Best Dishes of 2014 - Part 3

We're in the home stretch. Here is Part 3 of my favorite dishes of the past year. This last set includes several more welcome additions to the Miami dining universe: N by Naoe, Oolite, L'Echon Brasserie, Mignonette, Proof, Seagrape, plus dishes from chefs Diego Oka, Danny Grant and Brad Kilgore. There's also a few items from visits to the Northeast (Toronto, Boston, Maine and Quebec) and a couple great meals in Chicago a couple months ago. In case you missed it: Part 1 and Part 2. You can also see all the pictures in this Best Dishes of 2014 flickr set.

Bento Box – N by Naoe (Brickell Key, Miami) (read my thoughts and see all my pictures from N by Naoe)

A few minutes after you're seated, a three-tiered bento box is brought to your table. It's unpacked to reveal six compartments, each stocked with several different items – similar in style and quality to the elaborate bento that starts a meal at Naoe.

So what's inside? This day: a battera roll of madai (sea bream) and pickled kombu with fried canistel (a/k/a eggfruit); tender braised pork jowl with mustard and miso, with boniato, white asparagus and local green beans; house-made jackfruit seed tofu topped with Hokkaido uni, with junsai (a/k/a water shield, a sort of slippery aquatic plant); a bit of Maine lobster with avocado and pea shoots; grilled black-bellied rosefish (a local deepwater fish in the scorpionfish family) with key lime; the same fish in a different preparation, simmered, with roasted eggplant and okra; sashimi of snowy grouper with komochi kombu (herring roe that have been laid on seaweed) and delightfully sticky aori ika (big fin squid) pressed with nori. Also, in typical Japanese fashion, a rice bowl (studded with bamboo shoots), pickles (eggplant and kombu), and soup (corn miso with slivers of daikon radish and leek).

Snapper Crudo – Oolite (Miami Beach) (see all my pictures from Oolite)

I was crushed when Kris Wessel closed his beloved Red Light a few years ago. He wrote a beautiful menu for Florida Cookery in the James Hotel, but didn't stay long in the kitchen. Then this summer he resurfaced at Oolite, a new spot off Lincoln Road with a pronounced focus on healthy eating. There are still some old Red Light classics – Wessel's fantastic New Orleans style BBQ shrimp, and his smoked, guanabana glazed ribs – and some great new things too.

One of my favorites in the latter category is Oolite's snapper crudo:  lean, sweet pinkish-white slivers of local fish, bathed in ginger-infused citrus juices, and garnished with floral, sweet lychees or rambutans and chewy green pumpkin seeds.

Raie a la Grenoblaise, Cervelles de Veau Meuniere – L'Echon Brasserie (Miami Beach) (read my thoughts and see all my pictures from L'Echon)

You can go old-school [at L'Echon]: there are seafood platters, pâté de campagne, steak tartare, moules and frites. Or you can find things more unconventional: hamachi crudo with black garlic soy, crushed tomatoes and olives, pan-roasted veal brains with brown butter and blue crab tartar sauce, a tartine topped with foie gras and nutella. There's also plenty in between, like this skate wing a la grenobloise, prepared with brown butter, capers, slivered grapes, and dried cranberries over a celeriac puree.

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Best Dishes of 2014 - Part 2

Picking up where we left off in our Best Dishes of 2014 – Part 1, here are the next twenty. The end of Part 1 coincided with the last days of our two week, twentieth anniversary trip to Japan. Part 2 here starts in Los Angeles, where I took Frod Jr. during his spring break for a quick college tour. I've never spent much time in LA and never particularly wanted to – I've always envisioned it as embodying some of Miami's worst features, on steroids. But I'll say this: there's some good eating there.

This set also includes a few great new additions to the Miami  restaurant landscape – BlackBrick, Zak the Baker and Niu Kitchen – and some outstanding one-off dishes from the increasingly deep pool of local talent, including Jeremiah Bullfrog, Timon Balloo, Brad Kilgore, Conor Hanlon and Giorgio Rapicavoli.

