Archive for the 'molecular gastronomy' Category

27
Jul

Revisiting Alinea

By Misha 10 Comments
Categories: american, chicago, molecular gastronomy, restaurants and tasting menu

My first visit to Alinea was a year ago, almost to the day. Initially conceived as a consolation prize for being in London and not wasting an entire day on the Fat Duck, I went in nearly blind, without as much as reading a proper review to see what I was getting into.

Getting in was surprisingly easy, considering Alinea wasn’t even the intended destination. I had decided to go to either Charlie Trotters, Avenues or Alinea on a whim and placed a call into all three to see if there were any tables around noon (being the optimist that I am). All were booked, but Alinea and Charlie Trotters called back a few hours later to tell me they had a few cancellations. Both required a jacket, which I didn’t pack, and Alinea was the only one willing to made an exception. So, that pretty much sealed the deal.

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My dinner at Alinea doesn’t fit neatly into the “best ever” category. It was unlike any dinner I have had before, so it seems pointless to compare it with anything else. It was, from start to finish, a fascinating experience; a sort of a frontal assault on the senses. Not all the dishes were great and a few made me wonder if I was really ingesting food, but at it’s best Alinea was simply brilliant.

I ordered the 12 course menu, which turned into 16 by the time the night was finished. By the 14th dish I had a mild panic attack. I was done eating, but the food kept coming. It’s hard to move things around on the plate to pretend like you are done with a course when each dish is plated on custom dinnerware, often designed specifically for the that very dish.  By the end of the night I found myself hiding in the bathroom, before I realized that was not going to save me. So I finished the meal and ran out of Alinea, promising to never do that to myself again. At least not any time soon.

It’s a year later and all I can think about are the dishes that blew my mind. So tonight I am going back to see how I do the second time. I have spent the year training in tasting menu kung fu, so tonight I go in ready to take on Grant Achatz again. Round two, bitch. Bring it on.

Here’s how my first dinner went, reconstructed from memory to the best of my abilities:

 

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Artichoke, parmesan, red pepper, basil

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Surf Clam, nasturtium, cucumber, shallot

Ayu, watermelon, kombu, coriander

One of the top three dishes of the night. Ayu is a rare fish sourced from Japan, which has a uniquely sweet flavor reminiscent of watermelon. Grant Achatz has an affinity for unusual ingredient combinations that share a similar flavor profile; pairing the Ayu with watermelon worked brilliantly. The filet was topped with the fried spine of the fish, which added a nice dimension of texture.

 Maitake, cherry, ham, toasted garlic

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Apple, horseradish, celery

Like many of the dishes at Alinea, this shooter came with operating instructions - take the horseradish filled cocoa butter capsule suspended in celery juice in one shot and hold it in your mouth for a few seconds. Make sure to take a deep breath because the glass contains more volume than appears to the naked eye. The result is quite dramatic. Just as you are trying to process the sensation of a mouth of concentrated celery flavor (that in itself doesn’t happen often), the capsule collapses from heat and releases the horseradish juice.  I wasn’t quite ready for the intensity of either of these flavors and sat there in mild shock for a few moments, which I suppose is exactly what Achatz was going for. If you have ever been to a Passover ceder, you’d recognize the effect this specific combination has immediately.

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Duck, mango, yogurt, pillow of lavender

Another brilliant dish, relying heavily on the plating and industrial design. The large pillow arrives at the table first. An oversized bowl of duck prepared three ways (sous vide breast, confit, grilled loin) is then placed on top. As you cut into the meat, the pillow releases a mild stream of lavender scented smoke. The duck was well prepared and worth noting in it’s own right, but the integration of aromatics here makes all the difference. This was one of several dishes that integrated the aroma as a distinct ingredient of the dish, a technique that opens a lot of possibilities for experimentation and one of the many reasons why Coi in San Francisco is on my short list of places to visit (Daniel Patterson is a big fan of this approach).

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Short rib, Guinness, peanut, fried broccoli

Not one of my favorite dishes. I disliked a surprising amount of the ingredients, from the sheet of Guinness, which I thought was overwhelming and kind of a pain to eat to the mushy short rib.

