The Eating Continues

Another week of fabulous meals. Also, some notes on the vegetable movement - and on the way menus once looked. Along with an intriguing vintage menu.

I have had so many fantastic meals this week, and each of them reminded me that I am glad to be alive.

The most remarkable was surely dinner at Corima, where the talented Fidel Caballero is cooking food that will challenge all of your notions of what Mexican food might be. Caballero hails from the northern part of the country, and he is determined to use the ingredients he grew up with in new and startling ways. Every dish in a long tasting menu was as original, personal, beautiful and delicious as the dish above: ruby red shrimp from Montauk served in potato foam with charred potato flakes and apple blossoms.

Our meal began with this little tart filled with English peas that had been peeled before cooking then laced with tiny bits of chopped surf clam creating the most intriguing textures. It was crowned with golden osetra. When chefs use caviar as a garnish I almost always wish they’d just given me the caviar and left the other stuff out. Not this time: everything about this little tidbit was perfect. Who knew that peas and caviar have secretly been longing to dance together?

I loved every one of the 13 courses ($140), but I’m going to limit myself to the ones I found most astonishing. There was, for instance, this little bit of branzino collar covered in chintextle, a wildly delicious Oaxcan smoked paste traditionally made by grinding dried chiles with dried shrimp, garlic, pumpkin seeds and avocado leaves. The flavor is intoxicating; the scallion-topped tidbits were like elegant hot chicken wings with serious character.

This remarkable combination of squid, oyster mushrooms and knotweed aquachile came topped in a flurry of grated macadamia nuts. The flavors were gentle but the textures were so unexpected and surprising that I found myself eating in utter silence.

Texture again: a giant morel stuffed with lamb and artichoke, topped with purslane and folded into one of Caballero’s remarkable tacos. (The warm, feathery tortillas are also not to be missed.)

Caballero is clearly seduced by color, as you can see from this little medley of squab, rhubarb and amaranth. I loved the look of this beautiful dish, but I liked the flavor even more.

This wasn’t my first experience of Corima; I visited the small, casual restaurant in January and wrote about the wonderful food and comfortable service here. (Scroll down to the bottom of the post.) But I was in a different mood then, and it was wonderful to return and rediscover how comforting it can be to put yourself in the hands of people who practice their art with so much passion and talent. The word corima comes from the Tarahumara language; it means “circle of sharing.” I found that sitting around this table with friends was exactly that: wonderfully heartening.

In another mood….
I was lucky enough to score a table at the new Cote 550. It is pure, unadulterated fun. You walk down the stairs into a steamy red room reverberating with disco music. But you soon leave this behind, walk down a long mysterious hall and end up in an underground forest with a pool at its center.

And then the show begins…

Like the original Cote (I wrote about it here when it first opened in 2018), if you stick with the Butcher’s Feast at $115 it’s an enormous amount of delicious food at a very fair price. You begin with a small cup of bone broth and a stunning little cube of toro.

Followed by an array of lovely banchan and a heap of scallion salad.

Then the cooking of the meat begins, an endlessly interactive exercise. It is so much meat that I found myself surreptitiously putting bits aside. (I took my little pile of steak home and enjoyed a second feast the following day).

After the meat there are a couple of delicious stews, an egg soufflé and finally soft serve for dessert.

There is also a fantastically tempting wine list and all kinds of ways to spend a lot more money on fancy cuts of meat. But really, you’re here for the theatrical fun of this lively restaurant. It’s a place that was created to make you forget all your troubles. And for the time that you spend here, it does.

And in yet another mood….

Chef Jae Jung grew up in Seoul but began her serious cooking career in New Orleans where she worked with everyone who matters, including the great Leah Chase. Her Kjun is an homage to both parts of her background: her food is a combination of the two cuisines. Where else are you going to get kalbi brisket over cheesy grits?

The atmosphere, on the other hand is pure New Orleans. This is a jazzy, vibrant place with young servers whose mission in life seems to be making sure that you have a good time. So just relax and enjoy the party.

Hard not to when you’re crunching into fried chicken bites or indulging in this good gumbo.

Two month fermented okra kimchi. Let the good times roll!

Forgive me: I’ve spent the last couple of weeks doing the kind of mindless chores you think will distract you. They don’t. But as I was cleaning out a bunch of old papers I came upon this article, and it somehow seemed appropriate.

Since Dad was on my mind, I went looking for the article I wrote the only time he was ever in a hospital. At the time I was living in Berkeley, but as I was heading to the airport to visit him I picked up the menus of the two restaurants I was currently reviewing. “Look at the typography,” I said. “What do these menus reveal about the restaurants?”

As it turned out, quite a lot.

I’m headed to Chicago in a couple weeks to give a speech at the Arts Club of Chicago. That has made me think about Charlie Trotter. (If you haven’t seen the movie, Love Charlie, it’s streaming on Netflix.) So I went looking for a menu.

I wish I remember this meal because although I find many of these dishes intriguing I have trouble imagining how the ingredients go together. And now, looking at that wild mushroom cappuccino I can’t help wondering if Charlie was the one who invented the dish? It was, in that moment, ubiquitous.