Jeremiah and I happened to be in NYC at the same time in June, and lucked into a last-minute seating at Atera – which was one of the best meals I had all year.

(You can see all the dishes in my Best Dishes of 2014 flickr set).

Chicken Gizzards with Beets and Endive, Agnolotti Alla Vaccinara – Bestia (Los Angeles) (see all my pictures from Bestia)

There are some combinations that sound so absurd that they have to either be fantastic or complete train wrecks. Needless to say, when I see them on a menu I'm drawn to them. The pan-roasted chicken gizzards with roasted beets, Belgian endive and capra sarda cheese at Bestia is a perfect example. There's nothing about this that makes sense, and yet it works beautifully, a compelling combination of assertive, often bitter flavors and substantial textures that I thorougly enjoyed.

The agnolotti at Bestia was not quite as far out there, but still was another bold – and delicious – dish: glossy pillows of pasta filled with silky braised oxtail, dyed the color of dark chocolate with cacao mixed into the pasta, and napped with a lush butter sauce speckled with pine nuts and currants.

Country Ham, Hushpuppies and Honey Butter – Son of a Gun (Los Angeles) (see all my pictures from Son of a Gun)

Son of a Gun is the seafood-focused second restaurant of Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, who opened their first restaurant, Animal, to much acclaim in 2008 (South Florida connection: they went to culinary school in Fort Lauderdale and worked for Michelle Bernstein at the Strand before heading out to LA). We ate a lot of good things at lunch there – hamachi crudo with tart apples and crunchy sprouts topped with a kalbi vinaigrette, their brilliant little lobster roll – but  the surprise hit was a platter of salty-sweet Broadbent country ham served with a pile of hot, crispy hushpuppies and a swath of creamy honey butter. Wrap a slice of ham around a hushpuppy; swipe through the honey butter; and smile.

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Best Dishes of 2014 - Part 1

Sixty dishes? Really?

Well, it's been a really good year. 2014 started with a snowed-in fairy tale of a weekend in New York City. In February, Mrs. F and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary with a two-week trip to Japan that was every bit as thrilling as I had hoped, and then some. The next month, college visits for Frod Jr. over spring break provided a good excuse to visit Los Angeles for the first time in ages. Then the summer included a quick return to New York as well as visits to Toronto, Boston, Maine and Quebec. A brief Chicago jaunt in October served up a couple of my best meals of the year.

In between all of that, my hometown Miami has had a great year too. Several new restaurants have quickly become favorites, a new generation of young talent is starting to emerge, and established chefs have added to their repertoires. This may have been as good a year for Miami's food scene as there has been in the five years since I started writing this blog.

These dishes are presented in the order I ate them (this first batch is pretty Japan-intensive); you can see a full set of pictures in my Best Dishes of 2014 flickr set.

Whole-Roasted Chicken for Two – The NoMad (New York) (see all my pictures from NoMad)

We arrived in New York just after New Years Day as a massive snowstorm was overtaking the city. Safely ensconced in the NoMad Hotel, we scurried around the corner for oysters and a carta di musica at the John Dory before settling in for drinks at the NoMad bar and then dinner at Daniel Humm's restaurant. The NoMad chicken is famous, and justifiably so: it is among the best birds I've ever eaten. The gorgeously burnished skin holds a layer of foie gras, brioche and truffle stuffing which perfumes the tender breast meat. The legs are made into a rich ragout with morels, a soft egg, and a tangy hollandaise. We awoke the next morning to an eery silence: not a single car on Broadway, all the streets still blanketed with snow. I can't imagine a better way to start the new year.

Ikura – 15 East (New York) (see my pictures from 15 East)

As a sort of warm-up for our upcoming Japan trip, we spent one of our nights in New York at 15 East for an omakase sushi fest with Chef Masato Shimitzu. It may not get the same attention as the astronomically priced Masa or fashionable upstarts like Sushi Nakazawa, but it was one of the best sushi experiences we've had outside of Japan. All the fish was excellent, but the standout was the ikura, glistening like jewels, enhanced but not overwhelmed by a dashi, soy and mirin cure.

