Posts Tagged ‘review’

Chef Matt Costello is cooking hyper-local, avant garde and insanely delicious food out of a small kitchen in a 30-seat restaurant, and it’s the next place you must go for a weekend away.  The Inn at Langley is hardly a secret – even though the owners don’t advertise, the Whidbey Island destination was recommended to me on several occasions by friends and colleagues.  I was expecting a relaxing weekend away with my wife, but I was not prepared to have one of most surprising, innovative and delightful meals I’ve had in quite a while. 

A few weeks back, my wife and I booked our stay at the inn, cashing in a Rue La La deal we had purchased a month prior.  The deal included a night’s stay at the Inn at Langley as well as dinner and wine pairing for two at the attached restaurant.  Even from my first call to make our reservations, I could tell that this place exuded the type of warm hospitality that is often absent in the typical passive-aggressive Seattleite interactions.  When we arrived and were shown to our room, we were stunned in disbelief – the “cottage suite” included in our package was a 1400 square foot apartment overlooking the sound, beautifully appointed and peacefully serene.  And, if this were a travel blog, I’d go on and on about the room, the amenities of the inn and the charming little town scattered around it.  But, you’re here for the food, so I’ll get right to it.

Dinner started quite leisurely, just as the sun was falling low in the sky.  We were the first to arrive for the night’s seating, and we were greeted warmly by Stephen McClure, the restaurant’s sommelier.  He handed us each a glass of champagne dotted with basil seeds and we took a seat in the garden as the other guests trickled in.  Sitting in that manicured garden, watching the sunset and sipping champagne, I felt a million miles from home: relaxed, refreshed, civilized, and centered.  It’s a great way to begin any meal.

We were shown to our table which was one of just a handful in the restaurant’s petite dining room.  The room is divided by an oversized stone fireplace, and flanked by tables of two and four laid out around the perimeter.  However, the main focus of the room is

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Right now, I’m one of the few very fortunate people in the world who have a copy of the Modernist Cuisine book.  I’ve been a vocal fan(boy) of the project for nearly a year now.  As my wife can attest, discussing the subject of this book has been a favorite pastime of mine… at cocktail parties, friends’ birthdays, on vacation, to tech support call operators, at drive-through windows, and to just about anyone else who will listen.  About two weeks ago while I was driving to work, I got an email asking if I could swing by the Intellectual Ventures office to pick up a review copy.  I nearly drove my car through the median in my eagerness.

I got the books, brought them home, and posted an “unboxing coming soon” teaser article.  That was two weeks ago.  Since then – not a single mention.  The books that I’ve been salivating over for nearly a year finally arrive and I don’t post a word.  What happened?

I had an existential crisis.

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Ferran Adrià is the most influential chef, living or dead, period.  He’s also likely the most controversial.  At his Catalonia restaurant El Bulli, Ferran has spent the last few decades turning the culinary world on it’s head, breaking rules, toying with emotions, and inventing never-before-conceived ways of imagining food. 

Unfortunately, you may know Ferran best by his most extreme techniques, which are often implemented poorly by far lesser chefs (yep, I’ve been guilty of that).  His most recognizable methods include making foams and turning liquids into encapsulated spheres, both of which quickly denigrate from masterful haute techniques into party gags rather quickly.  However, in the hands of (by all accounts) a master/genius/sorcerer/+5000 Mana Food Priest, these methods contribute to a transformative and even transcendent dining experience.

Through Colman Andrews’ unprecedented access to Ferran, we learn about his fascinating and serendipitous career progression from military dishwasher to short-order beach bum, eventually becoming the most renowned chef in the world.  We also learn much of the history of El Bulli and how the location, landscape and struggling seasonality of the restaurant ultimately contributed to its unlikely success. 

What we don’t learn, though, is much about Ferran, personally.  Although he dispenses a bevy of prolific statements throughout the chapters, nearly nothing is written about his life outside the kitchen, his wife or his relationships with friends.  In fact, reading about his many simultaneous projects and ventures, I began to wonder if there was any off-duty time to discuss at all!

Skeptics of “molecular gastronomy”, a term which Ferran and others abhor, may find this book less than satisfying – the brief chapter on the opposition to Ferran’s food only lightly grazes the surface of the common knee-jerk responses to modernist cooking, and regrettably does very little to dispel the pervasive untruths that are frequently held against Ferran and his disciples.  However, for a geek like me wishing to emulate the patterns and unbounded thinking that made Ferran Adria such a powerful force in the modernist food movement, this book was a fantastic glimpse into the mind of a genius. 