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Black Truffle, explosion, romaine, parmesan

One of Alinea signature dishes and for a good reason - it’s one of the best Grant Achatz has created. The raviolo is filled with a highly concentrated truffle liquid, topped with a slice of black truffle and a bit of crisp romaine (which is kind of unnecessary) and parmesan. Much like the Apple, the raviolo delivered an intense burst of flavor, but rather than play on the contrast between the components, this time a single ingredient is taken to a new level. The plating was typical tongue in cheek Alinea - the spoon is suspended over a bottomless plate, which contains the “table sauce”. Get it? Oh my…

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Lamb, peas, consomme, morels

Another strangely mushy and cafeteria bland meat course paired with ingredients that just don’t quite work together. I honestly have no idea what goes on in some of the ultra modern kitchens that rely exclusively on induction stoves and thermal circulators, but I do know what comes out seems to miss direct fire heat. The maillard reaction should be “molecular” enough of a technique to bring the right flavor and texture into the dish. It’s OK to break the rules and use a technique so well known it’s downright boring once in a while. I don’t think Ferran would mind. Really.

Kuroge Wagyu, yuzu, seaweed smoke, sea grapes

Best dish of the night and one of the best food experiences I’ve had anywhere. The dish was served covered with an inverted glass that contained smoke, removed table side. The escaping smoke immediately triggers sense memory, which for me were the smokehouses of Texas (despite the fact that seaweed was used as a smoke source). The waiter finished his explanation of the dish just as I was getting over the sensation that I was in the pit room at City Market in Luling. I have no idea what he said, but I am sure it was NPR sounding drivel about how lucky I am to eat wagyu.

The small beef cubes were intensely marbled and had the most concentrated beef flavor I have ever encountered. Of all the things I have eaten in my lifetime, there are few flavors  I remember in vivid detail. The ethereal brisket at City Market is one of them. The wagyu at Alinea is another. Both contain extreme ratios of beef fat to meat. Coincidence?

Junsai, bonito, soy, mirin

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Bacon, butterscotch, apple, thyme

The infamous bacon with a butterscotch caramel streak dessert was good, but more of a novelty act than anything else. Not sure why this makes such waves, since people routinely eat bacon with maple syrup and waffles. I’ve had better bacon before. The thyme did add a nice overtone. And I did have fun playing with the custom designed contraption it came with.

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Guava, avocado, brie, key lime juice

Maybe I just dislike guava, or find the combination of it with brie and avocado a poor choice, but this dish really didn’t work for me. The key lime soda poured into the plate didn’t help things by adding yet another clashing component and making things a bit slushy. People who enjoy fruity fizzy soup would have really liked this one.

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Strawberry, frozen and chewy, with wasabi

Nice palate cleanser with very simple, contrasting flavors and surprising texture that reveals itself when the frozen bar begins to melt. Somehow the wasabi actually heightened the flavor of the strawberry, rather than clash with it. (photo from fifth flavor)

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Chocolate, passionfruit, lemongrass, soy

I had real trouble getting past the weird, somewhat unpleasant consistency of the rubes of chocolate and passionfruit. I have no idea how these things are made, but there was a hint of a chemical of some sorts. I sincerely hope this doesn’t make a return appearance tonight.

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Caramel, meyer lemon, cinnamon perfume 

Another dish that played with the sense of smell, but this time relying on the “aromatic handle”, where the eating utensil also delivers the aroma. This one worked very well.

 

Seems like lots of things have changed in Alinea-land in a year. The restaurant debuted at the highest position ever on the Worlds Best Restaurants list. Grant Achatz beat tongue cancer and has become a sort of a modern-day Beethoven - the radiation therapy allowed him to keep his tongue, but robbed him of his sense of taste. Few weeks ago he was named the best chef in the country by the James Beard foundation.

It will be interesting to see how the food has evolved during that time. The reservations were much harder to get this time, that’s for sure.

13
Jul

After hours @ WD-50

By Misha 16 Comments
Categories: chefs, molecular gastronomy, nyc and restaurants

A discussion about New York restaurants on the Houston Chowhounds list made me think about my visit to WD-50 last year and a great episode of After Hours filmed in its kitchen. 