Egg Salad and Mojama on Matzo; Mussels Escabeche – Estela (New York) (see all my pictures from Estela)

For the past year, everyone in New York has been going nuts over Estela. From the outside, it was hard to tell exactly why. The dishes drawing raves sounded, and often looked, so plain. But having paid a visit, I now understand that Chef Ignacio Mattos likes to deliberately conceal the restaurant's charms. Descriptions are minimalist; his plating style is often almost aggressively unphotogenic (to say nothing of the dim, candlelit dining room). And yet his food is unique and delicious, in a trend-less way that is a welcome respite from the cookie-cutter approach you see in many restaurants around the country these days. We especially liked his rich, creamy egg salad served over crisp matzo garnished with a generous shaving of dried, salt-cured tuna; and the mussels escabeche served with a garden of herbs and vegetables over olive-oil drenched toast.

Pastrami Tartare – Josh's Deli (Surfside) (read my thoughts and see all my pictures from dinner at Josh's)

I unabashedly love what Joshua Marcus is doing at Josh's Deli. He cures his own corned beef, smokes his own salmon, bakes his own bagels; but despite the anachronistic focus on all house-made everything, this is not just a nostalgia trip. Classics share space with esoterica like "Jewban" sandwiches and zucchini latkes topped with tzatziki and salmon roe. On and off this past year he's rolled out a dinner menu that was very much in the same spirit. The best thing I had was this pastrami tartare, topped with a raw quail egg, bound with an oyster caesar dressing, and presented with a crisp bagel chip for scooping.

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How Does My Garden Grow?

The primary focus here at FFT has always been restaurant dining – but sporadically I've indulged in missives inspired by my CSA subscription with Little River Cooperative, and even the occasional backyard planter box tomato. This October, we plunged in a bit deeper. As part of a landscaping project at the house, we installed a raised vegetable bed in the backyard, and also filled in a defunct little kidney-shaped "pond" with soil and planted it with greens and herbs.^[1]

I make no claim to having a green thumb; indeed, if I don't kill a plant within a month I feel like I've accomplished something. But despite my very limited experience, this little garden has been a source of a disproportionate amount of joy the past few months.

We started at the beginning of October with this:

Today, it looks like this:

(You can see all my garden pictures in this flickr set.)

I've been giving something of a weekly play-by-play on Twitter and Instagram, but if you've not been following along there, here's a rough recap of the past few months for Farmer Frod.

The raised bed started with a couple tomato plants, some herbs (mint, basil, sage, lavender, oregano), a couple broccoli plants, and was seeded with radishes and carrots. A couple weeks later I supplemented these with a few more tomatoes (Sungold, Black Krim, Purple Russian, Homestead, and Gold Medal) a zucchini plant (romanesco costata, to be precise), a Tuscan kale, a couple shishito peppers, and a jalapeño, all bought from Little River, The other bed also started with some herbs (chocolate mint, opal basil, a couple different parsleys, tarragon, thyme), a few Swiss chard plants, and was seeded with lettuces, kale and mustard greens.

To give you a good idea of just how much of a novice I am: when these little seedlings started sprouting up a few days later, I called my landscaper in a panic, having no clue whether they were vegetables or weeds.

The radishes and greens came in incredibly quickly, and in a month some were ready to harvest.

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Cobaya Diego at La Mar

It was big news when Gaston Acurio – Peru's most famous and celebrated chef – decided to open a restaurant in Miami. But Acurio has literally dozens of restaurants around the world; he's clearly not cooking in all of them at the same time. At Miami's La Mar, the executive chef responsibilities fall to Diego Oka. In an Edible South Florida piece last year, I recounted Diego's introduction to Acurio as a nervous 16 year old peeking around the corner of a supermarket aisle. He was invited to visit Acurio's restaurant the next day, and pretty much never left. After working with Acurio in Peru, he opened La Mar Cebicheria Peruana in San Francisco with him, then came to Miami to open our own version of La Mar.

