Experimental Food
I haven't washed my hands today, which is kind of icky, but I shook Jose Andres hands last night around 9 o'clock and every time I look down at them, I think maybe I can hold off a few more minutes. So I am typing this with fingers enfolded just yesterday by the firm hairy mitts of a premier DC chef. How did this come about?
A friend of my husband's has been a fixture in our married life - she had been there for important events, and really helped D navigate the jungles of their company, like a friendly aunt. She even paid for our rehearsal dinner, the task traditionally done by the family of the groom. She retired this year and has been making noises about moving to North Carolina or other foreign parts, and it seemed proper to give her a nice dining experience and send off in case she loses touch. We had scaled the Inn at Little Washington years ago for D's 40th birthday, but there is at least one other insanely expensive crazy feedbag experience in the area we had not tried, Jose Andres' Minibar restaurant. Last night was the night.
Minibar is located on E Street NW, near the corner with 9th, with signage so gray and discreet that you could definitely miss it, but that's part of the idea. The entire meal, beginning to end, is a performance. Not that the food is unimportant, it's the diva of the evening, but this is a play with eats. You the audience are here to feel special, treated.
Korova Milk Bar
Front door is heavy frosted glass, and when you try to go in, the doors are locked until a half hour before showtime (naturally, to build anticipation). When you are finally admitted to a tall elevator-sized, completely white bas-relief covered room, a pretty young thing (all the staff are young and nominally pretty, boys and girls) asks if you have a reservation, asks for the name, and when you tell her, she doesn't need to consult a list, she knows your party, because you're _special_. *snerk*
Mathematical Zebras
The next waiting room is less small, and you sit on couches in completely black and white surroundings until the rest of your party arrives - zebra-themed rug, champagne bucket and glasses on a chess table where the b&w checkerboard pattern covers the entire table, a clock built into the wall with numbers 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 12, an armchair upholstered so it appears to be carved from marble, everything black, white, or gray. I sat on a couch covered with a pattern of irreducible trees and sipped chilled distilled water and dried out from the soaking I got walking to the site in a thunderstorm.
Lots of bustling around by staff behind a set of white, slightly translucent, floor-to-ceiling curtains. The curtains assured I could kind of see the kitchen/minibar area, but not clearly, and between the set of curtains was a very modern "fireplace" with a swirling gas flame in a glass cylinder. This could easily have been the set of a play. Someone named Daniel fussed around making sure I was comfortable while I waited. (Ah, rich people get treated like this all the time, I thought wistfully.)
Husband and Faux Aunt would be arriving late, I am informed by the solicitous Daniel, they had called to say the traffic was snarled because of the storm. When everyone from both parties (only 6 at a time per seating, you see) the curtain was drawn back (Ta DA!) and we were seated at the left-hand semi-circle before the kitchen, where we ate.
What We Et
Food was in 27 tasting menu offerings of mostly a bite or three each, mostly experimental or surprising. The announcer/presenter cook would, along with a flurry of assistants, plate the food before your eyes, and liked to have you guess what it was you were about to eat, because of the visual trickery - an oyster surrounded by ovoids the color of white beans was a variation on a Spanish stew, but here the "beans" were a warm bean-based soup encapsulated in a seaweed coating, so it popped in your mouth. I would have enjoyed a bowl of the soup in the beans with no trickery; very comforting good soup.
He would announce in part what you were about to enjoy, with the important info (such as fake-out beans) omitted. The presentation for that dish involved bits of dill, garlic, lardo placed quickly and just so on your plate with tweezers. I said to Faux Aunt that I didn't taste the lardo, oh, wait, I asked, it was on the oyster? Presenter affirmed, which made me feel clever. (But the whole idea is to make rich people feel good, so, yeah. Apparantly it works on the middle-class, too. I got credit, says the husband, for explaining to Faux Aunt what lardo is, although I didn't see the presenter giving me the credit eye.)
But who cares about your dreary class-conscious need to be approved of by the apparatus of The Rich and Wasteful, Bec? What about the experimental food?
