Cobaya dinner at Crumb with Michelle Bernstein

Last night (May 17th for those of you in the future) was the latest Cobaya dinner and I was lucky enough to get a seat. Like I said up in the subject, our chef was Michelle Bernstein. Frodnesor, in his introduction, said that he was interested in her participating in the Cobaya dinners from the start and approached her back in February and she agreed immediately. The timing, I presume, is due to the opening of her new venue, Crumb on Parchment, a few doors down from Sra. Martinez. It's not listed on her website, but they had menus and a special board up so it must be already open.

No matter; this dinner bore little resemblance to what I saw on that menu, and Chef Bernstein had pulled staff from her other places for the evening so it wasn't even the same folks preparing it. I had problems with my pen so my notes are sparser than usual, but I do have down here that this menu was intended to be playful and she didn't want to kill us with too many courses (unlike Chef Hales of Sakaya Kitchen who comes to Cobayas with murder in his heart). So, just four savory courses, a palate cleanser and a dessert. I got the wine pairing too so I'll talk about those as I go along.

First up, an oyster chawanmushi (in a steamed custard) topped with enoki mushrooms and paired with a scallop and uni ceviche. I found the oyster a delicate and nicely balanced little bite. The creaminess of the custard and chew of the mushroom gave it a nice variety of textures as well. The ceviche was also understated, mostly comprised of tender flavorful scallop accented by the rich uni. There was just a touch of citrus in either component which made the wine, Julien Fouet Saumur 2008 whose grassy nose belied a flavor not too far from sucking on a Lemonhead candy, a really nice pairing. I can't imagine that the folks who were drinking whatever bottle they brought with them enjoyed this course as much as I did. I think the guys across from me were drinking a Cotes du Rhone. I know they're serious gourmets and I don't know how they can play wine-pairing-roulette like that. I'd rather drink water.

The second course was slices of a whole foie gras cooked sou vide then roasted served over fava beans, diced carrot and turnips, I think--spring root vegetables anyway--with a carrot-orange reduction. This dish had something of a hearty meat and potatoes feel to it despite not being quite meat and no potatoes on the plate. All the components were well-prepared and the sauce tied the plate together. The wine, Kiralyudvar Tokaji Sec 2006, was mildly sweet and its fruity roundness cut through the richness easily.

The third course was chupe de mariscos, including a prawn cooked sou vide, a piece of fish I believe she said was paiche, clams, mussels, peas and purple potatoes (I could have sworn there were beets in there too but I have been persuaded that I was incorrect) topped with a fried egg and served with squid ink risotto croquetas and aoli (nearly cropped out in the upper right corner of the picture). The rich, flavorful spicy broth was the highlight here along with the crisp-outside creamy-inside croquetas. Nothing wrong with any of the other bits other than maybe the texture on the prawn, but those two components were knockouts. I wish I had been more mindful of the fish but I had forgotten that paiche is such a trendy big deal. A bit of a note problem for the wine for this course; I'm not sure if it was the Mas Sorrer Montant or the Mercy Pinot Noir. I think it was the Mercy. Anyway, it was sharp and tannic and paired nicely with the broth.

Fourth course was New York steak, very slowly cooked sou vide, with a truffle butter demisauce and ricotta gnocchi with celery leaf, chives buds and lily bulb. We were each given a syringe of sauce and instructed to inject small doses into various parts of the steak. Chef Bernstein described this as something she's always wanted to do and as "really cool". It was fun, I'll give her that, but the flavor was lost what with the puddle of the same sauce already on top of the meat. Personally, I thought it could a touch more salt, too. More problematically, I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like the texture of meat cooked sou vide. I like a little chew and various levels of doneness at different depths. It adds interest. Also, maybe it could have been warmer? Good gnocchi, though. I particularly liked the lily bulb with the truffle sauce. If the last wine was the Mercy, that means this was the Mas Sorrer. It was a tart black cherry and rather nice in either case.

Next up was the palate cleanser, a calamansi soup with a chunk of pineapple and a small scoop of mint ice cream. The tartness of the soup was tempered by the slight bitterness of the ice cream and the sweet pineapple.