Perhaps unlike many other U.S. cities (including San Francisco), Peruvian cuisine is nothing new here. In fact, South Florida already had over 200 Peruvian restaurants when I last counted, as La Mar was opening. But there are few, if any, places, that show the same creativity and attention to ingredients as are on display at La Mar. We got a preview of what Diego could do when he went off-menu at our Cobayapalooza dinner in July, and were eager to see more.

Last week a small group of guinea pigs assembled on the patio behind La Mar in the Mandarin Oriental, overlooking the lights of downtown Brickell across a sliver of Biscayne Bay. After some Pisco Sours to set the mood, Diego served up seven courses that were simultaneously creative and grounded in Peruvian flavors.^[1]

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Diego flickr set – apologies for the wonky artificial lighting, but the dark outdoor setting left me with no choice).

The menu started with a tiradito – a dish reflective of the mingling of local and Japanese food traditions that leads many to call Peruvian food the original "fusion cuisine" (indeed, el jefe Gaston Acurio recently published a book called "500 Years of Fusion"). Typically prepared with sashimi-style slices of raw fish that are then bathed in a ceviche-style citrus and chile bath, Diego's version here used slices of raw scallop, tongues of uni and brilliant orange salmon roe, all napped with a creamy rocoto chile leche de tigre.

Another modern iteration of a traditional Peruvian dish followed: a potato causa made with luridly hued purple potatoes, paired with blocks of seared tuna, a green mango chalaca sauce and crispy sweet potato strings.

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P.I.G. (Pork Is Good) #5

Almost exactly five years ago was one of the first times I broke out a camera for a food event. The occasion was the inaugural "P.I.G." (for "Pork Is Good") party put on by Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog. A couple dozen folks showed up at the Harvey W. Seed American Legion Hall, Jeremiah served up some chicharrones, some smoked pork butt bao buns, a whole pig rolled porchetta style and cooked in a caja china out back, and a bevy of beverages, and everyone was greasy and happy.

Jeremiah's done it every year since, and every year it's grown. Last year, P.I.G. #4 was more of a collective effort, with several other local chefs chipping in on this ode to all things porcine. A couple weekends ago, P.I.G. #5 saw many of the same faces and some new ones too: Kyle Foster (formerly the sous chef at the late, lamented Talula), Conor Hanlon and Josh Gripper (The Dutch), James Strine (Café Boulud), Brad Kilgore (soon-to-open Alter, until recently at J&G Grill), Todd Erickson (Haven and HuaHua's Taqueria), Jamie DeRosa (Tongue & Cheek), Michael Pirolo (Macchialina), William Crandall (Azul), Giorgio Rapicavoli (Eating House), Brian Mullins (Ms. Cheezious), Steve Santana (Taquiza), Kris Wessel (Oolite), and Giselle Pinto (Sugar Yummy Mama).

This is genuinely one of the most fun food events of the year for me. The venue, in and behind Wynwood's Brisky Gallery, was great. The crowd was relaxed and friendly. The chefs and their crews even seem to be having a good time. And the food – which at many events like this, to be honest, is often disappointing – was pretty excellent. I didn't manage to try everything, but here are some highlights:

(You can see all my pictures in this P.I.G. #5 flickr set).

Man, do I miss Kyle. In the last couple years before Talula closed, he was often the mastermind of some great offal-centric appetizers and charcuterie items on the menu. He moved along to Denver and is doing just fine without me: he's now the sous at a place called Colt & Gray, is still doing the offal and cured meats routine, and recently got engaged (his fiancée came down to Miami with him to work the event). His charcuterie game is still very strong, and he brought a bunch of it: pork heart salami, finnochiona, jambon persille, ciccioli, and another salami he called the "Forest Moon of Endor," among others.