Best of the experimental tucker: ***SPOILER ALERT****
When Pigs Fly - a square box with coffee grounds in the bottom and two happy pink little pigs on it, to simulate a pig-pen? The pigs are light, airy, dry, foamy and crusty like turkish delight, but quite pink and lightly apple-flavored. When you crunch it open, you get a dollop of bacon-vanilla ice cream, which was not only tasty, but funny.
Chicken Shawarma - a indian chicken finger food, where a lettuce predominated by volume and texture, and the wrap instead of a floury flat bread was something that looked EXACTLY like plastic wrap but was actually edible and made of kudzu starch. The interior seemed to be genuine chicken with a shawarma spicing, with some kind of white dip - bean hummas with yogurt and spicing, maybe? But delicious, and small, so you had 3 to 4 bites. I would have liked to have lingered more on it, but they swept us through the early offerings very fast.
Waldorf Salad - like the shawarma, the outer container appeared to be non-food. It had a small finger sub or baggette shape, with an outer conveyance of some kind of maybe rice foam, very sturdy and light and bright white - looked like styrofoam - with waldorf salad ingredients as the "meat," chunks of walnut, and possibly some kind of nut paste, some greenery, maybe romaine, but tasty and fun. Again, I was behind the other eaters when I looked down the table, because I was savoring too long.
Not edible for me:
Yo Ho, Squabby! - The entree was a hunk of squab, which I am sure was delicious, if you liked squab, or were even familiar with squab, but the light liver color and undercooked chicken mouthfeel kept me from eating it. I feel badly for the pigeon, but I guess it's an acquired taste, and I haven't acquired it yet. Faux Aunt didn't eat hers either.
No Risotto Mushroom Risotto - the tops of tiny mushrooms were clipped off and sauteed to give you a risotto mouth-feel, so it was all mushroom, the "risotto" and the other main ingredient, which was different kinds of mushroom. Husband said it was delicious; I confirmed the cleverness of making actual mushrooms taste like risotto, but didn't like it. I think it's my thing, like the squab - I have had their prep of a mushroom dish in a Jose Andres tapas joint, and didn't like that either, so me and his technique with mushrooms do not agree.
Cthulu Surf & Turf? Sea cucumber and bone marrow on a square white plate "crumpled" like squares of paper. Bone marrow makes beef soup super, so I expected great things, and it was gritty and unpleasant, and I expected sea cucumber to be nauseous, and it wasn't at all. Kind of like kalamari? The dish was, er, over-salted. This is not my peasant opinion, however, the dish just had too much salt, unless you need that level of sodium to make that kind of sea critter edible?
***********
For dessert bites, they moved us over to Barmini, the bar, which definitely tipped its hat to Kubric's Clockwork Orange Korova milk bar, with dozens of white manikin hands coming out of one wall, all holding limes and lemons, and the very modern chairs and sofas. The people at the bar itself were overly white, beautiful, stylish and rich-looking. Great to watch, and we three felt jolly and chatty, drank tea and sampled the final tricky dessert thingies. The scary scary check arrived inside a matroshka for some reason?
There was some confusion when it came to getting the car, and I finally got to the door to retrieve my umbrella, and D was holding the door open for me as a dawdled. I had seen what looked like Chef Andres exit before me, and I thought D was holding the door for him, but it was for me, and I was holding up the parade. :)
So, when I finally exited, there on my right was Chef Jose in his whites, and I went Oh!, being surprised at ending up face to face with him. I reflexively shook his hand and gushed about how marvelous the food had been, thanked him. Man, did he look tired and in need of a shave, but he thanked us for coming and clapped me on the shoulder as I turned to leave.
What really surprised me, other than actually seeing him in person at one of his restaurants? On TV, he's bouncy, pudgy, balding, harmless, waving his arms, eating, cooking - a foodie salesman. A cook who tells you the importance of talking to your ingredients, so they will talk to you. In person, tired and subdued, without his salesman face on, he was a little handsome, kinda magnetic. Extremely hairy arms, good firm handshake, short, solid, and great eyes. Having shook his hand I kinda get how he might induce people to get onboard with his visions of restauranteering and of marketing dining.
