Chicago

42 Grams

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Over the weekend I took Laura to her first tasting menu in Chicago. Being fortunate enough to try tasting menus all over the world I wanted Laura to experience and hopefully fall in love with them as much as I do. Researching various tasting menus in Chicago one kept sticking out.

42 Grams is a BYO 2 Michelin Star restaurant located off Broadway and Leland . It is nominated for this year’s Best New Restaurant category for the James Beard Awards. If you don’t know where to look you’ll walk right past 42 Grams like we did. The Uptown neighborhood is home to some of the best ethnic food in the city, but has a reputation for being a bit rougher. Don’t let that sway you as this was easily one of the best tasting menus I’ve had in years!

You are greeted by Chef Jake’s wife, Alexa. Upon being seated you have your choice of distilled or sparkling water. The chef’s counter seats 8 and the communal table seats 10. On this evening the counter was full, but the communal table was filled by only one couple. This may be the most intimate Michelin Star dining experience you’ll ever have in your life.

Once everyone arrived Alexa walked us through what we were about to experience.  Alexa acted as the hostess and server for the evening while Jake and one other chef made the magic happen in the kitchen.

Over the course of 2 hours we enjoyed some of the most amazing dishes I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting. The highlights for me were the A5 Miyazaki Wagyu with baby bok choy, the Skuna Bay Salmon, and the bamboo rice dessert. I can honestly say I’ve never tried a better piece of meat than I did on Sunday.

I’ll be adding the menu to the gallery shortly, but first need to unpack my bag and get settled in for work. For those interested, Laura was blown away by the tasting menu experience and looks forward to her next one, which just so happens to be next week at Travail.

Links:
https://www.42gramschicago.com/

 

Chicago

Next: Chicago Steak (2014)

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Nearly a year late, but better late than never. Here are some photos from last April’s visit at Next for the Chicago Steak tasting menu. I’ll post the menu later this week. This was my favorite of the three tasting menus at Next for 2014. The Oyster Il Bronzino, Lobster Thermidor, and 30 Day Dry-Aged Ribeye were the highlights of the night.

Istanbul

Istanbul

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Last month I was fortunate to attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi. One can get to Sochi from the Midwest either through Istanbul or Moscow. After shopping around I was able to find a flight from Chicago to Istanbul non-stop for under $550 round trip through Turkish Airlines! The connecting city question was answered.

Doing some research for this trip I quickly learned Istanbul was a favorite with many of my favorite chefs. Rick Bayless was recently there and featured some great photos of his experiences on Instagram. It also appeared that Istanbul was home to a Diners Club World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy with Mikla.

The gallery below features the wide variety of food I was able to enjoy while spending a week in Istanbul. Some of the highlights included the freshest octopus I had ever eaten (Mikla), Antep Birdshit Ice Cream (Mikla), Pistachio Kebabs (Hamdi), a 41 hour lamb shoulder to die for (Gile) and two memorable fish lunches at Balikci Sabahattin.

Gourmand Phil’s Picks

Mikla – Considered to be the best restaurant in Istanbul, reservations are highly recommended. I really enjoyed the service, view of the city, and food. It truly lived up to its reputation.

Balikci Sabahattin – If you are a fish lover this is the place for you. The fish are as fresh as it gets. If amazing fish isn’t enough to win you over the complimentary items including dessert and apps will. What the staff is willing to offer depends on the day and time.

Gile Restaurant – An up and comer in the Istanbul food scene. Gile’s 41 hour lamb shoulder with charred onion, licorice paste, aubergine cream, green tomatoes, and aged kassar cheese along with the red pine charred Saroz Bay shrimp are to die for. I’d highly recommend the Degustation Menu. If you are lucky you’ll get a waiter who spent time aboard a cruise ship that traveled the East Coast of the US. Ask him about his time in New Jersey. You’llbe entertained for hours.

Hamdi – If you are a meat lover and want to try kebabs look no further than Hamdi. Besides the tasty kebabs it has a great view of the Golden Horn and Galata Tower. Pescatarians and those with gluten allergies will want to pass on this experience.

The favorable exchange rate made eating at the best restaurants in Istanbul cheaper than a night out at some of the signature Minneapolis/St. Paul restaurants. Istanbul was a great city with lots of diversity. Spanning both the European and Asian continents it has a very rich culture with influences far and wide. I’d highly recommend the experience to anyone and hope to visit again sometime in the future.

 

 

Minneapolis

Travail – Soft Opening

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The wait is finally over! Travail Kitchen and Amusements opens its doors at 5 PM on Tuesday, February 4. Over the weekend myself and other Kickstarter backers were treated to a tasting menu for the soft opening.

The new building actually consists of two restaurants. Travail Kitchen and Amusements and The Rookery.

Per the Kickstarter website:

The new Travail will offer only tasting menus, and diners need only come with an open mind to allow the chefs to take them on a stimulating culinary journey. It will be a multi-hour, multi-sensory experience for food adventurers.

The Rookery will offer chef-driven cocktails and micro plates ranging from $2 to $20. It will be a great place for those who want to pick through a variety of unique options at their leisure while enjoying a bar atmosphere equipped with a full-service cocktail program and games.

