Seeing some friends

It's been over three months now since I relocated to Seattle, and only one month until Lav finally makes the move to the Northwest!

This Memorial Day weekend, I had the chance to fly back home and enjoy some time in the old neighboorhood with our friends.

A couple of years ago, we had a Memorial Day barbecue at the park by my mom's old house in Harbor Bay, where we braved the brisk winds and discovered, unintentionally, that J and A's golden retriever Tasha is a bit of a wine connoisseur. So we threw a little barbecue together at the last minute this weekend.

Saturday morning found us on College Ave., picking up some meat for the grill at Ver Brugge (including an inspirational 40 oz. bone-in "Cowboy" ribeye) and stopping by La Farine for a little breakfast pastry, just like old times.

As tasty as the food and wine were, the memories I'm taking away from the 'cue all have to do with the great friends that joined us for those few hours on that little patch of sun-drenched, waterfront grass. Firing up the BBQ, watching a couple of buddies talk about the wine, seeing Steve's eyes widen at the enormity of cowboy steak, laying on the grass while little man R pummelled me with WWF-style body splashes off the top rope... meeting three-month-old Kade for the first time, playing fetch w/ Tasha... a pretty great way to connect w/ the old crew.

Time has a funny way of flying by, and before we knew it, we'd been out in the sun for about 5 hours. Lav and I got back home, plopped on the couch, and proceeded to pass out for at least 3 hours. We slowly regained consciousness just in time to hit Sushi Sho to say goodbye to two more friends, Aki-san and his wife. We arrived just as they were closing, and had the amazing fortune of having the whole restaurant to ourselves; a quiet and intimately personal setting for my last regular meal here.

Aki and his wife have served us consistently spectacular sushi (not to mention fantastic chawan mushi and hamachi-kama) since we first visited his restaurant 2 years ago. And I mean truly spectacular sushi... the epitome of uber-fresh, melt-in-your-mouth, so-good-you-feel-guilty type of hedonistic decadence, all served in the most low-key little restaurant in a sleepy part of Berkeley. This is the kind of sushi that, on your first bite, fills you with a massive rush of endorphin-induced euphoria, with just the slightest twinge of sadness. Why sadness? Because you pretty much know that no matter where you have your next sushi... that's right... I don't care if you're a high roller at Masa in New York or going hard-core in straight-up in Tokyo, it just won't be the same.

My man Aki trained with the sushi chef's to the Emperor of Japan, and I've never had ama-ebi, hotate, hamachi, hirame, saba, uni, or toro like Aki makes. His ponzu sauce is home-brewed, his smoked salmon made himself. He sources from Japan to the Mediterranian and Santa Barbara for the best of the best. No, this isn't eating locally, unfortunately; but it is eating of the handiwork of a local artist.

As we finished our meal, I was struck by how significant an impact Aki and his wife have made to our sense of "home" and community in the Bay Area (we once considered buying a home in the Solano district just to be closer to him). In a relatively short amount of time, we've collected some truly unforgettable memories of our time spent with this couple -- the infamous "lesson" Aki gave Lav about eating sushi on our first visit, their son's graduation, meeting the in-laws, seeing Aki's sketches, talking about his knives, learning of his incredible passion for classical guitar and witnessing it first hand when Connie played her guitar for him in the restaurant, hearing him rant about the price of toro and his skyrocketing rent, and watching him ridicule the california roll / spicy tuna / ponzu-sauce-on-nigiri crowd. Good times.


Lots of priceless moments spent with friends this weekend. Take care, everyone!

International Cheese-Fest

It's the second half of May, and out of nowhere came a crazy one-day winter rain storm. I think even the native Seattle folks were surprised. Tomorrow, of course, will be mostly clear skies and 75 degrees. Ah, Seattle weather...

No matter. It was the Third Annual Seattle International Cheese Festival, and blessed with good parking karma, I -- along with festival enthusiast GB -- would not be deterred. Rumored to be a showcase of over 200 different cheeses from a variety of US and international producers, the festival did not disappoint.

While we didn't make our way through anywhere close to 200 cheeses, we did get to sample almost two dozen, including some fantastic varieties of stilton, cheddar, triple creme, chevre, and gouda... and one crazy cheese that tasted like it had been washed in beer. I was proud to see the good folks from Point Reyes Cheese holding down the fort for California.

I think my calcium quota has been met for the week.

Alinea: courses 13 through 24

jump to: prologue : part 1 : part 2

Sorry for the delay in posting this half of the meal; lots of work-related travel. Anyhow, now the meal continues...

GREEN ALMOND sweet, sour, salt, heat
A very deliberate assault on the primary taste bud zones. Sugar, citric acid, sea salt, cayenne pepper. Eaten in one bite, the sensation spreads uniformly through your palate, then each element gravitates to its own zone on your tongue. Really a strange, dynamic sensation.