I also think that I might have been influenced by just having been treated to several hours of bites of extremely flavorful foods and drink created under his aegis, his vision. A little influenced in my perceptions.
A friend of my husband's has been a fixture in our married life - she had been there for important events, and really helped D navigate the jungles of their company, like a friendly aunt. She even paid for our rehearsal dinner, the task traditionally done by the family of the groom. She retired this year and has been making noises about moving to North Carolina or other foreign parts, and it seemed proper to give her a nice dining experience and send off in case she loses touch. We had scaled the Inn at Little Washington years ago for D's 40th birthday, but there is at least one other insanely expensive crazy feedbag experience in the area we had not tried, Jose Andres' Minibar restaurant. Last night was the night.
Minibar is located on E Street NW, near the corner with 9th, with signage so gray and discreet that you could definitely miss it, but that's part of the idea. The entire meal, beginning to end, is a performance. Not that the food is unimportant, it's the diva of the evening, but this is a play with eats. You the audience are here to feel special, treated.
Korova Milk Bar
Front door is heavy frosted glass, and when you try to go in, the doors are locked until a half hour before showtime (naturally, to build anticipation). When you are finally admitted to a tall elevator-sized, completely white bas-relief covered room, a pretty young thing (all the staff are young and nominally pretty, boys and girls) asks if you have a reservation, asks for the name, and when you tell her, she doesn't need to consult a list, she knows your party, because you're _special_. *snerk*
Mathematical Zebras
The next waiting room is less small, and you sit on couches in completely black and white surroundings until the rest of your party arrives - zebra-themed rug, champagne bucket and glasses on a chess table where the b&w checkerboard pattern covers the entire table, a clock built into the wall with numbers 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 12, an armchair upholstered so it appears to be carved from marble, everything black, white, or gray. I sat on a couch covered with a pattern of irreducible trees and sipped chilled distilled water and dried out from the soaking I got walking to the site in a thunderstorm.
Lots of bustling around by staff behind a set of white, slightly translucent, floor-to-ceiling curtains. The curtains assured I could kind of see the kitchen/minibar area, but not clearly, and between the set of curtains was a very modern "fireplace" with a swirling gas flame in a glass cylinder. This could easily have been the set of a play. Someone named Daniel fussed around making sure I was comfortable while I waited. (Ah, rich people get treated like this all the time, I thought wistfully.)
Husband and Faux Aunt would be arriving late, I am informed by the solicitous Daniel, they had called to say the traffic was snarled because of the storm. When everyone from both parties (only 6 at a time per seating, you see) the curtain was drawn back (Ta DA!) and we were seated at the left-hand semi-circle before the kitchen, where we ate.
What We Et
Food was in 27 tasting menu offerings of mostly a bite or three each, mostly experimental or surprising. The announcer/presenter cook would, along with a flurry of assistants, plate the food before your eyes, and liked to have you guess what it was you were about to eat, because of the visual trickery - an oyster surrounded by ovoids the color of white beans was a variation on a Spanish stew, but here the "beans" were a warm bean-based soup encapsulated in a seaweed coating, so it popped in your mouth. I would have enjoyed a bowl of the soup in the beans with no trickery; very comforting good soup.
He would announce in part what you were about to enjoy, with the important info (such as fake-out beans) omitted. The presentation for that dish involved bits of dill, garlic, lardo placed quickly and just so on your plate with tweezers. I said to Faux Aunt that I didn't taste the lardo, oh, wait, I asked, it was on the oyster? Presenter affirmed, which made me feel clever. (But the whole idea is to make rich people feel good, so, yeah. Apparantly it works on the middle-class, too. I got credit, says the husband, for explaining to Faux Aunt what lardo is, although I didn't see the presenter giving me the credit eye.)
But who cares about your dreary class-conscious need to be approved of by the apparatus of The Rich and Wasteful, Bec? What about the experimental food?
Best of the experimental tucker: ***SPOILER ALERT****
When Pigs Fly - a square box with coffee grounds in the bottom and two happy pink little pigs on it, to simulate a pig-pen? The pigs are light, airy, dry, foamy and crusty like turkish delight, but quite pink and lightly apple-flavored. When you crunch it open, you get a dollop of bacon-vanilla ice cream, which was not only tasty, but funny.