I expected After Hours to be full of New York food scene elitism. An even more insipid version of Dinner for Five, but with restaurateurs. Instead its just a couple of food geeks screwing around in the kitchen and serving up baby eels (why don’t they ever put that stuff on the menu?) to their friends. Daniel Boulud even seems genuinely interested in Wiley Dufresne ’s food experiments. No hint of superiority one would expect from an traditional French chef.

After Hours is a great show and the WD-50 episode is one of the best. Where else can you watch Daniel Boulud burn the desert and learn how to pronounce “clafouti” all in one scene?

  


To download the full version visit vuze.com

Like any proper food obsessed fanboy I am fascinated by things that go on in kitchens and After Hours lets you see a kitchen unlike any other. WD-50 is more like a lab than a kitchen, stocked with as many chemicals and Rube Goldberg machines as items humans might actually identify as food.

While the guests seem interesting enough, I had a lot more fun watching Dufresne teach Boulud how to make instant vanilla yogurt by combining pectin, syrup and milk. Prediction - within 5 years the Food Network is going to cancel the nonsense that has become of Good Eats and replace Alton Brown with a food chemist mixing edibles up in a lab. Every kid is going to want the Fisher Price Molecular Gastronomy Set with an optional thermal immersion circulator, which is going to become the biggest selling Christmas toy since the Furbie.

WD-50 is an interesting place. It’s your average neighborhood joint that serves avant-garde food that every red blooded American wants to have close to home. Searching for the address in New York I actually passed it several times because I thought it was a laundromat.

WD-50 does not seem like a restaurant chasing Michelin stars. You come here to eat. All dishes are available ala carte. Prices are downright affordable for the level of R&D that goes into the food. I made reservations, but at 7:30 there were plenty of seats inside. I walked in, grabbed a seat at the bar and never for a minute got the impression that I was at one of the best restaurants in NYC.

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Slow poached egg, chorizo, pickled beets, dried black olives

WD-50 is a perfect example of how little molecular gastronomy, for lack of a better term, has to do with the science and chemicals, and how much of it is the art of isolating rare flavors in ways conventional cooking techniques simply do not allow. Foams, emulsions and gels show up on dishes at great restaurants such as Nana in Dallas, but there they seem foreign and forced in less capable hands.

Contrast that with one of the Wiley Dufresne’s creations I tried on my visit there and you walk away with a much better understanding of what he is trying to do. When I first tasted the eel dish at WD-50 I hit that space that only comfort food takes you - the flavor was reminiscent of etheral chopped liver that only Jewish grandmothers unafraid of chicken fat know how to make. I only later figured out that the brown stuff on the side of the eel was chicken skin emulsion.

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Smoked eel, blood orange “zest”, black radish, chicken skin

How and why Dufresne choses to go where he does with flavors and textures doesn’t even matter as much as his brilliant ability to successfully combine something that triggers flavor memory with a dish built around eel - which no Jewish grandmother in her right mind would dare touch (is eel even Kosher?).

If food is supposed to take you on a journey, WD-50 does just that. I can’t wait to go back.

wd-50 on Urbanspoon

20
Jun

Coming to America’s, part 2 - Plini’o Desserts

By Misha 10 Comments
Categories: South American, chefs, desserts, houston, molecular gastronomy, openings, restaurants, soapbox and tasting menu

In my last post I covered the food at the new America’s in The Woodlands. To cap things off, Plinio prepared a dessert tasting that turned out to be incredibly entertaining.

Quote of the day:

We (the royal "we"): So, how do you make this powdered peanut butter stuff, anyway?
Plinio: Oh, the same way you’d make powdered olive oil.
We: Um….. so yeah, how do you do that?

Plinio is a very talented chef who clearly spends a lot of time refining his craft, but that’s doesn’t quite capture what makes his food so interesting. The desserts Plinio creates could only really be made by a food geek, which is an emerging breed in the chef circles.

These guys get really excited about playing with food. I am talking Dungeons and Dragons excited. That sort of unbound enthusiasm is fundamentally changing how we eat the same way geeks in Silicon Valley changed the way we thought of computers a few decades ago. That’s what Plinio, along with a number of other talented chefs in Houston, are doing today. And it makes the driving up to The Woodlands more than worth the trouble.

