Demo at FCI from Sandro Romano, Chef de Cuisine at The Modern in NYC, featuring specialty cresses from Koppert Cress!

I took a day off to attend a demo from Sandro Romano, the Chef de Cuisine at The Modern.  The Modern is is a fine dining restaurant located at the Museum of Modern Art featuring original French-American cuisine.  Chef Romano's demo was on modern creations and plating techniques using cresses from Koppert Cress as both garnishes and ingredients in food and cocktails.

A bit of background - microgreens are often used as a garnish for dishes.  However, typically there is little taste to microgreens; it's mainly used for appearance.  Koppert Cress specializes in microgreens (cresses) that actually have flavor and can complement the dish.

Here's a picture of Nicolas Mazard, the manager of Koppert Cress USA who was kind enough to bring us several herbs to sample:

From left to right: shiso cress, mustard cress, basil limon cress

Each one of these tasted exactly as presented in the powerpoint - a chef or a mixologist could do a lot of good things with these.

Speaking of cocktails, the mixologist from The Modern gave us a cocktail recipe that they're testing:
Gin, Lemon Juice, Sugar, Egg White Foam, and Sechuan Button - really delicious cocktail.

Sechuan Button, Salty Fingers

So what's Sechuan Button, you might ask?  This is the first time I've tried anything like this.  Sechuan Button (on the left side) tastes tingly and kinda numbs your mouth (Nicolas described it as being similar to licking a battery) but you end up with a really nice lemony aftertaste.  The salty fingers (on the right) are basically micro sea beans.

After this, Chef Romano demo'ed some dishes for us using the micro cresses to complement his creations.

Here's his scallop ceviche marinated with vanilla, yuzu, and buckwheat with green apple puree and micro shiso puree - this was really delicious.

Basil limon cress glazed rabbit terrine with smoked quail egg - another great dish.

Brin di'amour uncooked souffle with mustard cress - the way he made this was really cool. He combined the souffle mixture with agar agar and carrageenan (both are thickeners derived from seaweed, used in molecular gastronomy) and set it over the fire to keep it liquid. Separately, he had ring molds in ice water. When the souffle was ready, he poured some into the ring molds. The coldness from the ring molds solidified the outside while the center remained warm, creating a "souffle".

Here's a close-up picture of the souffle - really nice dish highlighting excellent cooking techniques and plating - I was really impressed with this.

Finally, Nicolas gave us samples of cresses to take home - and by samples, I mean he gave us a whole box of cresses - very very cool of him to do so.

Now that I have all theses cresses at home, I had to put it to use.  Dinner for tonight:

Fillet of Trout and Flounder Grenobloise style - capers, lemon, and brown butter, topped with basil limon cress.  The basil limon cress did a nice job of complementing the acidity of the lemon brown butter sauce - definitely a successful dish in my book.

All in all, an excellent demo from Chef Romano of The Modern and Nicolas Mazard of Koppert Cress - many thanks to them!

The Modern (inside Museum of Modern Art)
9 W 53rd St
(between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
New York, NY 10019
http://www.themodernnyc.com/

Koppert Cress USA
http://usa.koppertcress.com/

Amazing 10 Course Meal at Degustation!

I had a really AMAZING 10 course meal at Degustation. Degustation has 19 seats that surround an open kitchen (similar to sitting at the counter for a sushi bar but a kitchen instead of sushi). You get to watch the chefs make each dish and then it’s served to you – we were seated in front of the plancha so we saw all the proteins cooked there, but the best seat of the house is near the entrance where they plate all the food. Pretty cool setup, it was really interesting to watch the chefs cook and plate everything.

The tasting menu changes every month, but from what the server told me, they only rotate a few dishes – about half the items we had were off the regular menu, so I’m guessing those will stay constant while the other half switch.


Amuse Bouche:

“Spanish Tortilla” – potato wrapper, shallot confit, and quail egg yolk inside – very playful item using potato as a wrapper and having the egg yolk run out once you bite into it

Bacalao Croquette with Aioli – pretty good as well, but more standard in delivery

Course 1:

Crudo of Mackarel – ginger, puffed rice, chive, crispy mackerel skin, champagne vinegar sauce – pretty good bite of food, lots of interesting flavors that melded together nicely.

Course 2:

Celery Root Soup, Chorizo Oil, Crouton – this was okay

Course 3:

Slow Poached Egg, Cauliflower Mousse, Uni, Microgreens - I didn’t realize egg and cauliflower paired so well together and I’m a sucker for uni – this dish was amazing.

Course 4:

Fried Brussels Sprouts, Roasted Beets, Carrots, Spicy Aioli, Hijiki Puree – really nice dish, this is the first time I’ve seen hijiki pureed and it works wonderfully with the fried Brussels sprouts and roasted beets.  A very unique and tasty dish absolutely delicious.

Course 5:

Shrimp a la Plancha, Puffed Rice, Fried Shrimp Head, Pimenton and Sherri Vinegar – the pimento and sherri vinegar was really good, but the best part was being served the fried shrimp head – restaurants need to serve fried shrimp heads more often.

Course 6:

Sea Snail with Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Fennel Mousse, and Crispy Quinoa – another great dish highlighting different textures and flavors - I was really impressed with the crispy quinoa.

Course 7:

Coca Mallorquina – Flatbread with spicy endive marmalade, chili paste, seared duck breast, black radish, and chive sauce – the spicy endive marmalade was so so good, and the duck breast was cooked perfectly - really nice dish.

Course 8:

Coffee Crusted Seared Venison, Black Beans, Farofa, Poached Cranberries, and Banana Tempura –this reminded me of an elevated version of Spanish food platters (rice and beans, plantains, and meat). The venison was cooked perfectly – granted, I haven’t had a lot of venison, but this is the best that I’ve had – nice temperature, texture, and really juicy.

Course 9:

Sangria Gelee, Fresh Mint, Blood Orange – this was decent for a palette cleanser, this is the only item that I thought was a bit gimmicky even though I like the idea of a sangria gelee.

Course 10:

Caramelized Torija (Spanish Style Bread Pudding) with Grapefruit – not really sure how this was made, but the texture of the bread was almost like the melted marshmallow from smores – very good with the brulee. A great end to a fantastic meal.

Degustation
239 E 5th St
(between 2nd Ave & Cooper Sq)
New York, NY 10003
www.degustationnyc.com

Splurge Lunch at Ai Fiori!

Last year I went to Marea for my birthday - I was so impressed with the meal that I've been looking to try all of chef/owner Michael White's restaurants.  I've been studying the menu for Ai Fiori for quite some time, in particular the much lauded trofie nero (I'm currently obsessed with squid ink dishes).  So today I finally went for lunch:

Vellutata - lobster veloute, perigord black truffles, chervil: pretty good as soups go, but not outstanding

Trofie Nero - ligurian crustacean ragout, seppia, scallops, spiced mollica: the main reason I wanted to try Ai Fiori, this dish was amazing - the only issue is that the portion size is tiny

Ippogolosso - line caught atlantic halibut, lentils du pays, black trumpets, lardo, salsefrica: technically, everything on the plate was prepared nicely, but I found the dish as a whole a bit lacking; not sure how to describe it except that it lacked character

Milk Chocolate Cremeux Tart: I was surprised at the presentation (or lack of); the desserts at Marea were fairly elaborate so I was expecting something similar. Taste-wise, it was good - decadent without being overly sweet

Overall a decent meal, but nowhere near as good as Marea - this was also a lunch service as opposed to dinner, so that plays into this as well.

Ai Fiori
400 5th Ave
(between 37th St & 36th St)
New York, NY 10018
http://www.aifiorinyc.com/