This, and the final dessert, were prepared by the pastry chef of both Sra. Marinez and Crumb, Vanessa Paz. That's not her with the blowtorch, unfortunately; that's the head chef at Sra Martinez. Check Frod's write-up once he's got it up; he usually has well-labeled pics of all notable participants.

Last up, a disc of puff pastry made with caramel and chocolate, topped with roasted banana, saltay caramel espuma and a little scoop of nutmeg ice cream, served with a couple of chocolate-covered pretzels (one hidden around back) and one of whatever that thin wafer cookie is called. This, unfortunately, didn't really work for me. The pastry was soggy and tough and there was way too much banana which had a bitter edge to it. The rest of the components I quite liked, though, when taken on their own. The nutmeg ice cream was particularly pleasant. I'll have to try making some myself. The final wine pairing was Rock Wall Sauvignon Blanc 2008. It was syrupy sweet with a sour edge to it and I've got to admit I didn't really care for it either.

Despite my faded enthusiasm at the end of the evening, I went away happy. The dinner had a better hit to miss ratio than the last few Cobaya dinners I've been to and those hits were palpable hits. I haven't been to any of Chef Bernstein's places; I really ought to make the effort to seek them out.

I'll link to Frod's post when he has it up. He always has more detail than I can muster and nuanced opinions of the dishes well expressed, so do read his take as well. If anyone else who attended is reading, I'd be obliged if you could post your take in the comments.

As promised, here is Frod's write up. And here is one from Paula of the Mango and Lime and Short Order blogs. No real differences of opinion this time around; we all had a great time.

Ideas in Food Cobaya dinner

Ideas in Food is a culinary consulting business run by Aki Kamozawa and Alex Talbot. They've got a blog where they work through the titular ideas and a new cookbook. They're based in Levittown, Penn. but visiting Miami. Only Talbot was there this evening along with Jerimiah Bullfrog and his Podzilla kitchen. Talbot explained that he came down without ingredients or plan and the dinner was a result of improvisations with local ingredients.

The dinner was set up in an art gallery called G.A.B. in Wynwood so we got good lighting for once. Some of the pictures still didn't come out great because they're of small amounts of food deep in narrow serving containers, but most should be clearer than usual.

But enough ado. There were nine courses, starting with...

Surf and Turf--steak tartare, seaweed mayonnaise, bean sprout batons
This didn't wow me at first, although it was pleasant enough. But I grew to appreciate it more as I ate it. The steak was at just the right level of chewiness where it slowly releases its flavor but you aren't working at it. The seaweed in the mayo is a subtle but pleasant accent and the bean sprouts add crunch and freshness. Nothing jumps out at you, but it's very nicely balances and composed.

Clams in Green Sauce--parsley, coconut, garlic-mustard
You can't really see anything in the picture there, other than the puddle of green sauce, and that's a clear representation of the problem here. The sauce is, by itself, intensely parsley-y which works very well with the mustard and with the clam, but there's so much of the sauce the clam is well submerged and the mustard is hidden down at the bottom of the cup so you've half finished before you find it. Just putting the mustard on top would have been a bit improvement. Reducing the amount of green sauce would have helped a lot too. It came very close to working.

Steak and eggs--beef tendon, onsen egg, culantro
Another near miss. The beef tendon is meltingly soft and very mildly flavored so it is entirely overwhelmed by the flavor and texture of the egg yolk. That just leaves the beansprouts as crunch in a cup of goop. That makes it sound worse than it was; It was good goop. I'd cut back the egg to a quail egg (or scale up the rest), add some actual steak for more intense flavor and added texture, and add a bit of heat and/or acid to cut all that fat. A few drops of sriracha would have been a big help.

Kimchi cavatelli--kimchi gravy, torn basil, benton's ham
The idea of the kimchi tinged tomato gravy is a good one. You could see the promise here as the kimchi tinged the sauce's aftertaste. A little more boldness would have improved it. As for the cavatelli, a proper kitchen with a stove on which to boil pots of water was what was called for. However they managed to cook them in the gastropod left them with undercooked-doughiness and overcooked-mushiness simultaneously. I don't know how you do that. I did like how the basil and ham worked with the gravy.