The lineup:

Picaron, aji amarillo honey, peanut butter powder, frozen custard
One of my favorite desserts was served right up front. I’ve never had a picaron, a traditional Peruvian beignet that uses sweet potatoes for starch, so this was all new to me. Combined with aji chile flavored honey delivered in a tiny pipette this thing had a depth of flavors you normally don’t find with a fried ball of dough. I especially liked the aji flavored honey, which added a touch of heat to the flavor, but just enough to give the honey more dimension.

The powdered peanut butter had really interesting texture. Not quite dry, not quite viscous, but sort of fluffy, clumpy goodness in between. Combined with the frozen custard it created a really interesting flavor, temperature and texture interplay. I don’t know if this is on the regular menu, but it was awesome.

Lucuma souffle, candied bacon, granny smith apple juice
A riff on breakfast featuring lacuma - a fruit popular in South America, but not very common in the US.  Lacuma has slight maple undertones, so the souffle served in an egg shell and topped with candied bacon really is reminiscent of pancakes and bacon. I thought the souffle was a touch too sweet, until I took down the shot of apple juice and everything fell into place. The textures are new, but the flavors are familiar. Very nice.

Texas goat cheese, white truffle honey, shaved hazelnut, blueberries 
Another contrast in flavors in texture, but this time allowing very straightforward ingredients and clean flavors to carry the dish.  I especially liked the carefully chosen sprinkling of shaved hazelnuts, sesame seeds and other crunchy bits to add the necessary texture. The only thing I cannot identify from the description is the transparent gelee served with the goat cheese, which was similar to the striking dessert I had at Orson that was constructed exclusively from white and transparent elements.

Chicha morada sorbet, spiced pop corn
Another Peruvian specialty I have never heard of. Turns out chicha morada is a popular drink made from purple corn kernels, cloves, nutmeg, brown sugar and cinnamon. Spiced popcorn? Another example of very subtle play on contrasting texture and flavor.

Guanaja "Torchon", chocolate pop rocks, liquid açaí, creme anglaise
Absolutely brilliant dessert and the single coolest thing I have eaten in Houston. I am going to try to describe it, but you really have to try this to get the full experience. Here’s how it goes - you cut into the perfectly shaped torchon made of chocolate and discover that the cavity (there is a cavity?!) is oozing liquid açaí. What the hell is açaí? It’s a South American superfood that tastes like berry chocolate. Apparently Oprah digs it. Just as you think to yourself that this açaí stuff works brilliantly with chocolate, pop rocks begin to explode in your mouth and send things into overdrive.  The final effect is sort of like a chocolaty 4th of a July celebration (all fireworks, no hot dogs).

I asked Plinio where the idea for this dessert came from and the source turns out to be a foie torchon with beet juice created by Wylie Dufresne at WD-50. I think Wylie would have appreciated the remix.

Oaxacan hot chocolate, vanilla meringue, alfajore
Deeply flavored hot chocolate topped with a dollop of meringue and a Peruvian Oreo-line cookie filled with dulce de leche. Very nice finish to a great meal.

 

Is the new America’s a bastion of progressive cuisine? No, its still a populist restaurant with an established brand at the end of the day. Is it chef driven? I sense that it’s not entirely - yet. Somehow I think that given free reign over the menu, you’d see an even more radical departure from the original concept than it already is. It would be a positive turn of events as far as I am concerned, but I am not sure how long time American’s patrons would feel about it.

I am not sure I care about any of those things too much. I had a great time at America’s. By the time we were done, 3.5 hours had passed and I hardly noticed. The experience was good enough that I cannot wait to come back to explore more of the menu, which builds on flavors I have not come across anywhere else in the US. Not bad for a place deep in the suburbs.

The most exciting thing about what JJ and Plinio are doing at America’s is that it’s an opportunity to establish Houston at the forefront of culinary progress, rather than an also ran. The notion that we have to "compete" with other cities by emulating hyper fine dining in New York, farm to table eating in Bay Area or spacelab cooking of Chicago is patently absurd. It ignores the unique advantages awarded by our own geography and demographics.

Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the US. Besides creating our own indigenous regional cuisine (similar to Louisiana) and being a gateway to Mexico and South America, this is a true international city. I don’t mean international the same way United Nations makes NY international or the way proximity to Canada makes Seattle international. Houston is an immigrant city, where immigrants work with each other and cook for each other, rather than serve red wine reduction sauces to the highly educated elite class that frequents restaurants in leading cities in the US. The range of flavors you can experience here every day is mind blowing.

