Cobaya Carmellini (a/k/a Cobaya Goes Dutch)

We've actually been in talks for this Cobaya dinner since last October, before Chef Andrew Carmellini opened his Miami outpost of The Dutch. Of course, Carmellini has had some other stuff on his plate - opening the Miami restaurant, running Locanda Verde and The Dutch in New York, publishing a new cookbook, "American Flavor," to name a few. But the stars finally aligned last week, when Carmellini and his Miami crew, including Chef de Cuisine Conor Hanlon and Pastry Chef Joshua Gripper, put together a fantastic-looking menu for thirty guinea pigs.

I say fantastic "looking" because, sadly, I had to miss this one due to work-related travel. But I did stop by before the dinner and Chef Carmellini was gracious enough to give me a tour of the kitchen to see what was in progress. The theme carrying through several of these dishes was "The Whole Damn Thing!" - turbot cooked whole (innards and all, if he stuck with the plan as of around 4pm the afternoon of the dinner), with a sauce made from the bones; a fifty pound pig from Hialeah, prepared about a half-dozen ways. And though I didn't get to taste any of it, I got a good look at what I missed out on from the folks who were there.

It's the first Cobaya dinner I've missed, and it sure looks like a great one. It's also my first time trying to recap a meal I didn't eat.

Here's Chef Carmellini providing a greeting to the diners, the menu, and below, pictures from some of the folks who were at the dinner. (Video courtesy of Ethan Shapiro, pictures via Chowfather, Allison Riley a/k/a Y'All Taste This, and Andrew Carmellini). My usual descriptive flourishes will be missing - wish I could tell you about it..

Lemon Arrancini, Caviar, Creme Fraiche

Watermelon, Cobia, Spicy Yuzu

Bulgogi Tartare, Jae's Kimchi, Lettuce

Duck Foie Gras Meatball, Celery, Cherry Mustard

Bluepoint Oyster, Cucumber Shiso Granite

Lake Meadow Egg, Smoked Sable, Trout Roe

Gnocchi di Patate Primavera con Funghi e Piselli

Turbot Cuit Entier Sur L'Os Aux Saveurs Marocaine

Whole Hog Cooked in a Variety of Ways with Condiments

Crispy Testa with Gribiche

Smoked Ribs Glazed in Cider

Pastrami-Brined Belly

Alsatian-Style Shoulder with Mustard

Brown Sugar-Cured Hams

Crispy Pig Ears, Swank Farms Arugula, Meyer Lemon

Natural Jus

Conor's Pickle Pots

Pickled Bread & Butter, Michael Borek's Farm Field Tomatoes

Pickled Ramp Relish

Grilled Georgia Peaches

Mom's Collards

Weinkraut MSG Style

Mustards

Rainier Cherry Consommé, Manhattan Granita

Croque en Bouche Royal

Ice Creams, Sorbets, Sauces, Cookies, Candies, Chocolates

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The Frod Burger at Blue Collar

The month of May, according to authoritative source "A Hamburger Today," is "National Burger Month." To celebrate the auspicious occasion, Blue Collar Restaurant has been running burger specials every week inspired by local food writers, including - yes - yours truly. I'll admit: it is difficult to resist the allure of having a menu item named after you.

Blue Collar, by way of quick background, is a casual comfort food kind of place run by Chef Daniel Serfer, a Chef Allen alum. Opened around the beginning of the year, it's tucked into the small nook in the Biscayne Inn that used to house the now-defunct American Noodle Bar. I've not written about it yet but have been in several times.

Blue Collar's burger creations thus far have included the Chowfather Burger, topped with their "Big Ragout," latkes, bacon and a fried egg, the Fat Girl Hedonist Burger with chorizo, fried shallots, smoked gouda and chipotle mayo, and the Food-E Burger (a/k/a the Breakfast Burger), with Canadian bacon, an egg, maple mustard, and a side of cheese grits.

Now, behold the Frod Burger:

My particular version was loosely inspired by the outstanding burger served at Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon.^[1] It includes slow-cooked, golden, caramelized onions, sharp cheddar cheese, an iceberg lettuce "slaw," and a smear of a a ruddy piquillo pepper aioli for good measure.

All of Blue Collar's burgers use a patty fashioned from prime dry-aged NY strip, a pretty luxurious grind for a pretty casual place. They also now all come housed in a "Portugese muffin," which may be a close to perfect vehicle for a burger. It's like the love child of an English muffin and brioche, tender but still having enough heft to hold up to a juicy burger, while not taking up nearly as much space as a brioche bun and distracting from the burger itself. Chef Serfer was awfully excited to get these in, and after trying it, I can begin to understand.

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Pubbelly Sushi - Miami Beach

When the gang behind Pubbelly first announced that their expansion plans included a sushi bar, I'll admit I was more than a bit dubious. I like Pubbelly's mashup of Asian, gastropub, and Spanish stylings, but when it comes to sushi I'm something of a purist. I want great fresh seafood, properly cooked and seasoned rice, and really, that's it. Those goofy "specialty" rolls, stuffed with cream cheese, deep fried and drenched in cloyingly sweet "eel sauce," are just not for me. And when you start going cross-cultural with it, you quickly run the risk of turning into something truly frightful like Guy Fieri's sushi-bbq abomination, Tex Wasabi's.^[1] These are dangerous waters.

But I'm also willing to engage in some culinary "suspension of disbelief," at least once. And even though it is not remotely the kind of sushi bar I'd regularly patronize, I nonetheless find myself regularly patronizing Pubbelly Sushi.

Like its parent, Pubbelly Sushi is a tight, cozy space - brick walls, exposed ductwork, loud alt.rock, mismatched wood furnishings, and about 6-8 seats at a bar along the back. The primary feature of the menu is a list of about ten "Pubbelly Rolls," many sounding much like those overwrought concoctions I usually avoid. But the menu is also populated with about an equal number of izakaya-like "Snacks," a selection of various things packed into "New England Style Rolls," several robata grilled items, a few composed "Pubbelly Sashimi" dishes, various sides, as well as a somewhat abbreviated selection of basic sushi and sashimi (you can also, if you choose, order just about any of the Americanized canon of "California Rolls" or "Dragon Rolls" that is to your liking).

(You can see all my pictures in this Pubbelly Sushi flickr set - apologies for the wonky lighting).

It surely says something that I went in a complete skeptic and came out a fan. It helped to start with the shishito peppers from the "Snacks" section. My first visit, the blistered peppers were served with an unlikely combination of raita, pine nuts, and roasted peppers. It was the kind of combination that makes no sense until you try it, at which time everything just clicks. On a subsequent visit, these were instead served with miso and pistachios, which was almost as good.

I passed up the "Pubbelly Sashimi" dish that combined bigeye tuna with burrata cheese and tomato, but I did sample the Japanese madai snapper, paired with yuzu, mandarin, serrano chile and aji jus. That's a pretty long and strongly flavored list of ingredients for a pretty delicate fish. And while I can't exactly say that it brought out, rather than obscured, any hidden nuance in the madai, it was a pleasingly bold combination of flavors, more in the neighborhood of a Peruvian tiradito than anything else.

These kinds of cross-cultural tendencies manifest themselves throughout the menu, and happen to result in some of the best dishes. Another was the tostones with ceviche, a Caribbean direction this time, the crispy, salty disks of fried plantain both foil and vehicle for a small glass jar's worth of hamachi ceviche, its flavors tugged gently back toward Asia with soy, ginger and yuzu.

So far, so good. So how about those "Pubbelly Rolls"?

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