Twice cooked scallop--pumpkin, citron-sriracha, furikake
Twice wasn't enough as my scallop had an unpleasant under-cooked texture. Others were happy with theirs though. Beyond that, the furikake I liked, but the other components never came together for me. It's not even close enough for me to offer tweaks; it didn't make sense to me at all. Lovely presentation, though.

Sweetbreads--green mango, rum raisin, lime vinaigrette
In direct contrast, all the the components of this dish worked together beautifully: the meatiness of the sweetbreads against the tart dressing and slightly sweet mango and raisin. There was a pleasant array of textures too, the crisp top of the sweetbread block worth mention in particular.

Sticky pork belly--cream soda, crunchy turnip, charred scallions
The good pork belly was bland in flavor, limp in texture. The "sticky" and "cream soda" makes me think there was supposed to be a glaze, but it didn't come out. The scallions were rather bitter, but good with the pork when used in moderation. OK, overall, but pork belly really shouldn't be just OK.

Powdered goat cheese--strawberry relish
Like the clam course, this suffered from the presentation. The strawberry was deep in the bottom of the cone where our blunt utensils couldn't quite reach and you scattered the powdered cheese around the tablecloth trying to dig down to it. And since the powder melted back into creamy cheese immediately on the tongue, what was the point? A disk of cheese with a blop of strawberry jam on top would have worked better. I suppose we'd complain about the lack of an idea then, but at least we could get the balance right.

Malted milk custard
There's a reason people make chocolate malteds. Just plain malt doesn't taste very good, at least not at the intense level presented here. Embedding it in a rubbery custard is no help. I saw others eating it with gusto, but I also saw them being boisterously drunk so I don't give that much credit. I couldn't get past one bite myself. Maybe it was supposed to be frozen? Some folks had frost sublimating off their push-pops while mine was barely cold. I don't see how that would help the flavor though. This is the only real failure on the conceptual level, to my mind.

So, overall, some good points, some weak ones. It was certainly an interesting set of dishes, but I think the lack of planning and the unfamiliar kitchen hampered the execution of some good ideas. I wish we could have had the second draft instead.

1/11/11 Cobaya dinner at Chow Down Grill

If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough. -- Sriram Krishnan
Last night at the Chow Down Grill, chef Joshua Marcus was trying plenty hard.

Since I haven't written up a Cobaya dinner in a while, I should probably explain that these are experimental dinners with chefs preparing set menus, generally made up of untested new recipes, for a crowd brought in by Frodnesor of the Food for Thought blog. Chef Marcus laid out eleven dishes for an over-full house which would be an impressive feat even if he was working off his usual menu. Trying out new dishes on this crowd makes him, and most-all of the Cobaya chefs, braver than I. It was, as I said, an experiment which means not everything is going to work, but a goodly percentage did and is worth applauding.

I think this is the first write-up to get posted, but Frod and Paula from Mango & Lime both have their photos up already. It looks like they used their flashes so their pics mainly came out better than mine. You might want to go over and take a look if you can't make out what you're seeing here. Frod usually puts up a post with more insight into the dinner as an event and inside info about how the dishes were prepared within a few days so you might check over there to see if it's up yet too. I'm going to just concentrate on the food and what I thought of it, and, since we're talking about eleven dishes I'm going to be pretty brisk about it.

Course 1 - Bird's Nest Soup

Made with squab instead of the traditional chicken broth and accompanied by the restaurant's first batch of house-made soy sauce made by sous chef Jason. The soup was deliberately under-seasoned to highlight the elevating effects of the soy sauce which did indeed perk it right up. But the soy sauce was so good, with a mild well-rounded flavor, that the best spoonful was when I tried a little on its own. The sauces were standouts all night long, really.



Course 2 - Monkfish Liver with Aji Panca Sauce

I found the liver itself to be a bit overcooked which gave it an canned-tuna edge to the flavor and a rubberiness to the texture, but the spicy-sweet citrusy sauce covered just the right bits while leaving the liver's roasty-savory finish. When eaten all together (along with a toast point), quite successful.