America’s is one of the best examples of highlighting Houston as a gateway to Latin America and creating something truly new - a place where you can taste flavors you have never seen before. Yes, they use progressive techniques when appropriate. But it’s the ingredients and flavors that are really exciting.

Go check it out for yourself. It’s worth the trip.

13
Jun

Cloak and dagger eating

By Misha 2 Comments
Categories: Paris, chefs, chicago, houston, molecular gastronomy and restaurants

Paris is so jam packed with restaurants and extraordinary chef talent that anything that breaks status quo instantly catches fire. Last year Spring, a tiny 16 cover restaurant run by a young American chef (faint, die), was the hottest reservation in town.

This year the American trend is still going strong, but the momentum shifted to bistronomique restaurants - casual spots with high end cuisine at moderate prices and no fuss. Ze Kitchen Gallerie, despite being open for 8 years now and recently earning it’s first Michelin star, is an example in Paris. Not to be outdone, Graham Elliot Bowles left Avenues earlier in the year to open his own "bistronomic" spot - the first in Chicago.

So, what’s more exclusive than a hole in the wall and subversive bistronomique outpost? Underground, invitation only dinners. Suck on that.

The Hidden Kitchen is the new hotness in Paris. It’s exclusive. It’s subversive. It’s run by Americans. You don’t even know where you’re going until the day before the dinner.

No, you don’t need to go to Paris to be trendy and cool. Randy Rucker, the local renegade chef badboy, is doing a secret dinner right here in Houston. He’s subversive.  He’s never seen a food trend he hasn’t liked. And he’s from Tomball.

It should be a lot of fun. I am going. More information here.

04
May

a taste of Voice

By Misha 9 Comments
Categories: american, chefs, desserts, houston, molecular gastronomy and tasting menu

How often can you say that a restaurant in Houston prepares something better than the French Laundry, a restaurant so critically acclaimed it seems to wobble a bit under the weight of unrealistic expectations?

Normally, I wouldn’t resort to such punditry, but I am not saying this to take anything away from Thomas Keller - 7 Michelin stars, the only chef with two Top 10 entries on World’s Best Restaurants list, countless accolades. My only point here is that Voice, the new restaurant at Hotel Icon under direction of Michael Kramer, is capable of cooking at a very high level.

Before I get flamed for a careless comparison, it’s worth noting that I visited both restaurants less than 30 days apart. While the dishes and lobster parts weren’t exactly the same, I am fairly certain that both rely on butter poaching, a technique popularized by Thomas Keller (I am sure someone from Voice will correct me if I am wrong) and both pair lobster with avocado.

There are no bad dishes at French Laundry, there are just dishes that are “less good”. The lobster wasn’t botched. It’s only flaw was that it was less than perfect. I thought it was a touch underdone and a little stringy. My dinner companions agreed, having to force their knives into the tail.

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Lobster preparations at French Laundry (left) and Voice (right)

The lobster served at the degustation arranged for us by Randy Rucker (who deserves loads of credit for dragging us out on a school night) was cooked perfectly and had a delicate texture I have trouble describing without resorting to really silly adjectives. The orange drizzle became a subtle backdrop, rather than take center stage. The avocado provided just the right amount of creamy texture to boost the lobster with more body. It all worked flawlessly.

This is as good as lobster gets. Your only problem is that you won’t find it on the regular menu and there is no guarantee that you’ll see it in your tasting, which seems to be an ingredients driven affair.

There are already several posts about Voice, so I’ll focus mostly on food. It may be worth your time to check out the photos on Flickr, if you are into full resolution food porn. There are over 90 shots in all, some quite nice.

Quartet of Amuse Bouche
Mushroom Soup “Cappuccino”, Truffles, Truffle Foam - could have easily come across as gimmicky and trite, but it really worked. Perfect facsimile of the cappuccino texture with a deep mushroom flavor. I think more dinners should start with a soup shooter. This is one recent trend worth overusing.
Quail, Pomegranate, Crispy Quail Egg - typically quail is under or over cooked, this one was just right. Pomegranate added just the right amount of acid without overpowering the dish. A soft boiled quail egg with a bigger crunch would seriously put this dish over the top.
English Pea Risotto - if the peas had flavor it was mostly lost in the rice. Not bad, but seemed more like a side than an amuse.
Maine Lobster, Pushed Avocado, Orange - best dish of the night. See above.

