I have a lot of friends who think watching a reality TV show is like getting a botched dermabrasion, but who are, nevertheless, out and proud fanatics of Top Chef. With its well-thought out competitive matches, its highly qualified contestants, and its superior production values, Top Chef is in a class of its own, towering above, and incomparable to, those other reality shows where people eat reptiles, or where real housewives scream at each other in an Italian restaurant by the New Jersey turnpike, or where non-suburban floozies scream at each other to become Flavor Flav’s own real housewife. Of course, for this Chicagoan, the most exciting Top Chef season had to be the season set in Chicago, not just because it showed off our wonderful, food-centric city and innovative, talented chefs, but also because it was won by the only female Top Chef so far, our city’s very own Stephanie Izard. I was a big fan of Stephanie’s now-shuttered Bucktown seafood restaurant, Scylla, so I was very thrilled when she was crowned Top Chef, since I knew it was so well-deserved. So when I had the opportunity to attend the underground supper club she was doing monthly as a lead-in to the early 2009 debut of her new restaurant, The Drunken Goat, so appropriately called The Wandering Goat dinners, I jumped at the chance (plus, this particular dinner would be devoted to the lusciousness, deliciousness, bungee-jumping-worthiness of all things bacon). As devoted readers of the blog know, I’ve written quite a bit about the underground dining scene in Chicago, so I was curious, what would a Top Chef winner’s underground supper club be like?
Any legitimate, laminated-card carrying foodie will at some point in his or her life decide to make the pilgrimage to the nirvana, the apex, the Shangri-La, call it what you want, of American culinary greatness, Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry tucked away in the small, bucolic town of Yountville in Napa Valley, California. A trip to The French Laundry is a singular experience for the food-obsessed, a combination culinary bar mitzvah/confirmation ritual, cattle branding, and pledge initiation – a rite of passage, a marker, an indication that one has indeed earned his or her foodie stripes. So when I had the opportunity to dine at the restaurant during my recent trip to the wine country (with heartfelt thanks to my friends Dulce and Greg, who managed to get my reservation around the convoluted FL system!), I was on the road faster than anyone can say “bouillabaise”! And The French Laundry experience was indeed quite the experience – dining as a civilized, leisurely, luxurious ritual; food as a vital, centrifugal life force. I probably ate some of the best dishes I have ever eaten in my life in that one night two weeks ago at the restaurant (and more on that below), and there were mostly hits, very few misses, in the twelve course (including two amuse bouches) Chef’s tasting menu. The service was impeccable. Yes, it was worth the trip, the expense, the hyperventilating. But I do think I hyperventilated a little too much, since I wasn’t as blown away as I expected to be. Although the dishes were excellent and sophisticated, the techniques superlative, and the ingredients top-caliber, I really didn’t think the menu had the risk-taking, the imagination, the redefinition, the capability to astound and flabbergast of, say, an Alinea, (which has recently overtaken FL in the 50 Best Restaurants in the World ranking, and, yes, just in case people forgot, Grant Achatz trained under Keller at FL). I will always take provocative over comfortable, and for this 21st century foodie, FL felt like an early 2000 artifact. And for most people, that’s not a bad thing.
Tags: The French Laundry
Yep, blog posting has been sparse since the beginning of June, unfortunately, since I seem to have jumped on a careening, brake-less Metra train between dealing with lots of organizational transitions going on at my day job, helping the rest of the Board and the company of TUTA Theatre Chicago put on our annual fundraiser benefit (which we successfully pulled off last Sunday, June 7, yay, despite lots of anxiety and hairpulling, de rigueur for non-profit fundraisers of all kinds, I’ve come to find out), and co-chairing this year’s Steppenwolf Theatre Red or White Ball (which benefits the theater’s educational outreach, the Steppenwolf for Young Adults Program). The Red or White Ball is tonight, and boy, if I was exhausted last year after the event, I’m not sure what state of physical and mental being I’ll be in tomorrow. Putting up a fundraising event of this scope and scale is pretty intense, with lots of hard work and time commitment required, but I think it’s going to be a spectacular event for a cause I’m passionate about – as my blog readers know, I feel very strongly that the arts can only survive if we are able to successfully enthrall, convert and immerse new audiences. I’m psyched! Despite all kinds of crazy busy schedules though, I still have a lot of things on my mind, so I’d like to give a shout out to these below (and there’ll be more blog posts starting next week!) Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: French Laundry, Guerrilla Truck Show, Hypocrites, Mary-Arrchie, Steppenwolf Theatre
Underground restaurants, or secret supper clubs, have continued to prosper (hey, even Des Moines has one), so much so that in New York City last year, five of them collaborated on a two-evening Thanksgiving dinner that attracted more than 150 guests a night. In Chicago, despite the scoffing of ornery food bloggers who will remain unnamed (whose bad moods may have been triggered by continuously needing to request seatbelt extenders on plane rides), there are probably more than half a dozen supper clubs tickling both the palates and the sense of cloak and dagger excitement of the city’s foodie community. As my devoted blog readers know, I am a big supporter of Sunday Dinner Club, and have attended their various dinners over the past year and a half, each time bringing with me new apostles to the underground dining concept. I have also gone to a couple more of the Chicago supper clubs, as well (and since I haven’t blogged about them or mentioned them by name, I probably wouldn’t be back). A lot of my friends have been drawn by the “underground” or “secret” part – there’s always a thrill to anything covert, anything promising the unexpected, anything that seems to have only an “in the know” few. But that’s only part of the equation – there’s that other word, you know, “restaurant”…and I think underground dining is so much more important to our contemporary food culture because of that: the Sunday Dinner Club chefs for one focus on seasonal, organic food and small-farm producer sourcing; they also build a community among their attendees, who come again and again. Plus the food is for the most part delicious. The new-ish Chicago underground supper club, X-Marx Chicago, in my opinion, though, takes the “restaurant” part of the phrase to an entirely new level – incorporating elements of finer dining into the underground. Last weekend, however, when it hosted a “wine dinner” with a mystery guest chef, and wine pairings thoughtfully selected by Craig Perman of the West Loop boutique wine store, Perman Wine Selections, it elevated the entire underground restaurant scene into transcendence.