Course 3 - Giant Pacific Oyster with Habañero-Pickled Cauliflower and Pike Roe Caviar

I'm a minimalist when it comes to oysters so I found this one over-accessorized (and a little over-cooked), but the tartness of the soy-citrus sauce and of the pickle do complement it if used in moderation. I preferred separating out the cauliflower which was quite nice with just a touch each of the soy-citrus and oyster liquor.



Course 4 & 5 - Sweetbread Dumplings with Carrot Wrapper and Squab Bao

There was a bit of a timing issue with this course and the dumplings had been cooling a little while before they got to me. My sweetbreads were a little undercooked and the wrappers kind of soggy and chewy. But if you're going to use eggroll wrappers, you're going for kind of trashy so soggy and chewy is appropriate, right? A great match for the house-made duck sauce.

The bao I've got no complaints with. Most bao skimp on the fillings and use cheap meat covered with disguising sauces, but this one had plenty of mildly seasoned squab and a thin layer of dough for a good balance of straightforwardly flavorful components. Very nice indeed.



Course 6 - Baby Octopus with Soy Beans and Spicy Sauce

The spicy sauce was made with fermented black beans and chewy dried shrimp and was pretty darn good with the crunchy soy beans. The octopus was impeccably tender, but very bland, which is a shame as I think it would have worked well with the sauce if it was more flavorful.



Course 7 - Beef Tataki with Bamboo Shoots and Cucumber

That's dry aged rib-eye seared and sliced rather too thick for my tastes so my experience was more like eating chunks of rare steak (which I'd rather not) than what I'm looking for in a tataki. It was also quite mildly flavored so the pickled vegetables were pretty much all I could taste.



Course 8 - Sea Urchin Lo Mein with Caviar

The sea urchin sauce was unevenly mixed with the lo mein. I and the fellow on my right could barely taste it while the folks on my left raved over it's flavor. The hints I got seemed pretty good, though.



Course 9 - Baby Abalone with Sea Beans and Cat's Grandma's Avocado

This was, I think, the best composed dish of the evening all laid out pretty and with a pleasant balance of flavors. I wouldn't have imagined avocado going well with abalone, particularly not Florida avocado, but there you go. There were some textural issues though. My abalone was very tough and the avocado was fairly firm too. I had a lot of difficulty getting up the slices of abalone onto my fork and cutting the avocado without everything falling into the salt the shell was nestled.



Course 10 - Buddha Jumps Over the Wall with Sea Cucumber and House-Made XO Sauce

Here again, the sauce was the stand-out aspect of the dish. I was surprised to enjoy the notoriously-off-putting gelatinous texture of the sea cucumber more than the meltingly soft leek. The black trumpet mushrooms were better than both, though.



Course 11 - Five-Spice White Chocolate Ganache with Walnuts, Jackfruit

We were instructed to top this dessert with a few drops of Sriracha which was a very good idea. It provided acid to cut the richness and anyone who's read my history of ice cream recipes knows I'm fond of a little spice with my sweets. I particularly liked how the combination brought out the fruity flavors in the hot sauce. I will be stealing this idea.


And that's the lot. Now that I've gone over it all, I think it was more successful than not. My thanks to the chef and all the Chow Down staff for their efforts and to Frodnesor for putting the evening together. If anyone else who was there has read this far, what did you think?

Cobaya PODzilla dinner

Sunday night Chefs Jeremiah Bullfrog, Chad Galiano and Kurtis Jantz catered another Cobaya dinner. There was some mention of the event being thrown together at the last moment, but you'll have to head over to Food for Thought for Frodnesor's inside scoop of how it came about. (He hasn't posted about it yet, but he always has plenty of insight and a more interesting comment thread than I get so it's worth waiting for.)

All of these chefs have done previous Cobaya dinners: Galiano and Jantz did Cobaya Gras back in February (I didn't do a full write-up, but here's Frodnesor's ) and Bullfrog did the P.I.G. event last November. That was before he had his GastroPOD ready to go. This time, he was able to roll it right up and have his customary kitchen with him. Galiano and Jantz set up in the location's backyard bar. By the way, notice the photographers in the picture of the POD. Including me, three out of thirteen people taking pictures at that random moment. That's a quarter of the crowd and that ridiculous ratio held true through the evening. I'm not sure what that means, but certainly nothing good.