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Alinea - Chicago

The idea of dinner as spectacle is hardly a new one. In the Satyricon, Petronius recounts the (fictional) dinner of Trimalchio, featuring such delicacies as pea hen eggs filled with tiny songbirds, a hare with wings affixed to it to look like a pegasus, and a whole wild boar with baskets of dates hanging from its tusks, surrounded by pastry piglets and stuffed with live thrushes – preceded by a presentation of hunting-themed tapestries and a pack of hunting dogs traipsing through the dining room to set the mood.

Fast forward a couple thousand years, and recently Jeremiah Tower – one of the titans of the 1980's dining universe, who is returning to the business on a mission to resuscitate the Tavern on the Green – spoke with Andrew Friedman about the theater of dining at TOTG:

Friedman: When you say outrageous, what do you mean, for people who weren't there back in the day?
Tower: Oh, I mean, my God. Oversized chandeliers and didn't he put live animals at one point for some party? It reminded me of the Ritz, a nouveau riche version of the Ritz, where in the old days, a grand Duke wanted a winter scene so they flooded the basement and froze it and draped everything in ice. It was that kind of theater.
Friedman: What do you remember about the food at the old Tavern?
Tower: You know, I honestly don’t remember anything. I've been looking at old menus from the 1950s but I don’t think I ever looked at the plate. I was too busy looking at the decor and the action.

So in a sense, what Alinea is doing is nothing new. But few contemporary restaurants I've visited have the same dedication to the theater of dinner.

My first meal at Alinea was a long time ago, within a couple years of its opening. They were the heady days of foams and spheres and fluid gels – back when what is now inaptly named "modernist cuisine" went by the equally inapt "molecular gastronomy." On that first visit, we had bacon swinging on trapezes, bites perched on bobbing "antennae," and dishes nestled on pillows emitting flower-perfumed air. But perhaps the most striking oddity of it all was the somber, ramrod-stiff waitstaff. There was a huge disconnect between the playfulness coming out of Grant Achatz's kitchen and the solemnity of those who served it, as if the food wouldn't be taken seriously enough if they actually cracked a smile.

Achatz no longer needs to be concerned with being taken seriously: Alinea now has three Michelin stars, a No. 9 position on San Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants list, and multiple James Beard awards to vouch for that. And everyone's smiling.^[1]

(You can see all my pictures in this Alinea - October 2014 flickr set.)

I'd not been back to Alinea until last month,^[2] when the opportunity for a return visit fortuitously arose. The gap afforded an interesting time-lapse view of the restaurant's maturation. Many things that were still just in the concept stage at the time of my initial visit – reincorporating classical old-school dishes and table-side service, the now-famous dessert on the table – are now firmly entrenched in the repertoire.^[3] Dishes that were once emblematic of Alinea's cutting edge creativity – like the "hot potato cold potato" pictured above – are now signature dishes, evoking more nostalgia than awe (for a repeat visitor anyway).

There is also plenty that's new, and plenty that's still awe-inspiring. But what was most notable to me, given my peculiar perspective, is how the front of the house at Alinea has caught up with the back. This is now a fully realized experience where the food and the spectacle of its presentation are on equal footing. As to whether or not that's a good thing – I'll try to address after the recap of my recent visit.

It's hard to imagine a more traditional way to commence a meal than with caviar and champagne. It's hard to come up with a better one either. The accompaniments to the caviar here are customary ones, but of course transformed: a brioche foam, an egg yolk emulsion, a transparent gelée flavored with onion and capers. The osetra caviar itself was excellent, as was the Pierre Moncuit champagne.

