afternoon flight on Sunday, which meant we could still fit in a leisurely brunch before heading to O'Hare. My brother had wanted to take us to Table Fifty-Two, Art Smith's restaurant, but wasn't sure if they served lunch. On Saturday, I called them to check, and they said they would be open, but were fully booked due to Mother's Day. On Sunday morning, as headed out on our way to try our luck at another brunch spot, I idly suggested we stop by anyway to see if they had any cancellations. Amazingly, the bar facing the kitchen was free (I guess no one wants to sit at a bar on Mother's Day?) and we were soon seated and happily perusing the menu. Later we learned that they are only open for brunch a few times a year, so we were doubly lucky that day!

Anyway, we ended up ordering chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits, and mac 'n' cheese. The chicken and waffles were definitely the best (it was a good thing we ordered two plates of it), but the other dishes were good too. We were told the mac 'n' cheese was made with about a pound of cheese, which sounded about right; since we were sitting right in front of the wood oven, we got to watch many times as giant mounds of cheese melted into bowls of macaroni. It was a fitting end to a very satisfying weekend.

six hours of Moto (part 2)

The second half of our meal started out with this course, which was listed as "Coffee Break" on the menu but was referred to as "Shabu-ccino" by the servers. In any case it was a cute idea; a "cappuccino" made with veal stock, fermented black garlic, and soy sauce "coffee", with potato bisque "creamer" and a truffle oil "sugar" cube. The stock was accompanied by thinly sliced kobe beef, edamame, carrot and potato. Both the potato bisque and truffle cube were delicious by themselves, but eventually I threw them both into the broth to try to dilute its saltiness. I was only partially successful.



Next up was "Duck & Mole". The duck was braised and served lime sour cream inside a cannoli shell. On the plate was the mole sauce, freeze dried corn powder, white jalapeno powder, and crunchy pepitas. I actually quite liked this dish except that the mole was too sweet compared to the awesomeness that was Rick Bayless' black mole sauce.


"Crepes that are Cheese" consisted of two servings of "cheese" made from crepe batter mousse, and one serving of "crepe" made of cheese. The pink "cheese" was encrusted by a raspberry puree "wax" and the blue "cheese" was made with caramel and blueberry puree. The "crepe" was a smoked gouda served with grand marnier and apricot chutney. I think I was only moderately satisfied with the textures of this course (the mousse was too pasty, and the cheese "crepe" was a bit waxy) but the flavors were fun and I really liked the apricot "crepe filling".


The parade of desserts started with this "Pina Colada", which was among my favorites. The bowl initially contained rice and dehydrated pineapple flakes in rum-infused coconut milk, and then the server poured in a fair amount of liquid nitrogen, to keep the flakes crunchy. The experience of eating the flakes in coconut milk reminded me of eating cereal, and the overall taste was light, mildly sweet, and very refreshing.


This strangely named "Rainbow Sprinkles" course was barely a dessert. The cupcake was a real cupcake, but the batter was made with foie gras fat, and the filling was a creamy foie gras mousse. The "sprinkles" were made from pistachios and lentils, dyed with beets to give them color. There was also a more traditional preparation of foie gras, served with blueberry gastrique. The cupcake was interesting and I enjoyed it, but I let D have most of my foie.


I'm not sure this course really resembled a "Snow Ball" but it was yummy anyway. The orange liquid is a carrot cake puree with hints of ginger and cinnamon. Inside the "ball" is more of the same puree, on a base of cream cheese, and then encased in solid white chocolate. The pink topping is cherry flavored coconut. When I broke through the white chocolate with my spoon, the carrot cake puree actually squirted out at me. Luckily I didn't make a mess. There were also bits of orange, apple, and walnut in the bowl. I liked the combination quite a bit; the puree was subtle and mostly savory, which offset the white chocolate well, so the whole dish was pretty low on the sweetness scale.


Our "Banana Split" courses were served to us on giant "battleship" plates. The bowl was filled with banana sorbet "ramen noodles", banana custard, roasted cocoa nibs, roasted almonds, and bits of maraschino cherry. The pipettes were filled with syrups: chocolate, caramel, and cherry. The syrups themselves were a little sweeter than I would have liked, but it was super fun sucking them out of the pipettes. I mostly ate the banana part by itself.



This "Acme Bomb" was the smallest but also one of the best courses we had that evening. The "bomb" has a chocolate exterior, a liquid graham cracker interior, and a marshmallow "fuse". After setting down the plates, our server lit the "fuse" which caused the marshmallow to cook. The entire thing had to be eaten in one bite, which tasted very much like a campfire-toasted smore. Yum.


The following course was listed as "Chocolate Truffles" but we figured there must be a catch. Of course, there was. The other name for the dish was "Truffles that are truffles", and although it looked like we were being served a gigantic raw truffle, the overall taste was much more like chocolate truffles. Beet mousse and black truffle mousse were coated with cocoa nibs and cocoa powder, and served with hazelnuts, freeze-dried beets, and chocolate ice cream. Again, great balance of sweet and savory.


The very last course was a "Root Beer Float". The root beer was homemade but unremarkable; the interesting part was that it was served with a vanilla "packing peanut". It really did look exactly like a packing peanut! We were warned to eat it quickly before it started to collapse (I waited the longest because I was taking photos, and towards the end, it really did start to shrink.)


As you can see, dinner was really fun despite taking almost six hours. We'd been warned by a friend that the full tasting menu would likely be a bit of an "ordeal" and there were times when we started to tire, but there were enough "wow!" moments to keep us engaged pretty much throughout the evening. I told someone afterwards that it was like being served a constant stream of little works of art that happened to be edible.

After the meal, as we were looking for a place to take a group photo, one of the servers suggested we go downstairs to visit "the lab"!

He showed us around a bit; apparently they use it as both a TV set and as a private dining area. Then, he answered some of our questions about the food we'd just eaten, and asked us about our favorite and least favorite courses. We told him we loved the Onion & Gruyere, Yellow Snow, Cigar & Ashtray, the Pina Colada, and the Acme Bomb, but were less fond of the Red Bull Paella and the Phunnel Cake. It was a fun chat, but as a result, we got out the door just before 2am. Craziness.