The theme of the evening was elevated American(-ish) street food, but it had an unofficial theme of sous vide (although there was a little deep frying going on as well). Or is sous vide so standard in modern kitchens that it isn't worth commenting upon? Either way, enough ado. Here's the menu:


And here's what I thought of it.

First up was Chef Bullfrog's Octo Salpicon along with the Summer Spritzer. If pairing octopus with tomato, red onion and feta isn't a classic Greek recipe, somebody needs to tell the classic Greeks about it. It was a naturally harmonious combination with acid and spice up front fading to a very nicely flavored octopus. This was, without doubt, the tenderest octopus I've ever had.

I wanted to ask the chef to expand on his explanation of the preparation: "cooked the piss out of it," but he started the conversation by asking how everything was and I, with my reflexive honesty, told him that I didn't care for his Miami-renowned burgers (about which more later). It seemed a good idea to cut the conversation short not long after that.

Anyway, the spritzer went well with the salpicon. It was mainly salty and fruity with just a whiff of tequilla at the end. Could have used a little more kick for my tastes.

Next up, French Quarter Chicken Livers from Chefs Galiano and/or Jantz. (I wasn't sure who was responsible for what beyond if it came from the POD or the bar. No doubt one of the other blogs reporting on the event or an ego-surfing chef will be able to clear things up.) The livers were meltingly soft and straitforwardly livery in flavor (perhaps with some onion? They tasted a whole lot like my mom's chopped liver which does involve onion.) The hot pepper fluid gel was a very nice accompaniment and the salty crackers made the flavors pop. I've never had a sweet and tangy relish with liver before and was a bit surprised at how well it worked. I'll have to experiment at the next Passover sedar.

Next, brine fried chicken with Big Mike's potato salad and buttermilk-chicharrone biscuits. Steve, of the Blind Tastes blog, in a comment on chef Galiano's Chadzilla blog, said Mike's chicken was "not his real deal stuff" (although he still considered it "killer".) If what we got at Cobaya Gras was the real deal, I liked this better. That chicken has a very crisp very salty crackery crust that I thought overwhelmed the mild chicken. This time, for my piece at least, the crust was soft and soaked with chicken fat. That kept it from breaking away and brought its flavor together with the chicken. It was still quite salty and spicy, but if you had it with the meat in the proper ratios, it worked out right. Just a matter of personal taste, probably, as I've never cared for extra-crispy chicken.

The side dishes I was less thrilled with. The potato salad flavor seemed run of the mill to me and included the dreaded raw celery. The biscuits were dense and a little rubbery with flavors of raw flour and burnt oil. I did really like the chicken, though.

Next was the Crispy White Corn Cake (a.k.a. an arepa) with a poached egg, oxtail gravy, queso cotija and crema. Kind of an off-putting presentation. Certainly, the woman sitting next to me was put off. I know that's how sous vide eggs get so I dug in despite the undercooked appearance. The arepa was, as advertised, crispy, with a strong corn flavor that worked with the egg white. The flavor lightly spiced meat blended with the egg yolk while it was hard to distinguish between the textures of the soft fat and the egg white. So it came together as a tasty whole.

Next, the Banh Mi Taco (from the gastroPOD). This is a rather different dish from the banh mi taco chef Bullfrog prepared at the P.I.G. cobaya event last year, not least because it contains ox tail instead of pork according to one of his assistants. (I'm a bit embarrassed that I can neither confirm nor deny. It tasted kind of mystery-meaty to me, which is what I like in a taco, honestly.) The pickled radishes are new too she said. The Vietnamese flavors are mild, but was a pretty good taco. Could have used a little more acid and spice for me, personally.

Next, 'Baha' Fish Taco Salad. (Sorry about that vertiginous view of it. It's complicated and it was hard to get all the elements in from a better angle.) I lived in San Diego for five years so I'm particular about my Baja cuisine. 'Baha' generally doesn't cut it for me. But here I think they got most of the right flavor components in there. You need all three sauces: pico de gallo, a white sauce and a chipotle salsa, plus beer batter. The flour tortilla is a bit off and I don't hold with the deconstruction into a salad, but otherwise, pretty good. The avocado vanilla sorbet needs singling out as it was fabulously tasty and impeccably creamy. (Chef Jantz told me he used a Pacojet which, I'm sure you'll agree, is cheating.) I, and I think many of the guests, could easily have sat down to a few scoops of it on its own, but the sweetness in the salad was an off note for me.