So it was going to be on a Saturday, at 10:30 in the morning, with 20 F weather (relatively summer-like, though, compared to the past several days of 20 below weather) and massive snowbanks still blocking the alley behind my garage which restricted any conceivable ability to get my car out and running after a week. But it was an event held by the Green City Market, one of the most essential fixtures of Chicago’s vibrant food culture and an organization I love to support, to celebrate their first year as a year-round market. It was going to have renowned Chicago chefs such as Topolobampo’s Rick Bayless, Blackbird’s Paul Kahan and Prairie Grass Cafe’s Sarah Stegner offerring tastings. And the whole event, called “Snout to Tail: Showcasing Green City Market Pork” was going to be all about food which was near and dear to this Filipino’s heart. So my friend Eric and I hightailed it to the Peggy Notebaert Museum in Lincoln Park, the site of the indoor Green City Market during the colder months, to partake of all kinds of pork tastings imaginable, on-a-freezing-Saturday-morning. Well, I should have known, given the amount of food cooked and consumed at last year’s Green City Market Summer Barbecue, “tasting” was probably going to be an understatement. Despite the massive crowds (the event was free, but you had to RSVP to the Market), there were boatloads of pork dishes on display which begged for not just seconds, but third and fourth helpings. My personal favorites were Bayless’ pozole, a luscious, pungent, seasonally-appropriate Mexican pork soup with chilis and cabbage, topped with a crispy tostada, which he was personally ladling on to tumblers; Kahan’s and The Publican’s Brian Huston’s surprising, hearty pork confit stew with chorizo and mussels; Stegner’s delicately grilled homemade pork sausage on top of sweet-savory pureed black beans; The Bristol chef Chris Pandel’s porchetta sandwich, the salumi wonderfully seasoned and finely sliced, served on a flaky brioche-like bun with mayonnaise; and Carnivale chef Mark Mendez’s robust, gut-kicking, system-shocking pork soup which employed all types of pork meat from all parts of the pig, from shredded pork to homemade chorizo to crispy chicharones to even crispier fried pig’s ears to tender pork jaw meat- it was wonderful! My only relatively minor criticism, which hopefully the Market would improve in the upcoming tastings (there would be one every other Saturday at the Notebaert) would be to arrange the room flow and set-up better so that the Market’s vendors (who were all stationed at the outer perimeter of the room) would not be crowded out by the rabid, hungry, pushy foodies. But it was a terrific event overall, which was a good way to spend a wintry Saturday morning. With the heat generated by the passionate Chicago food community, chefs, purveyors, and consumers coming together once again, who needs Florida beach time?
Tags: Blackbird, Carnivale, Green City Market, Prairie Grass Cafe, The Bristol, The Publican, Topolobampo
The best dishes are ultimately about taste and the balance of flavors, to a certain extent it’s also about presentation, aroma, texture. For me, the appreciation of food is also heavily influenced by memory: the evocation of childhood scents and experiences, of friendships kindled and strengthened, of places and people revisited. My most memorable dining experiences this year revolved around taste and flavor, for sure, but many of them also conjured up memories full of warm glows, happy times, and deeply-missed people. Here, then, is the second annual From the Ledge best dining experiences of the year (and the photo at left is of memorable dining experience #4, the farm dinner): Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Aburiya Kinnosuke, Angel Organics, Gourmet Magazine, Graham Elliot, Koi Palace, Mercat a la Planxa, Moto, Otom, Perbacco, Sun Wah BBQ
Recent Comments