Amazon: Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food

I love sous vide cooking.  Those of you who have discovered it know what I’m talking about – nothing short of a new frontier of culinary technique, and one of the first pure intersections of science and cuisine.  However, if you aren’t willing to drop $1000+ (or you don’t have a soldering iron and some patience) it used to be the case that you were excluded from the inner circle of sous vide wizardry.  Professional thermal immersion circulators are extremely expensive and, due to their scientific design aesthetic, aren’t very likely to show up on the shelves of Sur La Table anytime soon.  But, for the first time, a home cook willing to spend $450 (the price of a top-of-the-line stand mixer + accessories, for example) can experience for themselves the eye-opening, mouth-watering, religious revelation of their first sous vide steak.

I’ve blathered on for the last handful of posts about how great sous vide is, and to a certain extent, I’ve become obsessed with the method.  So, you can imagine my delight when the nice people at SousVide Supreme offered to let me test drive a unit for two weeks (there’s my disclosure).  When the unit arrived, I anxiously brought the box inside and began unpacking.  The first thing that struck me?  “Damn, this thing is big!”  So big, in fact, that there was no hope of ever storing a unit like this anywhere in my kitchen.  For the entire two week trial run, it sat on top of my stove, next to my stockpot that’s also too big to find a home.  If you can’t tell from the picture above, the unit is about the size of a large bread machine.  And although it’s handsome enough for what it does, I’m not sure I would acquiesce to the idea of making this behemoth stainless brick an objec d’art atop my precious counter space.  That said, I’ve found myself cooking nearly everything sous vide recently, so perhaps it wouldn’t be such an inconvenience to have the machine on display all the time.

Once I got over the size issue (like a blind date with a girl who has “a great personality”), it was time to put this unit through its paces.  By now, I had already been cooking with my DIY sous vide machine for a few weeks, so I had some reasonable expectations of heating time, temperature evenness (temperature measured at different spots in the basin) and temperature fluctuation (how well the target temperature holds over time).  I filled the unit’s basin with hot water from my kitchen faucet to speed up the pre-heating time.  If you haven’t been to the gym in a while, you might notice that the water-filled unit is quite heavy.  The unit features well-placed inset handles to help with carrying, but even so, it’s a precarious beast when full – especially when full of hot water!  It would be great to see a drain valve in version 2, since it’s very difficult to negotiate 30 lbs of 120° water up and into the kitchen sink without spilling everywhere.

The SousVide Supreme comes with a wire food rack (shown in the picture above) which actually does a great job of keeping your food in place and allowing ample circulation.  Unfortunately, since the unit doesn’t have circulator of any kind, you’ve gotta rely on convection currents to distribute heat evenly through the basin.  I was initially quite concerned that this would result in hot and cold spots (which it does) but the temperature differences were reasonably small – within .5°F as measured with a laser thermometer.

Heating from faucet temperature (about 110°F) to cooking temperature (about 144°F) took about half an hour – a time scale consistent with my DIY machine, and certainly reasonable for anyone who’s ever waited for an oven to preheat.  However, I was quite surprised to see the temperature fluctuations of the machine over time.  The video below shows 1 hour of cooking time condensed into 2.5 minutes.  The target temperature remained fixed at 144°F, and there were no external factors influencing the temperature (eg. I never removed the lid, opened a window, turned on the stove – in fact, I wasn’t even home!).  The temperature varies between 142.1°F and 144.5°F, and if you watch closely, you’ll notice that this variation happens in a very cyclical manner.  In other words, the machine is programmed to allow a zone of acceptable temperature that is at least 2.4°F wide.

These temperature fluctuations weren’t noticeable on beef short ribs or potatoes, where there is a wider zone of doneness.  However, if you’re finicky about your steak, and especially if you’re aiming for the Goldilocks zone on eggs, those temperature swings may make a difference.  As you can see in this invaluable guide to sous vide cooking there’s a substantive difference between eggs cooked at 146°F and 148°F.

All in all, however, the SousVide Supreme did a fine job cooking.  Plus, I felt completely comfortable leaving the unit unattended to run overnight or while I was away at work.  The all-in-one design certainly is convenient, but the machine’s bulk means you’ll have to annex the dining room to find storage.  I’m delighted to see the SousVide Supreme bring sous vide cooking into home kitchens for the first time, and very excited at what the future may bring!

View Slideshow

I had the recent pleasure of a visit to the newly-opened Sip at the Wine Bar & Restaurant in downtown Seattle.  I’m typically cynical of places that 1) are chain restaurants, and 2) have both “wine bar” and “restaurant” in the title.  However, I’m happy to report that the folks at Sip exceeded my expectations, in general.

