Work holiday party. Everyone in the office voted on what we should do for the party. Go-karts and kareoke lost, and a private party at the super fancy (and expensive) restaurant, Moto, won.
We had a ten course meal of small gourmet concoctions. The first thing that came out, besides the large number of wine glasses (different wines for different courses) was an edible menu.
Amanda: The menu looks good.
Steve-o: [nibbling at the bottom of the menu] Am I the only one that's eating dessert first?
There were several jokes about the fact that on the menu, the first course was listed as "greek salad" and the second as "greek salad, again." But neither of the first two courses were actually salads. Each was a dramatically different dish that tasted a surprising amount like greek salad. And that was the idea of the place, things that taste like other things.
I honestly couldn't describe most of it. One course was a biscotti and coffee but the biscotti tasted like coffee and vice versa. Another was a piece of paper with a picture of cotton candy on it that tasted like cotton candy.
I generally like simple foods. I've never really "gotten" fine dining. But I Iiked the meal a lot. Each bite was an experience, ten separate little culinary magic tricks.
16 comments:
greek salad
greek salad, again
caribbean shutome
bbq pork and baked beans
pasta and quail
falafel and lamb
fruit and bubbles
two and three dimensional truffle
apple and brown butter
s'mores
What did the 'fruit and bubbles' taste/look/feel like?
I think you should explain each course in detail.
Damn. Why did you only invite me to the part of the party where you sang karaoke in a trashy bar?
Damn. Why did you invite Lacy?
Damn, why did you tell me you all were at karaoke but didn't invite me?
I miss you Thea. I may just buy an ipod to get some face time.
Damn. Why did Innis ruin the running joke?
I didn't have exactly all the same stuff as everyone else, due to allergies. I'm sure some of my co-workers could describe the dishes better than I could.
Shane?
I know Nate (who mostly eats chicken fingers and who ate tacos for the first time last year) was somewhat traumatized.
As long as they wrapped all the courses in taco shells, everything was smooth sailing for Nate.
I'll do my best.
"greek salad" - This was actually a piece of octopus, accompanied by some sort of parsley puree, and a fried chip that was either olive or olive oil. The octopus was not rubbery like calamari, but was almost shockingly tender. This was possibly my favorite dish of the night.
"greek salad, again" - This was a weird little shot -- as in a small glass -- of some oil and vinegar mix that did taste just like a Greek salad. Tasty, but still very weird.
"caribbean shutome" - This was one of the dishes only Arnie got, because he told the chefs he was "allergic to fruit". The rest of us got "bacon & maple" which featured a savory bacon brulee and a small bisuit with little bacon bits. This was quite good, but the technique used to create the maple flavor made it something like a really extravagant McGriddle.
"bbq pork and baked beans" - Finally, something that looked like what it said it was. The pork was a nicely-cooked piece of pork. The baked beans, however, were extruded to resemble a linguini noodle. I believe this made Nate especially mad.
"pasta and quail" - The other strong contender for best dish of the night. Roasted pieces of quail served on a bed of macaroni noodles that were somehow crunchy, but with a butter inside. In fact, the more I remember it, the more I like it.
"falafel and lamb" - Another Arnie original. The rest of us were presented with "prime with potato". Three tiny slices of prime rib, with both bacon and tomatillo purees. The tomatillo was too spicy for me, but the rest was very good. The sides were even better: a hash brown cube, and a hard-boiled egg cube with a aspinach-yolk filling. Love those cubes.
"fruit and bubbles" - It's here, where we leave the savory and move into the sweet, that the dishes aren't quite as good, and therefore not as memorable. For example, I can't really recall anything about this. I think there were apples infused with carbonation to give them a fizzy taste, but I'm not really sure. What confuses me is why Fruit Allergy Arnie got this dish and not the prime rib.
"2 & 3 dimensional truffle" - The 2-D was the cotton candy paper that Arnie mentioned. The 3-D was a ball of that white icing with sprinkles you sometimes see on store-bought cookies, only the icing surrounded a core of cotton candy syrup, so it exploded in your mouth like a cherry tomato. This was alright, but like real cotton candy, didn't last very long.
"apple and brown butter" - Another one I really don't remember. Although it reminded Innis of some dessert his dad made which involved coring an apple, filling the hole with butter, and microwaving it. Sounded interesting.
"s'mores" - A strange assembly of ingredients, with the marshmallow homemade and the chocolate and graham cracker somehow assembled via other means. I admit, things got kind of blurry at this point, since Arnie didn't mention the seven pairings of wine we also got. This one was accompanied by a 20-year tawny port, which was amber in color, warm and apricot in taste, and deadly in effect. Very buzzed.
"strokin" - This is the remarkably profane song Arnie found on the karaoke list. A marvelous performance, possibly besting Chris' sterling rendition of "Baby, One More Time" in spite of his use of drinking cups as false breasts.
So very, very decadent.
I heart Shane.
The list that Anonymous posted at the beginning of the Comments section. Our meal was very similar, with, I think, a few substitutions chosen by our boss. A few of my courses were different from that because of my fruit allergy. For instance, both of my greek salads were different from everyone else. One had tuna and the other involved goat cheese and liquid nitrogen.
That dinner sounds fascinating and that Shane guy is good. He should write a blog.
Are you seriously allergic to fruit? Or is it Crohn's disease? Or do you just hate fruit?
And what does Shane think about all this?
I have a mild fruit allergy.
I am also allergic to Shane.
Here's what my co-worker, Evan, had to say about the dinner on his blog:
"What blew me away was the service. I kind of keep kosher and I figured I wouldn’t be able to eat half of the items on the fixed menu. After all, fancy chefs love tentacles almost as much as they enjoy wrapping things in bacon. But before the meal started, our server asked if anyone had any dietary restrictions. A couple of folks in our group had miscellaneous allergies and I told him about my not-so-strict kosherness.
"When the first dish came out (a bowl of tentacles) I was brought something different (and amazing — daikon, I think — a word I had previously heard only on Iron Chef.) When Moto’s version of pork and beans was presented, my pork was replaced with Mahi Mahi. Each time the server would quietly explain to me what was different about my dish. At the end of our 5 hour meal, I thanked the server for being so accommodating. 'It’s something we’re very proud of,' he told me, and then explained how they once did a 20 course menu for a strict vegan. 'That was a challenging night in the kitchen.'"
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