The menu has changed at Next restaurant and currently they are taking you on a tour of Thailand. You progress from street food served on banana leaves and Thai newspapers to more formal dishes served in traditional dinnerware on silk runners. This menu had interactive elements and there were so many taste layers. However, it felt kind of weird paying so much money for Asian food because it's normally cheap and not fancy at all. Regardless, I liked it!
Refreshing guava juice that's commonly sold by street vendors
Sampling of Thai street foods: steam buns, fermented sausage, prawn cake, sweet shrimp and roasted savory banana
Raw sweet shrimp with garlic, mint and bird chilis
Green curry and beech mushroom steam buns
Chef's take on tom yum soup with pork broth, tomato, kaffir lime
While it wasn't really a traditional tom yum soup, it was really good and I'll probably be craving this in the future
Jasmine rice
A chili, shallot, garlic sauce and pickled fruits and veggies with basil
Rice with above sauces and also a salted duck egg sauce. If you go, be sure to ask for the hot and funky sauces too!
Braised catfish with celery and coriander root caramel sauce
Absolutely amazing braised beef cheek in a panang curry
A refreshing, palate cleansing watermelon and lemongrass shooter
This was my favorite!! Coconut dessert with corn, egg, licorice infused tapioca and coconut sorbet made from young coconut juice. It was beautifully presented and it was a party in my mouth!
Fresh dragonfruit with rose water. When you smelled the rose, it altered your taste perception of the fruit.
Chef's take on Thai iced tea with cardamom served in plastic bags to mimic the street style in Thailand. I liked it, but I think I prefer regular Thai ice tea
It was all good, but I liked the Paris dishes and beverages a lot more and I'll never spend that much money on Thai food again haha. Kudos to Chefs Grant and Dave for nailing the flavors though. My dinner buddy, who has traveled to Thailand, agreed that a lot of things were spot on. When people tell me they've had great Thai food at Penny's Noodle Shop I cringe and many people's knowledge of Thai food is limited to pad thai. Go give your taste buds an adventure and expose them to Thai flavors, whether it's at Next or your neighborhood authentic restaurant!
I've got a spare ticket for Next restaurant. They are now doing a Tour of Thailand! If interested in buying them, please contact me soon so that I can transfer the ticket over to you :)
When: Wednesday July 20, 6:45pm Party Size: 2 Beverages: 2 non-alcoholic pairings
Vacationing is tiring! I know it sounds silly because I've just been relaxing for the past week, but it sure feels good to be home. Visiting the US Virgin Islands was fun! It's a small island trio near Puerto Rico consisting of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. It's got a nice Caribbean vibe, but it's owned by the US so everything's Americanized. I had so much fun swimming, snorkeling with cool fishies, hiking through the mountains, driving on the left side, trying to get my tan on and of course eating everything in sight.
The local cuisine is best described as West Indies with lots of stewed meats, fungi, fritters, fried dough johnny cakes, meat filled turnovers called pates, kallaloo fish soup, and tropical fruits like soursop. The cuisine was tasty and definitely has a comfort food appeal, but it's a bit too heavy for me to eat everyday. If you're not into trying local cuisine and instead want more familiar things be prepared to pay more. Food cost is higher over there because they have to get a lot of stuff imported. Red meats, fresh produce, and baked items were a lot more expensive than I was accustomed to. While their local seafood was fresh and readily available, there was still an up charge on that too because it's a tourist driven economy and they can get away with their prices.
The food though was great! I enjoyed both the local cuisine and the more Americanized and typical Caribbean fare. I was pleasantly surprised with the fine dining over there too! Everything I had was really good and of course the local seafood was fresh and so delicious. There were 2 restaurants that I really liked. Both had strong American influences and were on the expensive side, but God it was so good.
Grande Cru in Yacht Haven Grande
Blackened mahi mahi with roasted shiitake mushrooms, haricot verts, beurre blanc and a reduced wine sauce. Really effing good.
Kobe burger with white cheddar, mango chutney and curried scallion sour cream. Housemade rosemary sea salt chips on the side. I really like burgers that have atypical toppings. This one was a winner!
Flourless chocolate cake with Maldon sea salt caramel and espresso ice cream. Flavor balance was really good and I love Maldon sea salt :)
Very bleh Grand Marnier creme brulee with an English tea biscuit. Holy crap this creme brulee was just disappointing and sad.
Coco Blue in Red Hook
Drunken mussels and clams with Spanish chorizo and adobo tostones
Black peppercorn filet with crispy onions, creamy chorizo jus, and smoked chili polenta frites
Cilantro and panko crusted Yellowfin tuna with avocado risotto, yuzu pico de gallo, and a passion fruit jalapeno glaze
Ice cream trio with terrible texture. Banana peanut butter, mango coconut and key lime
Fried banana coconut cheesecake with mango creme anglaise
Chocolate beignets with rum spiked caramel sauce
It's always bittersweet coming home from vacations, but time to get back to the grind. If anyone plans on traveling to the US Virgin Islands anytime soon, let me know and I'll share recommendations for food and activities :) Hope everyone has a great 4th of July. Peace out!
DONE with the cake decorating class! I just didn't have enough patience for this class! And making purses out of cake is not that cool in my opinion... I think I did a fair enough job on the cakes, but I should clearly not go into the cake making business.
I have one glorious week of summer break and I'm heading to the Virgin Islands on Tuesday for some much needed sun and time on the beach. THEN I'm back at school for my last kitchen class! AHH! It couldn't come faster :)
On Monday there was a private dinner event at Sprout and Professor Timothy Griffin from Tufts University School of Nutrition came to speak about the benefits and challenges of the farm to table movement and how it relates to sustainable agriculture. Chef Dale Levitski also spoke with us on his philosophy for the restaurant and how it strives to use organic, sustainable products.