Then the show really starts. Servers arrive wielding blocks of ice that are 1/25 size replicas of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic,^[4] strewn with a sort of reinvented seafood platter: a sphere of oyster liquor and mignonette sauce nestled in the oyster's shell; strips of chewy clam glazed with unagi sauce, served ishiyaki style on a hot rock; a sort of deconstructed miso soup with kombu and crumbles of miso and bonito; a sort of reconstructed tomato of fresh tuna; a shooter of Asian pear and yuzu juices dug right into the block of ice, with a fat glass straw planted in it (which, awkwardly, was too long to use without actually standing up at the table); and a cylindrical sea urchin cake, infused with vanilla, wrapped in nori, and topped with lemon zest and coarse salt, poised right between savory and sweet.

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L2O - Chicago

I was looking forward to writing about my meal at L2O in Chicago last month. I didn't realize it was going to be a eulogy.

L2O first vaulted to prominence in 2008, when the Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises group lured chef Laurent Gras from San Francisco to open a high-end, seafood-focused restaurant in Chicago. In 2010, L2O earned three Michelin stars; that same month, Gras left. The next year, Matthew Kirkley took over as chef de cuisine and eventually was elevated to executive chef. Many quietly said that the restaurant under Kirkley was every bit as good – if not better – than under Gras' reign.

Now comes news that the restaurant will be closing at the end of the year. On one hand, it's a big surprise: L2O is one of the city's – and country's – most highly regarded restaurants, even if it doesn't seem to draw the same quantum of attention as the venues of Chicago royalty like Grant Achatz, Rick Bayless, and Paul Kahan. On the other hand, L2O always seemed an odd fit with LEYE, which is better known (to me, anyway) for crowd-pleaser type places like Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba and Shaw's Crab House. LEYE's founder, Rich Melman, seemed to confirm as much:

"(L2O) had never been a money maker for us," Melman says. "As with all restaurants, it's all about volume. I don't want to do four-star restaurants anymore, at least for the foreseeable future. Three partners came out of L2O and it was successful in that way."

Surprise or not, L2O's imminent closing is a disappointment: this was one of the most pleasing, satisfying meals I've had all year. It's a shame it will be my only chance to experience it.

(You can see all my pictures in this L2O flickr set.)

The tasting menu^[1] starts with a series of snacks. The first is a sort of ode to Chesapeake Bay (Chef Kirkley is a Baltimore native): a few precariously balanced wafers with the puffy texture of Chinese shrimp chips, but the intense, pronounced flavors of crab and Old Bay seasoning. Next, a mussel "tart," the mollusks' flavor infused into a quivering mousse brightened with parsley and citrus, nestled in a crispy shell. Then, a puffy pomme souflée, ingeniously filled with a creamy salt cod brandade, and dusted with coffee and bergamot for a pleasingly bitter counterpoint.

Maybe it was brought into sharper focus by comparison to the theatrical pyrotechnics of Alinea, where I'd eaten the night before, but there's an austerity and minimalism to Kirkley's style that I really appreciated. Most courses featured only a few primary ingredients, the flavors of which were honed, concentrated, and often reiterated within the dish. Indeed, the composition of many plates was similar: a fish or seafood item as the primary focus, sometimes a bit of animal fat to provide richness and extend flavors, often a sauce extracted from the primary ingredients, an accent note of herb or citrus.

That pattern was set in this first course, a pink ball of langoustine^[2] tartare, enriched with lardo and brightened with pickled lemon and English pea. This was followed by a Kusshi oyster, nestled in its shell under a bed of green apple and vermouth creams, and presented like some nautical bric-a-brac from Shell City. Pinkish orange ocean trout was lightly cured, presented in silky, supple ribbons complemented by the delicate but intense flavors of Chartreuse, citrus confit and airy little gougere-like poufs dusted with fines herbes.

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Elements: Scott Anderson Dinner at The Dutch

Much as I might wish for it, I don't get to spend my days traversing the country from restaurant to restaurant. We're fortunate to travel often and usually eat very well when we do, but even so, there are places I'm unlikely to ever visit. Princeton, New Jersey would fall into that category.^[1] And as a result, I figured I would never eat at Elements, Chef Scott Anderson's restaurant which opened in Princeton about five years ago (and is currently closed while moving to a new location).