Chicken Shawarma - a indian chicken finger food, where a lettuce predominated by volume and texture, and the wrap instead of a floury flat bread was something that looked EXACTLY like plastic wrap but was actually edible and made of kudzu starch. The interior seemed to be genuine chicken with a shawarma spicing, with some kind of white dip - bean hummas with yogurt and spicing, maybe? But delicious, and small, so you had 3 to 4 bites. I would have liked to have lingered more on it, but they swept us through the early offerings very fast.
Waldorf Salad - like the shawarma, the outer container appeared to be non-food. It had a small finger sub or baggette shape, with an outer conveyance of some kind of maybe rice foam, very sturdy and light and bright white - looked like styrofoam - with waldorf salad ingredients as the "meat," chunks of walnut, and possibly some kind of nut paste, some greenery, maybe romaine, but tasty and fun. Again, I was behind the other eaters when I looked down the table, because I was savoring too long.
Not edible for me:
Yo Ho, Squabby! - The entree was a hunk of squab, which I am sure was delicious, if you liked squab, or were even familiar with squab, but the light liver color and undercooked chicken mouthfeel kept me from eating it. I feel badly for the pigeon, but I guess it's an acquired taste, and I haven't acquired it yet. Faux Aunt didn't eat hers either.
No Risotto Mushroom Risotto - the tops of tiny mushrooms were clipped off and sauteed to give you a risotto mouth-feel, so it was all mushroom, the "risotto" and the other main ingredient, which was different kinds of mushroom. Husband said it was delicious; I confirmed the cleverness of making actual mushrooms taste like risotto, but didn't like it. I think it's my thing, like the squab - I have had their prep of a mushroom dish in a Jose Andres tapas joint, and didn't like that either, so me and his technique with mushrooms do not agree.
Cthulu Surf & Turf? Sea cucumber and bone marrow on a square white plate "crumpled" like squares of paper. Bone marrow makes beef soup super, so I expected great things, and it was gritty and unpleasant, and I expected sea cucumber to be nauseous, and it wasn't at all. Kind of like kalamari? The dish was, er, over-salted. This is not my peasant opinion, however, the dish just had too much salt, unless you need that level of sodium to make that kind of sea critter edible?
***********
For dessert bites, they moved us over to Barmini, the bar, which definitely tipped its hat to Kubric's Clockwork Orange Korova milk bar, with dozens of white manikin hands coming out of one wall, all holding limes and lemons, and the very modern chairs and sofas. The people at the bar itself were overly white, beautiful, stylish and rich-looking. Great to watch, and we three felt jolly and chatty, drank tea and sampled the final tricky dessert thingies. The scary scary check arrived inside a matroshka for some reason?
There was some confusion when it came to getting the car, and I finally got to the door to retrieve my umbrella, and D was holding the door open for me as a dawdled. I had seen what looked like Chef Andres exit before me, and I thought D was holding the door for him, but it was for me, and I was holding up the parade. :)
So, when I finally exited, there on my right was Chef Jose in his whites, and I went Oh!, being surprised at ending up face to face with him. I reflexively shook his hand and gushed about how marvelous the food had been, thanked him. Man, did he look tired and in need of a shave, but he thanked us for coming and clapped me on the shoulder as I turned to leave.
What really surprised me, other than actually seeing him in person at one of his restaurants? On TV, he's bouncy, pudgy, balding, harmless, waving his arms, eating, cooking - a foodie salesman. A cook who tells you the importance of talking to your ingredients, so they will talk to you. In person, tired and subdued, without his salesman face on, he was a little handsome, kinda magnetic. Extremely hairy arms, good firm handshake, short, solid, and great eyes. Having shook his hand I kinda get how he might induce people to get onboard with his visions of restauranteering and of marketing dining.
I also think that I might have been influenced by just having been treated to several hours of bites of extremely flavorful foods and drink created under his aegis, his vision. A little influenced in my perceptions.