City Grit and Um Segredo’s Veggie Tales dinner. Five exquisite courses, each an elegant expression of the late-winter/early-spring earth.
I was especially enamored of the artichoke carpaccio, artichoke puree held together with agar — the texture so silky and satisfying you wouldn’t spare a thought for that other carpaccio — topped with spicy mizuna, tender fava beans, and sweet slices of fresh artichoke.
But then there was the soup! Curried and creamy and punctuated with the prettiest, plumpest, freshest green peas, it was all I could do not to tip my bowl and take it down in one hungry swoop.
And the risotto. Oh — the risotto. I have never had risotto so good, and that is point of fact. Tiny slices of asparagus in perfect harmony with each al dente grain, all held aloft with a foam of the subtlest asparagus flavor. (This is why it’s stupid to mock the use of foams outright. In the right, intelligent hands, they are heavenly.)
I’d be remiss if I did not praise the wild mushroom cassoulet, so thick with hearty, stewy broth that I could have sworn there was a little veal stock in there somewhere — but no, just a bounty of beans and a single poached egg, punctured at the last minute with a fork, yellow and runny and elemental.
And finally, the dessert: a thick square of cake, assertively corn-y, accessorized with bits of pineapple, a drizzle of nutmeg caramel, and decadent rum gelato (see its creation in action here).
I have long felt that the mark of a great chef is what he or she can do with vegetables. Lord knows Dave Santos (proprietor of Um Segredo) can make lamb sing and pork shine. But I don’t think I’ve been quite as impressed with him as I was Friday night.
Hats.
Off.
Update: Check out Annie’s gorgeous behind-the-scene shots of the dinner.
Inside an artichoke. @umsegredony prepping for tomorrow’s “Veggie Tales” (Taken with instagram)
Gorgeous! Really looking forward to it.
Chef at City Grit
I can’t believe I missed this homage to my home state. I mean there was even hot dish on a stick! On a stick I tell you! (And you know how M. and I feel about food on a stick.)
Also, this Minnesota State Fair Affair for homesick Minnesotans in New York?? Sign me up!! Like every good St. Paul girl, I love The Great Minnesota Get Together and am bummed every year that I miss it. If they host another food-on-stick contest we are ready. M. has been threatening to throw a modernist-cuisine-meets-State-Fair dinner party for years now.
Last night, Chef brought Minnesota to New York for the Explore Minnesota dinner at City Grit; five dishes representative of Midwest Modern cuisine (er, Minnesotan inspired cuisine) were served. I was really happy to have my best buddy Harold with me as my dining companion since I was sitting down, eating, and not (really) taking pictures! Everything turned out great and I’m quite proud of him — the food was fantastic (in my non-biased opinion).
The amuse was “Green Bean Casserole” on a stick. I want to say that this dish was inspired by me and perfected by him; last year, I made Green Bean
CasseroleHot Dish on a stick for a food-on-a-stick contest at the Minnesota State Fair Affair (an annual event put together by homesick Minnesotans in New York). It turned out to be more like a meatball because I couldn’t fry it properly. It tasted okay and it was also weird enough to be mentioned on Fox News and Serious Eats though.
For the first course, we had a pickled mushroom salad with asparagus, mizuna, and a poached egg…
“I had such crazy dreams last night,” Andrea said to me when she woke up this morning. (She stayed over after we had a little too much wine at City Grit/Chef Dave Santos‘ March Madness dinner.)
“Oh my gosh,” I said, “Me too!”
Blue cheese is said to cause wild dreams. Looks like Dave’s Stilton tortelloni did exactly what it was intended to do. (See all the photos — with descriptions — here, if you’re so inclined.)
The whole meal was really extraordinary. Dave is one of New York’s greatest working chefs — and he’s so young, I can’t wait to see where he goes.
Sign up for the Um Segredo mailing list here (that’s Dave’s Roosevelt Island supper club — remember the truffle extravaganza?). And get a little taste of the magic at his upcoming City Grit dinners:
March 8th — Dave is teaming up with his good friend Andrew Kraft for a menu inspired by Minnesota comfort foods (I kinda have to go, don’t I?). Sample course: walleye with wild rice risotto, hazelnut foam.
March 9th — an “ode to the oyster houses.” This is something he explored to great acclaim when he was at Hotel Griffou. Sample course: pickled oyster and pork belly salad, onion fondue, arugula.
March 10th — Dave and our dear friend (and bo ssam guru) Akiko are creating a “Japaquese” menu that celebrates their respective heritages: Portuguese and Japanese. It’s an actual cuisine in Hawaii (did not know that). Sample course: “Kale Soup”: kale, potatoes, chourico, miso broth.
We will definitely be there for that last one, as will Peter and Andrea. If you’re going, drop me a line. We’ll sit together. I always meet such interesting people at City Grit and Um Segredo events. (Looking at you, Annie.)
March Madness at City Grit
Tomorrow I am saying good riddance to this god-forsaken month — and more importantly, greeting the first month of spring — with Chef Dave Santos’ soul-soothing food.
There are still tickets left for the meal, which celebrates foods once considered to cause madness (eggplant, sea bream, nutmeg, rye, absinthe…). Join me?
Anything but böring
Ty-Lör Boring put on quite a show at City Grit last night. Befitting a man raised in Manhattan with a Japanese nanny and the kind of parents who come up with a name like Ty-Lör, his meal was herbaceous, thoughtful, worldly … and way too light for the amount of wine I was drinking. Oy.
He began with the dish that won the Modernist Cuisine Quickfire challenge: compressed watermelon with vanilla-honey syrup, olive oil and saffron powder, and telecherry reduction. (Imagine me eating it seductively, like Padma.) Could have done without the vanilla, but still, a winning dish.
Ty-Lör talking to the crowd.
Sea bass crudo with oyster coriander puree, fried curryleaf, corn starts, and smoked Maldon sea salt.
Buckwheat noodles with cherrystone crowns (the best part of the clam) and turmeric prik nam pla, lacinato kale, and a smattering of miso panko. I really loved this course — terrific balance of flavors and textures.
Golden tilefish with lapsang dashi, hon shimeji mushrooms, black radish, and schmaltz, which I just learned is a Yiddish term for chicken fat (“you live in New York and you don’t know what schmaltz is?” M. asked me. Well I do now.).
Pandan chocolate financier with mango juniper curd, candied coconut, and kaffir lime spuma. I dare say: a perfect dessert.
After dessert, they gave us little bags of popcorn flavored with truffle, saffron, vanilla bean, espelette pepper — all flavors we had in the meal. Ty-Lor explained it was his homage to the power of taste memory (the idea being we would eat it later or the next day, and reflect). I was just grateful for the extra food! I didn’t even stop to take a picture — my bag was empty before we even got the check. No shame.
Last day in the @citygrit kitchen with Ty-lor Boring! Only 200 more clams to clean!
Oh hey! It’s Ty-lor and our dear ol’ roomie Akiko. Thanks for an awesome night last night, guys.
We thought that Ty-Lör Boring — he of the least boring name ever — was eliminated way too soon on Top Chef. Tonight we learn if that is true: we’ll eat his food at City Grit (he’s a guest chef this week). Really looking forward to it.
PS: Past City Grit meals.
City Grit’s Chinese New Year dinner: oyster wonton with kimchi, wild mushroom salad with spring roll, spicy rice cakes with sausage and collards, hoisin pork loin with grits and Szechuan green beans, and macha parfait.
Sarah grew up in the South and lived with a host-family in Japan; she nailed the pan-Asian-with-a-Southern-twist approach.
And happy hapa times were had by all.
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