This was cause for regret, because I'd read and heard many very good things about it. A couple guys whose opinions I value raved about their meals there. Despite being somewhat off the grid, it was highly regarded enough to make Opinionated About Dining's list of the top twenty restaurants in the U.S. So I was pretty excited when I learned, through Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog, that Scott was interested in doing a dinner here in Miami.

We sent up some Cobaya flares for other folks who might be interested, and Chef Conor Hanlon of The Dutch graciously agreed to participate and play host. Together, Scott, Jeremiah, Conor and Josh Gripper, The Dutch's pastry chef, put together a pretty extraordinary ten-course dinner.

(You can see all my pictures in this Chef Scott Anderson (Elements) at the Dutch flickr set. Apologies for the weird sepia-toned hue to these pictures; the food-unfriendly yellow lights on The Dutch's terrace are the only downside of putting on events there).

A few canapes to start: a pink beet macaron with an herbed chevre filling, a nice repurposing of a traditional combination; a crispy chicharron topped with a Thai-inspired green papaya and apple salad; and an airy – kind of fishy – scallop chip topped with pungent kimchee and trout roe. I'm assuming each chef did one of these, but they didn't tell us who (I'll guess Conor for the macaron, Jeremiah for the papaya salad, and Scott for the scallop chip).

Sometimes simple is bold. Particularly in this kind of dinner format, where the natural tendency is to show off, restraint isn't easily exercised. But that's what Jeremiah displayed, letting the main ingredient – some really lush, buttery baja yellowtail (a/k/a hiramasa or goldstriped amberjack) – stand out in his first dish. Meaty cubes and a couple silky ribbons of the raw fish were paired with a verdant fava bean purée, a few green leaves (tart sorrel, grassy tatsoi?), some slivers of shallot and a thin round of peppery black radish for some bite.

Conor followed with something also aquatic and equally elegant: cured ora king salmon, a richly fatty but clean-flavored salmon sustainably farmed off the coast of New Zealand, served with slivered radishes, puddles of deep, funky black garlic hollandaise, and hillocks of nutty crispy quinoa. The composition brought to mind a more sophisticated iteration of the combination of lox and a pumpernickel bagel that is so deeply resonant among my people.

I'm not sure how much communication there was between the chefs about their dishes, but it was interesting that Scott's first course also seemed to be a continuation of the same theme. A plump, sweet scallop (brought in live) was just barely cooked through, topped with a relish of Brazilian starfish pepper and shallots that tasted both spicy and fruity (reminiscent of habanero but with less capsicum heat), plus buttery avocado oil, a couple nasturtium leaves and a bright marigold blossom. These were assertive flavors to match with the somewhat delicate seafood, but I loved how they came together.

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elements - Scott Anderson Dinner at The Dutch 10.20.14

I've been teasing it on Twitter and to the Cobaya - Gourmet Guinea Pigs mailing list, now it's official: October 20, 2014, 7pm, Chef Scott Anderson of Elements restaurant will be doing a nine-course dinner with chefs Conor Hanlon of The Dutch (which will also be graciously hosting the dinner) and Jeremiah Bullfrog of the gastroPod.

Anderson's restaurant is one of those places I've always wanted to visit but didn't ever see the opportunity – I'm not often passing through Princeton, New Jersey. Now, instead, he's coming here. To get some idea of why I'm excited, I'd encourage you to read these write-ups from a couple folks whose opinions I hold in high regard: ChuckEats and DocSconz. And they're not alone: despite not being on everyone's radar screen, Elements was included in Opinionated About Dining's Top 20 US Restaurants list.

The dinner will be $206 per person, inclusive of tax and tip. A pairing option will be available for purchase at the restaurant. To get seats, click on the "Add to Cart" button below (you can change the number of seats once you're on the PayPal page). The number of spots is very limited, so I'd encourage you to move quickly:

Elements Dinner at The Dutch
Monday, October 20, 2014
$206pp

Hope to see you there!