Patchwork of Baby Beets, Texas Goat Cheese, Micro Arugula, Beet Caramel
One of those dishes where everything comes together and nothing seems out of place. Although far from simple, it didn’t seem overworked either, layering several beet preparations to create multiple dimensions of flavor. Even the cheese seemed to have more body and air than usual, having an almost elastic quality. Although not listed on the menu, I seem to remember a few cubes of beet gelee that, along with micro arugula, put the dish over the top. Plus, I just really love beets. Excellent.

Sashimi of Yellowfin Tuna, Mango, Watermelon Radish, Yuzu Juice
Crudo and sashimi are almost a bad cliche, going hard on sugar or acid in even in the most experienced kitchens (like Da Marco). Voice goes with the mainstream here, but the flavors are extremely well balanced, with just enough acid from yuzu, texture from watermelon radish and sugar from mango. The only real problem is that the thin strip of tuna can’t quite carry all the flavors. It’s close though. Very close.

Potato Gnocchi, Morels, Asparagus, Prosciutto
 Very much a California dish, where superior produce is often in the foreground. I know Alison Cook took exception with the way this dish reads, but that’s not the way it tasted. Normally served with shiitake mushrooms, this version came with more seasonal morels, which were easily the best thing on the plate. The dominant ingredients were morels and asparagus, while the gnocchi was little more than a delivery system. Excellent.

Foie Gras, Medjool Date, Pistachio Emulsion
Either I was still processing the morel explosion or maybe I am just spoiled by the mind blowing foie gras at Le Reve several months ago, but I didn’t get the typical rush I get from eating this stuff. I think I prefer my seared foie gras a bit more rare. Good overall, especially the pistachio emulsion pairing.

Alaskan Halibut, Fennel, Baby Carrots, Truffle Emulsion
Everything worked in this dish. Halibut was exceptional, baby carrots tender and sweet. Even the truffle emulsion wasn’t obnoxious as truffle sauces can often be, adding to the overall composition, rather than distract from it. I don’t know what the little petal looking things were, but they were a most excellent touch.

Pork Belly, Heirloom Potato, Cippolini, Truffle
This little piggy wanted to be more seasoned. With a little salt this could be a great dish, especially served with something fresh and crisp, like English cucumber. (I add these little notes so people who cook for a living can have a good laugh at my attempts to engineer recipes)

Honey Lacquered Duck Breast, Morels, Fava Beans, Black Pepper Gastrique
Another dish that felt like a throwback to California, with big morel and fava bean flavors. Fava beans, in season and seemingly at their peak, were especially great here. Oh, and the duck was great too. Out of the three meat courses I think I prefer this one. (BTW, I am glad Kramer’s kitchen doesn’t have any silly rules about using an ingredient only once in a tasting menu)

Venison Sous Vide, Caramelized Apples, Spring Onions, Sour Cherry Sauce
Very nice venison preparation. Chefs often use sous vide as a blunt force weapon in the kitchen, but it really is perfect for venison. I rarely order lean game, because it’s nearly impossible to cook without drying out a good portion of the meat. Sous vide solves that whole problem in a spectacular way. The venison was uniformly rare, with all the complex notes of game perfectly in tact. Sour cherry provided such a bright and unexpected contrast to the meat that I didn’t even realize what I was eating at first. A cube of a caramelized apple and a sweet onion off on the side was a perfect addition. Most excellent.

I have to admit, meat dishes rarely get me going on tasting menus. Maybe it’s worth reversing the order, starting with heavy proteins first, working your way down to vegetable dishes and amuses? A regressive degustation. How about it? A whole restaurant dedicated to regressive dining.