SKATE caper, lemon, and brown butter powders
Ogier "Viognier de Rosine", VdP des Collines Rhodaniennes 2004
Billed as the closest to a "classical" dish, this version also employed slivers of banana underneath the micro-diced vegetables -- the most conceptually muddled expression of the night. I found the powder media for the caper, lemon and brown butter to be intriguing, if not necessarily soul-satisfying (in the way that traditional skate wing preparations are), but we were distracted somewhat by the chalky mouthfeel. The skate wing was cooked to perfection.

PINEAPPLE bacon powder, black pepper

Just a little bite of powerfully elemental, dessicated flavors: dehydrated pineapple wrapper, compressed bacon powder. Looked like a perfect, tiny Japanese gift box. Amazing palate-enveloping flavor, fantastic match of sweet and savory. Seriously good.

LAMB date, mastic, rosemary aroma
Jen Royer Chateauneuf-du-Pape "Hommage a mon Pere"
S. Rhone 2001

Three little coins of lamb with three different toppings, the last which utilized a caramelized braised-cabbage marmalade. Served on an oven-hot stone, searing one side and wilting the transferred rosemary centerpieces for a prevalent herbaceous aromatic note.

HOT POTATO cold potato, black truffle, butter

Stunning presentation, stunning combination of functional temperature contrasts. The cool potato/truffle cream had a muted flavor; upon chewing the hot potato sphere, the temperature increase dramatically increased the bouquet of the cool broth, creating a linearly escalating aura of black truffle richness.

BISON encased in savory granola
Schlavenza Barolo, Serralunga d'Alba 2001
I did not expect to like this dish, but it was fantastic. Meltingly tender bison, an impossibly rich wine-bison reduction, and oatmeal foam.

FOIE GRAS spicy cinnamon, apple pate de fruit
Amazing, amazing, amazing. "Dehydrated cinnamon water" shell... are you kidding me? Crazy, but so incredibly good. Like a high-tech meringue. But with fois gras and apple in the center. Crispy, then dissolving, then decadent unctuousness, with a high fruit note for clarity.

ORANGE olive oil, green olive, almond
Oremus Tokaji Aszu "5 Puttonyos", Hungary 1999
Essentially, a "creamsicle" of orange sorbet and olive oil ice cream, accompanied by olive oil powder. And savory olive. Seriously. Wrap your mind around that.

COCONUT saffron, kiwi, cornmeal
Cantine del Notaio "L'Autentica", Basilicata, Italy 2004

Coconut ribbon, mochi with coconut gel, cornmeal custard cake, candied micro-cilantro. Many high concept executions here. Although the flavor of coconut makes perfect sense to unify the elements, the physical manifestation of the ribbon made it stand apart in isolation to me... keeping the entire dish a collection of disparate flavors.

LICORICE CAKE muscovado sugar, orange, anise
Surprisingly subtle, with the anise note lingering just barely on the palate.

CHOCOLATE passionfruit, lemongrass, soy
Abbazia di Novacella Moscato Rosa "Praepositus", Alto Adige 2004
Getting really full, and my senses are at a breaking point with all of the new flavor experiences. Even still, the intense, sweetened soy reduction is a fantastically earthy complement to the chocolate. The passionfruit and lemongrass co-exist as muted secondary balancing tones.

CARAMEL meyer lemon, cinnamon perfume

A chewy, dense, wonderfully perfumed, lightly muted lemon analog to a churro.

And at the end of the meal, we were able to say a brief hello to Chef Achatz as he finished cleaning the gleaming kitchen after the service for the night. And he was the last person on his kitchen staff to leave that night, well after 2 a.m. That's a chef.

So... is it cooking? Chemistry? Architecture? Satire? Theater of the absurd? Transglutaminase, methyl-cellulose, soy lecithin, agar-agar... immersion circulation units, CookTek, PolyScience. These are not "food" words. Yet all of these things, in the right hands and with extraordinary vision, can be used to create as profound a dining experience as one can imagine. Some might use these techniques and gadgets as a cover for their culinary weaknesses. At Alinea, they more often are used to facilitate culinary breakthroughs -- sometimes masterpieces.

I was listening to an interview with Thom Mayne, the architect behind Tour Phare (to be completed in Paris in 2010). Mr. Mayne is well-known for using unexpected, non-traditional forms in his work -- eliciting equally loud responses of praise and criticism. One thing he said sticks in my mind, and I think is applicable here (though this is only my paraphrasing): It is a much more significant appreciation that we can have of the magnificence of the traditional and classical when we are able to contrast it against the new and avante garde. They don't compete against each other; rather, they exist for each other. Yeah... a little Matrix-y, but I think he's spot-on nonetheless.