I feel that the topic has gained popularity as of late and while I personally don't feel the need to eat 100% organic, I do like frequenting my local farmers markets and buying produce and fruits because there is a huge difference in taste. I also do think that the idea of local farming and sustainable agriculture is something important that we should pay more attention to. Anyways, that evening we were treated to a cocktail reception, a wonderful 3 course meal and wine.
Everything but dessert was great. Dessert was... disappointing haha. But the event was really fun, the topic was informative and interesting and the food was so good. I think I'll have to go back for their brunch, which I've heard great things about :)
Just two kitchen classes away from finishing! I'm in the cake decorating class right now and even though I was dreading it, it has gotten a bit better. I like eating cake, but was never really into decorating them so the enthusiasm is absent, but I do really enjoy the detail oriented tasks such as piping and… that's about it.
The first cake we did was a croquembouche. A traditional French wedding cake, it's in a tree shape and consists of cream puffs embellished with nougatine and sugar work. For some reason, we were really pressed for time and this cake didn't turn out the way I would have wanted it to. It looks too messy and haphazard then it started melting in the display case because of the direct sunlight :(
The second cake was a children's birthday cake consisting of devil's food cake, chocolate buttercream and chocolate fondant. I would personally never make a cake like this for a child because it's too brown. Like poop. It needs more color! We were supposed to decorate the top with modeling chocolate pieces and a drawing of a cartoon done with cocoa powder on a white pastillage "picture frame". I chose baby tigger because he's just so gosh darn cute. I accidentally overslept and missed this day in class so I had to bang it out in a few hours the next day. Hence the messiness of the piping on the side and the still terrible handwriting.
I find piping to be somewhat therapeutic. Is that weird??
We've also been doing little side projects during any down time such as piping royal icing flowers. We just use colored royal icing with different tips to pipe these flowers then let them dry overnight. They're the same things as the little sugar cupcake toppers they sell at the grocery stores.
An easy royal icing recipe: 3 egg whites 1tsp cream of tartar, lemon juice or vinegar 1lb powder sugar *Use a paddle attachment in a mixer and mix all the ingredients together until it forms frosting. Add more sugar if you want it thicker and add some water if you want it thinner.
We were making good progress last Thursday and had about an hour of time left when Chef McNabb decided to make sugar cookies for everyone to decorate as a pop quiz. BLURGH. I hate decorating cookies too… I ended up making one for my sister with pink marshmallow fondant, royal icing flowers and frosting. Cute no? Apparently you can charge $7 for a cookie like that! Cost would probably be less than $1 to make so hmmm it may not be a bad idea to learn to love them anyways.
Class really isn't so bad. I just despise cake decorating because of how trendy and cutesy people try to get with cakes, ie purses, shoes, Hello Kitty, etc... I like the more elegant and glamorous ones like wedding cakes and white fondant cakes. BUT, cake making could be a lucrative business too. It's fairly standard to charge $10-15 per slice for celebration cakes so if you have a 200 person wedding, that's about $2000 on the cake alone. Mmhmm, just something to think about.
I spent a lovely weekend in San Francisco again and got to experience Restaurant Gary Danko. For those of you who aren't familiar with Chef Danko's eponymous restaurant, it is a very popular American fine dining establishment located in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco. Their many accolades include:
1. Two James Beard awards: "Best Chef - California" and "Best New Restaurant" 2. Mobil Travel Guide's "Five Star" winner 3. One Michelin star 4. Zagat's "Best American (new) restaurant in SF", "Best SF restaurant", "Most popular SF restaurant", "Best SF service" and "Best SF wine list" beating out even French Laundry!
I had an amuse bouche of jicama slaw, tuna, cilantro and fried lotus root.
Then tried their $95 black sea osetra caviar with salmon on buckwheat blini
First appetizer of seared ahi tuna with avocado, nori, enoki mushrooms, frisee and pancetta
Second appetizer of risotto with lobster, rock shrimp, shimeji mushrooms, peas and tarragon oil (absolutely amazing!)
Main entree of seared scallops with asparagus pea puree, pickled radish, sauce marechal and spring onions
First dessert of Louisiana butter cake with huckleberry compote and vanilla ice cream
Second dessert of creme fraiche cheesecake with caramelized pecans, braised cherries and strawberry sorbet
Third dessert of creme brulee trio of vanilla, bourbon and nutella with tea cookies
Fourth dessert of chocolate souffle with creme anglaise and chocolate sauce
Fifth dessert of French macaron ice cream sandwiches trio
Mignardises included a lemon bar, chocolate mousse tart, lemon tart, pate de fruit, pistachio bar, financier, chocolate hazelnut diamond and truffles.
Last, but certainly not least, they sent me home with their "breakfast bun", a banana cream cheese muffin, for me to enjoy the next day.
Their food was great overall. True to California style, each plate was rather simple, but everything tasted superb and fresh because of the quality of their ingredients. The reason I got to try so much stuff was because I was staging there! Everyone was so kind and each person brought me a fully plated dish from their respective stations. And of course, since I was working pastries I ate a ton of desserts, my favorite being the Louisiana butter cake. Mmmm butter...
I've been doing various stages around Chicago and each kitchen experience has given me valuable insight into what I want for myself. I've been blessed to have each place extend me an offer and until recently was having a lot of trouble deciding between Charlie Trotter's and moving out to SF. However, I am happy to announce that I really loved my experience this past weekend and come August I will officially be a San Francisco resident working at Restaurant Gary Danko!