The first defining feature of Sip is its location – directly across the street from the architecturally fascinating Seattle Public Library.  And although the restaurant’s design isn’t quite as extreme (no curvy iridescent escalators), the wrap-around picture windows and dimly-lit ambiance take full advantage of the location’s urban scenery. 

As you might imagine, the wine list is extensive, offering both local and international bottles.  Bottles start at $25, glasses start at $7, and if you’re a fan of variety, you’ll be happy to know that all wines by the glass are also available by the half-glass.  I chose to start off the meal with a gin cocktail in a burnt sugar-rimmed glass.  It was a slightly sweet-and-sour, and a nice accompaniment for Sip’s salty and seared appetizers.

I enjoyed the tender and well-seasoned Vietnamese Caramel Beef ($12), but the standout of the starters was the Bacon & Eggs ($13, pictured above).  The dish is served as a cube of braised pork belly with a soft-boiled and lightly fried duck egg.  I thought this was a great interpretation of the classic combination – salty, sweet, crunchy and… porky.  I also enjoyed the flavors of the pickled beet salad, particularly the crispy beet chips.  Unfortunately, the salad was impossible to consume without spilling half on the tablecloth; for reference, 2” wide olive dishes don’t make good salad plates.

I was excited, as always, to see braised short ribs on the menu.  The dish, $19, was described on the menu as “boneless ribs, parmesan ‘jo-jos,’ arugula salad, meyer lemon gremolata, parmigiano & red wine braising jus”.  What the menu neglected to mention was that the short rib was spiced so heavily with what I assume to be cayenne pepper, that all other flavors were undetectable.  That said, the parmesan fries weren’t bad, and the meat was tender.  The Flat Iron “Chivitio” ($22, described well by blogger and friend Jay at Gastrolust) was a much more pleasant dish, flavored intensely with smoke and char, and topped with the fatty softness of a duck egg.  If I kept duck eggs in my kitchen, I’d put them on everything, too.

I must say, though, that the best dish of the night was actually dessert – the Roasted Sugar Pie Pumpkin Cheesecake ($8).  It was light and velvety, with the vivid flavor of roasted pumpkin.  Well doe, chef  Allison Jester. 

All in all, the food at Sip exceeded my expectations, modest as they were.  However, the menu prices thus far haven’t followed the budget-conscious trend set by some other Seattle joints.  But, if you like to cap off your day of downtown shopping and public library book reading with a glass of wine and a steak, Sip at the Wine Bar & Restaurant is a fine choice.

Full Disclosure: I got free food, but that doesn’t pay for my opinion.

 
I had the recent pleasure of dining at Crémant, a captivating, authentic French bistro in Madrona.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, I plan to eat my last meal on Earth in a French bistro.  To me, the rich decadence of traditional bistro fare is a reminder that you’re alive.  Though most cardiologists agree that joie de vivre and fois gras become mutually exclusive after a few consecutive evenings, the French still manage to outlive us by 5-10 years, n’est pas?

Given my vigor for all dishes French, my recent visit to Crémant hit the spot.  In a day and age when Americans are so insecure of their own culture that they’ll only eat “Freedom Fries”, my faith in humanity is restored when witnessing chef/owner Scott Emerick’s faithful execution of the most unabashedly French dishes that have existed since Louis XIV.  For example, the Foie Gras Salade Royal ($14, pictured above)is an increasing rarity among restaurants and gourmet food shops, but its inclusion on the menu signals a steadfast allegiance to everything good about French cuisine.  Furthermore, this particular foie gras had a noticeably fresh flavor and texture that paired well with the sweet crunch of the pistachios and green beans.

My personal favorite dish was the Os à Moelle Rôti ($12, pictured above), three roasted marrow bones served with a pile of salt and a small spoon.  Again, I commend the chef for his inclusion of this staple.  I would gladly return for lunch and order several more plates.

Unfortunately, there were a few negatives to the meal as well.  Besides the foie gras and marrow bones, which were plated with generous pinch of sel gris, there was a prevailing undersaltedness to many of the dishes, including the pork rillette, salt cod and potato puree, and braised pork shoulder.  And, although the wine list at Crémant is fine enough to make an Alsatian blush (little wine humor), my glass of red was served about 10° too cold, which is a shame when your wine list includes $140 Burgundies.  If these critiques seem picky, that’s because they are.  There is a clear attention to detail and an adherence to the French culinary attitude of perfection at Crémant, so these small, correctable mistakes stood out even more.

I will gladly return to Crémant, hopefully before the eve of my death.  I wonder if they’ll accept my prescription for bone marrow?