Next, Chef Bullfrog's aforementioned Double Decker Slider Burgers. I just don't get these. First off, look at that pale flabby sous vide meat. The chef said he finished the patties off on the grill, but given the scant color here, it must have been momentary. OK, yes I know White Castle burgers are effectively steamed so a lack of color is traditional for a slider, but those aren't double decker which makes a difference. The sous vide process heats the double-thick burger through, but leaves the center with an undercooked texture that I really don't like at all. Also in the center are the bacon and cheese where their flavors are buried in all that unpleasant unbrowned meat. On the other hand, I liked the pickles and the bun was OK. If someone wants to defend the burgers in the comments please do so. Is this a typical example? What am I missing here?

The final savory course was Mississippi Delta Tamales. A Mississippi tamale is a rather different thing than a Mexican tamal. Chef Chad recommended tamaletrail.com for details and I concur; it's a very interesting site. These particular tamales were made with nicely spiced chicken confit with a little duck thrown in. The outside is cornmeal rather than masa. Both tasty, but it was really all about the sauces. The sweet tart tomatillo and the tangier ketchup brought out the flavors beautifully. Very nice indeed.

There was a bit of a gap at this point for the guests to catch their breaths and the chefs to have some dinner. Some folks started straggling off as it was getting late and they were getting full, but there's no such thing as too full or too late for dessert so they missed out.

First dessert was the Root Beer & Bourbon Floats. I spoke to Chef Jantz about this too. The "Zatarain's" on the menu is the brand of the root beer mix; the "Elijah Craig" the brand of the bourbon. The first is a New Orleans tradition, the latter carefully chosen to match. And match it did. Despite the serious boozy hit, the flavors of the bourbon and root beer blended seamlessly. The ice cream pulled out the vanilla notes in both and ties them together. Or possibly I'm full of crap and making stuff up.

Finally, we've got the White Chocolate Cupcakes. This is my exemplar of what a cupcake ought to be like. A modest amount of fluffy creamy buttercream frosting on top of springy cake with a pronounced flavor of its own. A pleasant little bite, not a monster with a half pound of frosting molded into a flower on top. My only complaint would be that there's no hint of the foie gras advertised in the frosting. Perhaps my taste buds had lost some precision at this point. My brain sure had.

Overall, a very pleasant evening. For other takes and more pictures, check out Frod's quick post from that evening on the official Cobaya blog and Chef Galiano's take here. I expect at least two more blog posts up-coming. Check back for links in the comments.

Midnight Cobaya dinner at Sakaya Kitchen

I had hoped to get this post up yesterday, but I forgot to bring my notes to work and had little downtime to do the write up anyway. In the meantime, Frod has posted his coverage of the dinner which rather blows mine away in its detail. Please go read that for an accurate description of the dishes and the events and come back here for what I thought about it.
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Saturday night, or quite early Sunday morning rather, forty or so Cobaya folks gathered at Sakaya Kitchen for a midnight meal.

The chef, Richard Hales, offered two appetizers off his regular menu, created five new dishes for the occasion and sent us off with a cookies made by his wife.

I haven't been, but I'm told that Sakaya's daytime incarnation is something of a fast food joint. This full-house (the tables you see pushed together here had to be pulled back apart to add place settings to accomodate the crowd) multi-course banquet-style event was quite a departure. That makes the deft operation of both the kitchen and the waitstaff (who were all putting in overtime after a full day's work) all the more remarkable. Kudos and sizable tips deserved all the way around.

Here's the menu; click to blow it up to legibility.

First up were Filipino egg rolls, a.k.a. lumpia, filled with shrimp, pork, green beans and, no doubt, a few more things. I think I detected some cabbage in there. Chef Hales said that this is a variation on his grandmother (the titular "Papa")'s recipe. It was pretty popular at least at my end of the table and I did like them myself, but I thought, although the wrapper was light and crisp, it was also overly greasy and the filling was a bit flat without the vinegar sauce to perk it up. Take this in the context that I judge all lumpia against fabulous ones made by the grandmother of a bandmate back when I lived in San Diego and nothing matches up against the glorified memory of a grandmother's cooking even if it isn't your own.