Dessert Wave
Peanut Butter Custard, Caramelized Banana, Hazelnut Crunch - ridiculously good in every way. Not sure if I would have ordered this on my own, but this dessert landed in front of me and I had a really tough time passing it around for others to sample. Something this good makes your mind wander a bit and I started thinking about Elvis, for some reason. I don’t even like Elvis.
Warm Chocolate Cake, Crunchy Vanilla Ice Cream - great molten cake with a really good ice cream, although after visiting tasting some of Elizabeth Faulkner’s desserts at Orson I’d like to see something a bit more fun than vanilla. Jalapeno, cayenne, BBQ sauce or avocado, maybe. We’re in Texas after all.
Study in Chocolate, Warm Cake, Mousse, Milkshake, Mint Ice Cream Cookie - I didn’t try the mint ice cream cookie, but the mousse and milkshake were really nice. Second best chocoholic dessert in town, after the C5 at Catalan.
Warm Apple Crisp - ok, but somewhat overshadowed by all the others

Mignardises - another signature sign of a well put together tasting menu. Nice bit of lagniappe for those intent on going all the way. I did.

I like Voice. I like it a lot.

Closest proxy I can draw to Voice is Restaurant August in New Orleans, where John Besh creates some of the most interesting and regionally focused food in the country with far less fanfare than you might see in New York or San Francisco. Besh uses advanced technique as a means to an end and that’s what makes Restaurant August very special. Kramer’s Voice seems to be cut from the same cloth.

I expect Voice to get better and better. I also expect to see Michael Kramer’s menu reflect more of Houston as he becomes a Houstonian himself and discovers the wild palette of cuisines and flavors that make this a great city to love good.

What I like most about Voice is that it isn’t hell bent on proving a point. Order a tasting menu at Nana in Dallas and you will find yourself wondering why there seems to be an irrelevant dab of foam on almost every plate. At Voice, the foam isn’t even called “foam” - it’s an emulsion (which may or may not be foamy) and it’s as integral part of the dish as any other element on the plate. A means to an end.

Kramer is smart enough to combine tongue in cheek concepts (mushroom cappuccino) with down to earth dishes that won’t scare the natives (rack of lamb). You find complex technique right next to tried and true classics. Yes, there is a thermal circulator in the kitchen, but they also seem to use pots and pans.

And that’s a good thing.

(Justin: thank you for taking care of us. You and Michael are doing excellent work.)

27
Mar

Better demons prevail - no Alinea for NYC

By Misha 0 Comments
Categories: american, chefs, chicago, molecular gastronomy and nyc

I continue to be impressed by Grant Achatz. After flirting the idea of opening an Alinea branch in New York he decided to focus on Chicago and did it for all the right reasons.

Alinea is one of the few restaurants where reach does not exceed the grasp. The food is highly conceptual, but it works, in a way that Cubism works for Picasso, but fails in lesser hands. It’s hard to replicate what Achatz does at Alinea without losing something in the process. No matter how faithful the franchise, eventually the Xerox effect takes over - the food might even still be good, but the whole never quite transcends the sum of its parts.

New York brings acclaim and limelight that only a world megacity can bring, but that’s not where food is at it’s best. When I think of the most progressive outposts of cuisine today it’s Chicago that comes to mind, not NYC. Alinea belongs in Chicago and judging by the success of the restaurant, Chicago deserves to have it all to itself.

Beef shortrib confit, dehydrated Guinness sheet, broccoli puree,
spiced peanut pudding, pink peppercorn, micro-cilantro

12
Feb

Cafe Zol

By Misha 2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized and molecular gastronomy

Maybe I jumped the gun with Cafe Zol. I had heard that the dormant building that housed Crostini had been remodeled into a Scandinavian restaurant. Prior to Cafe Zol, the closest you could get to Scandinavian food in Houston was the completely random meatball stand at Ikea. Real viking food in Houston? Sign me up!

I did virtually no research on the place, beyond the location. The restaurant opened sometime in January, so going in February I was hoping to find Cafe Zol kitchen just hitting it’s stride. George Bush spent less time thinking about invading Iraq, so what’s the worst that could happen?

From the moment you drive up to Cafe Zol and see the green dinosaur on the sign (sadly, there is no dinosaur meat on the menu) you get a feeling that you are entering an alternate universe. I am not talking about Denmark or Sweden, but another dimension entirely where things look right but everything is out of place and people talk backwards. At noon the place was deserted and the host seemed surprised to see us. One of the tables was occupied, but it turned out to a public relations consultant explaining her plan to make Cafe Zol a runaway success to the first time restaurant owners (you can see their handy work at Citysearch).

