Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler avec les Cobayes - Cobaya Gras Underground Dinner

Lest anyone think we are latecomers to the New Orleans bandwagon, know this: the "Cobaya Gras" dinner had been months in the conception, even if the final execution of it came about incredibly quickly.

In fact, the origin of the Cobaya underground dinners can be traced back to Chefs Kurtis Jantz and Chad Galiano, when over the summer they reached out to several local food enthusiasts with a unique proposition: "Help us design a new menu." We all spent a good bit of time and effort on it, and sampled a lot of good food; unfortunately, their hotel's management had its own ideas on that front which had little to do with any of our opinions. But one of the best things to come out of that little project was a conversation a few of us had while waiting for the valet to bring around our cars: Why couldn't Miami have an underground dining scene? And if nobody else was doing it, well, why not us?

And so it came to be. The Cobaya - Gourmet Guinea Pigs group now has over 280 members and we've put together several fun dinners and other events, most of which have filled up in only a couple hours. The approach has been a simple one: find creative, talented chefs, and give them a forum to cook what they really want to cook.  That was exactly what we wanted to accomplish when we started talking around year-end with Chefs K and Chad, both of whom have Louisiana ties, about doing a Mardi Gras themed dinner.

Though the idea got everyone jazzed up, I still wasn't entirely sure up until the very moment that it was really going to happen. We had kicked around dates for mid-February, right before Mardi Gras, but then K and Chad got buried at the hotel with preparations for Super Bowl festivities, and communication and planning became difficult. We picked a date - February 12 - and trusted that everything would fall into place.^[1]

I think it all worked out perfectly. The Saints came through and won the Super Bowl last week. The weather, though ominous and stormy earlier in the evening, cleared enough to let us have a relatively dry night. The Guinea Pigs, despite the bad weather, came out in force, with perfect attendance and good spirits. And Kurtis and Chad, with help from their sous Chef Mike Marshall, along with pastry chef Jenny Rissone (who also hosted the event at her house, which has a converted garage containing a completely bad-ass professional pastry kitchen) and chef Chris DeGweck, put out an awesome spread of New Orleans favorites, with their own unique twists.

Su Shin Izakaya - Coral Gables

"HELLO HOW ARE YOU?!?!" Invariably, this is the greeting you will receive when you walk through the doors of Su Shin Izakaya - usually at a decibel level that will make you jump, even when you're fully expecting it. It's the owner's Americanized variation on the Japanese tradition of welcoming customers with a shout of "Irashaimase!"

Su Shin's menu is something of a mix of Americanized and traditional, too. Yes, you'll find your California rolls and salmon and cream cheese "JB rolls"^[1] here. But if you're looking for something more authentic, don't let this dissuade you. The real draw here is not these inexplicably ubiquitous standards, but rather the extensive selection of "izakaya" dishes.

An izakaya is, as I understand it, sort of the Japanese equivalent of a pub: a place to drink beer or sake, often in copious amounts, and which serves food, often in smaller tapas-size portions, to accompany those libations. Hiro's Yakko-San in North Miami Beach is an izakaya style of restaurant which, as I've noted before, always requires explanation to first-time visitors that it is not a sushi restaurant: no nigiri, no maki (though there is sashimi). Su Shin, though, goes both ways, offering both the typical panopoly of sushi and sashimi, teriyaki and tempura, as well more varied fare, both on the regular menu and on a blackboard that stretches across one long wall of the restaurant, typically featuring roughly a dozen or more daily specials of both raw and cooked dishes.

Since I work in Coral Gables, Su Shin is typically a lunch stop for me, when it is typically busy. There are a half-dozen lunch specials featuring miscellaneous permutations of the usual suspects for $8.75, as well as a mysterious additional list, written only in Japanese. During several visits we've asked about or randomly pointed at some of these, but have yet to encounter anything tremendously exotic. Rather, one of my favorite mystery lunch items is buried away in the "Makimono" (cut rolls) section of the menu, under the name "Porque Mt. Fuji" with the description "Not a roll, let us surprise you." Needless to say, as soon as I noticed this I had to try it.

CSA Week 10 and its uses

What's in the box this week? From bottom left: thyme (one of my favorite herbs), arugula, green onions, komatsuna, radishes, cilantro (very boisterously scented), Ponkan tangerines, carambolas, and a canistel.

Some of the green onions went into an omelette this morning, along with last week's avocado (ehhhh...). Little Miss F is making quick work of the Ponkans. We tasted one of the carambolas tonight: beautifully fragrant and juicy, but still just a touch over-sour. And then this afternoon, the thyme, green onions and arugula got me thinking: Zuni roast chicken.

While my last experience at Zuni Cafe was less than ideal, the cookbook remains one of my all time favorites. And one of the best recipes in there is the famous roast chicken. You can find the recipe online and there's plenty of walk-throughs on various blogs as well, so I won't belabor it too much here. Plus I was scampering to get the bird done before the Super Bowl started, and my photos - and my presentation - were not so sharp, so no pix. But you won't need much else outside the CSA box to make it happen - a chicken, some currants and pine nuts, the rest is just pantry staples like olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper - and it's a fantastic recipe that can be made in about an hour. I encourage you to try it.