Next up, a pork bun that Chef Hales insists he did not rip off from Momofuko. Well, steam engines happen at steam engine time so pork buns must happen at pork bun time too. This particular one, he explained, is a 40-hour bun from the time it takes to cure the pork, make the pickles and all four sauces involved in-house. He said that brought his fine dining background to build flavors in this dish and I think you could see that in the fine balance of surprisingly subtle opposing flavors. The pork wasn't nearly as bold as the pork belly we'd have later and that let the sweet sauce and sour pickle stand out against it. You could even get hints of the ginger scallion sauce. Lots of different textures working together in there too.

The first of the original dishes was garlic shrimp over chive flower soba noodles. Frod has a link to the rather interesting Laughing Bird farm where the shrimp came from if you're interested. As for the dish itself, the shrimp were flavorful and sweet, enhanced but not swamped by the garlic butter. The sweetness was couterpointed nicely by the pungent and slightly bitter scallion and chive sauce on the al dente noodles. To my mind it needed a touch more salt to make the flavors pop, but otherwise a lovely dish that suckered us into filling up on carbs before three more main-course-sized dishes came our way.

Next up, a bucket of crisp-fried sweetbreads and beautifully glazed crunchy frogs legs. And a couple cucumber flowers too. The folks at my corner of the room were a bit trepedatious, but both components were very accessible. The sweetbreads had just a slight gaminess to them and a creamy texture. The spicy/sweet sauce on the frogs legs also worked well with the sweetbreads (which Chef Hales said was the prompt to put them together in this dish). Under that sauce, the frogs legs weren't notably froggy, just meaty, but that was just fine by me. Getting the meat off the bones was a messy endeavor, but I found that you could eat the smaller pieces whole. I kind of liked the crunch that added too.

Next course, a quail over Chinese broccoli with tsitsaron (a.k.a. chicarone). The quail was beautifully flavored on its own from the marinade and grill, but paired with the sweet vinegary sauce and the fresh flavor of the broccoli, it moved up to another level. The tsitsaron were nice enough, but they got mushy in the sauce and didn't really add anything to the other two components. I understand the desire to add some pork to any given greens, but this dish didn't need it. They didn't detract either, though, so this was still my favorite dish of the night.

This next dish is just cruel to give to customers who are already stuffed over-full. I can't eat another bite, but how am I supposed to resist this? That's pork belly over coconut rice with crispy bone marrow and roasted baby carrots. The pork belly was more a slab of meat than the melting fat you might be imagining, although that aspect was more than amply taken care of by the marrow. The intense meaty/salty/fatty of those two (and the sweetness of the Vietnamese-style caramel sauce) was cut by the cool creaminess of the rice. It's hard to see in my somewhat over-exposed picture but the rice was so full of coconut cream it was almost rice pudding. The carrots were more than a little overdone, but I always go for the crispy dried out bits when I've got roasted root vegetables so I didn't mind at all. The crunchiness was good with the other textures. I liked the dish, but it was a bit difficult to handle with the utensils available and really heavy for this late in the meal.

Nearly done. Next is an oyster pajeon. The pancake seemed less eggy than more traditional Korean pajeon's I've had, plus less stuffed with add ins, with the oyster raw on top instead of cooked in. This is a classic combination for a reason; a lovely little bite that I still couldn't finish.

And finally, we were given paper bags with chocolate chocolate chip cookies, made by the Chef's wife, to take home. I neglected to get a picture, I'm afraid. This sort of cookie's not really my thing so I'm going to withold judgement. Perhaps someone will say something about it in the comments.

Of the various Slow Food, Cobaya and other such dinner events I've been to in Miami, this was undoubtedly my favorite. None of the others meals combined this level of creativity with sustained yumminess, beautiful presentation and impeccable service. Oh, and the understated but pervasive local, sustainable, etc. aspect was important too. I suppose the general excess of it all goes a little against that ethos, but what the heck, too much of so many good things is hard to get upset about.