Things went rapidly downhill from there. The menu explained that Cafe Zol offered an array of “Scandinavian tapas”. I was fairly certain that there would be no fresh whale dishes, but you can readily get deer, elk and various sea creatures in to pull off a Scandinavian concept. Worst case scenario - I could make stupid Viking jokes and feast on smoked salmon and herring. Unfortunately, none of those things were on the menu, which read like it was put together by Aramark. Salads, sandwiches, burgers and items you don’t often find on Scandinavian tapas menus.

Right around the time we stated looking for an escape hatch a bread basket arrived with some pink whipped butter. The bread tasted like a frozen Pepperidge Farms loaf that has been undercooked in a barely warm oven. It was too late to leave, so we decided to tough it out. Cheese rolls (Danish specialty?) turned out to be to be of the same variety as on every Thai menu in Houston. The meatball sandwich looked perfectly edible and my friend, who was the only one wise enough to order it, thought it was pretty good, as far as cold meatballs go.

Everyone else at the table ordered chicken and dumplings, so terrible a dish that I could not eat more than two spoonfuls. The broth was completely unseasoned and slightly sour, even after we began dumping life threatening amounts of salt and pepper into it. The sour taste was a lot stronger in the dumplings, which tasted like Ethiopian injera bread that has been left out in a warm, damp place for a couple of days then molded into dense little balls. As we tried to figure out how to get out of Cafe Zol without having to explain why we aren’t enjoying our Scandinavian tapas the owner came by to tell us that the soup is one of the best dishes on the menu and her personal favorite. By the time we paid our bill, another lunch party had arrived and proceeded to tell the waiter that the food was terrible.

Driving away, the only thing I could think of was the disappointment the Cafe Zol owners would soon feel when the place inevitably fails. Will it happen before or after they spend much of their life savings trying to live out their dream? It happens to much better restaurants than Cafe Zol, such as the excellent La Posada del Inca that recently went up for sale after the owners found they were not cut out for the demands of the restaurant trade.

Maybe Gordon Ramsay will read this post and decide to visit Houston to help turn Cafe Zol around…

19
Oct

Molecular Gastronomy, Houston (take two)

By Misha 4 Comments
Categories: chefs, houston, molecular gastronomy and restaurants

I recently read that Randy Rucker, who brought Houston the first taste of molecular gastronomy with laidback manor several years ago, was hired by Michael Cordua to develop a menu for a new Woodlands outpost of Americas. Although a molecular gastronomy push was not cited as the main reason Cordua brought Rucker on board, it stood to reason that at least some of Rucker’s chemically altered, deconstructed creations would appear on the menu.

While Cordua restaurants are popular and highly regarded in Houston, I find them somewhat tedious. Visually, Americas on Post Oak promises a viceral experience, but mostly churns out the same predictable South American themed grilled meats as Churrascos and Amazon Grill, rendering all Cordua restaurants nearly indistinguishable from each other. Artista offers a few bright spots, but having gone once, I thought it was mostly uninspired. Partly because the flavors were just as muted as at Americas, but mostly because mix and match menus are an irritating fad.

The addition of Rucker to the Cordua Restaurants team is a good sign, but left me a little confused. While not considered top flight culinary destinations, Cordua restaurants seem to be successful and have quite a following. Why tinker with a good business?

I found my answer from a most unlikely source. While flipping through the Continental magazine on a flight from Washington several weeks ago I came across a picture of Michael Cordua and his son in the El Bulli kitchen. This wouldn’t be the first time someone caught the molecular gastronomy bug after visiting Ferran Adria’s pantheon of weird foods. Suddenly the Randy Rucker hiring made perfect sense.

My suspicions were confirmed today by Alison Cook in her blog. Seems Cordua also picked up a chef from Max’s Wine Dive, which is yet another sign of good things to come. I have not been to Max’s yet, but the menu looks much more interesting than anything offered by Americas today.

Molecular gastronomy can go terribly wrong in less than skilled hands, but I sincerely hope Cordua’s experiment is successful. I have spent the last few months sampling avant-garde creations in various kitchens and not all things work equally well, but if Rucker can balance progressive cooking techniques with Gulf Coast and South American flavors unique to Houston I’ll be a regular at the new Americas.