My friend and I had a reservation for the Travail side. Over the course of 2 hours we were presented with a wide assortment of food including a foie gras lollipop with pop rocks, scallops, sweetbread, and much more.

An assortment of cocktails were available for order. I ordered the Old Fashioned while my friend had the Mint Condtion. Both were strong and hit the spot on a cold Friday night. With the soft opening taking place the entire week the majority of kinks had been worked out by the fifth day.

What separates Travail from other restaurants is that the staff serves great food, but also has a fun time doing it. The staff is dressed in t-shirts and jeans with no sign of the traditional whites that chefs wear.  Patrons can challenge one of the owners, Mike Brown, to a beer chugging contest. The staff will sing and dance to whatever is playing on the restaurant’s beefed up soundsystem.

If you are looking for an interactive and fun environment to try great food with chefs who aren’t afraid to experiment you’ll love Travail. I can’t wait to line up and try The Rookery next!

Chicago

Next: Chicago Steak Video

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One of my favorite things about the Next experience is the videos. The latest menu, Chicago Steak, just had its video released earlier today on Vimeo. This is a change from the past when they were released on YouTube. Perhaps this is to ensure the video doesn’t get taken down for possible copyright issues with the music. Either way it’s exciting that the video and opening night are finally here!

Expect a review of Chicago Steak this April.

Spain

Massana

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If I had to pick my favorite dining experience of 2013 it would be Massana. Located in Girona, Spain, Massana has been open for over 25 years. Awarded one Michelin star,   Massana tops my 2013 experiences due to two reasons.

1) Our waiter lived in Austin, Minnesota when he did an internship for Hormel. Imagine that! Someone from Girona, Spain ends up spending time in Austin, Minnesota out of all places in the world. We had a great time talking to him about his experiences in Minnesota and the Midwest. He was a great host as well telling us all the sights to see in Girona and Figueres. Out of the four restaurants we frequented in Spain this one had the most personal service and was the least bit stuffy. A party even appeared in shorts and t-shirts. It’s highly unlikely you’d see that same party being seated at many of the other restaurants I’ve covered this year.

2) Massana featured the most mind blowing and flavorful bite of food I’ve had all year. The Galician beef cheek with a Bordelaise sauce and tiny vegetables glazed was a true mouthgasm. Other food bloggers, such as Cumbriafoodie, have found the wild mushrooms, prawns, and truffle  to be their favorite dish of the year.

Below is the Gourmet Menu

Tapas
Focaccia of Iberian Ham
Parmesan sticks and paprika “La Vera”
Smoked at moment salmon and ponzu sauce
Marinated mussels with lime and coriander
Semi sphere pickled tuna and tomato sand
Baghrir of shrimp, leek and bacon
Liquid mushrooms fritter

Menu
Yogurt Foie Gras
As a royal with Muscat jelly and crunchy corn and toffee

Wild Mushrooms, Prawns, and Truffle
Wild mushrooms carpaccio, marinated prawn, and pine nut vinaigrette

Sashimi Scallops
With classic Waldorf salad with salt and lemon

Thyme Soup
Truffled steamed brioche, poached egg yolk and black sausage

Red Tuna
On a lentil stew “Belga” veil of bacon, wakame seaweed and sea air

Rabbit Shoulders
Lacquered with herbs and apple rosemary

Galician Beef Cheek
Bordelaise sauce and tiny vegetables glazed

Desserts
Coconut
Banana guacamole, sugarcane and pina colada ice cream

Chocolate, Peanut and Lemon
Creamy chocolate,  snow of lemon with sugared peanuts

2013 was a great year of dining for me. From the tasting menu at the world’s best restaurant – El Celler de Can Roca, to obtaining season tickets for Next in Chicago, to dinner at Backmulde in Germany where my parents announced they were pregnant with me many years ago, to Massana. I was very fortunate to try such amazing food.

Thanks for reading Gourmand Phil over the past 9 months. I look forward to sharing more experiences with you in 2014. For those interested in keeping in touch make sure to click on the Facebook icon in the upper right hand corner. That’ll allow you to like my Facebook page where I feature additional stories, links, and photos not found on here.

Links:
Restaurant Massana Website
Restaurant Massana Review by Cumbriafoodie

Chicago

Katsu Japanese Restaurant

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Last month a friend and I decided on a weekend getaway to Chicago for some fine-dining adventures. With flights at $92 round trip through Sun Country Airlines it was a no-brainer to fly down. Earlier in the week I had made a reservation at Katsu Japanese Restaurant in the West Rogers Park neighborhood.

Having earned the distinction of Zagat’s #1 restaurant in Chicago for 2014, I was surprised I could get a reservation for the same week. This more than likely stems from the fact that Katsu is not on OpenTable, doesn’t have a social media account, and doesn’t have a website. It’s truly a restaurant for those in the know. Open for 25 years the walls of Katsu are lined with celebrities who have eaten there.

One legendary story describes how Mick Jagger was in a bad mood and not giving autographs during the last Rolling Stones concert in Chicago. After dining at Katsu his mood changed and he started signing autographs for fans. At first this story seemed hard to believe, but it was backed up verbatim with a newspaper clipping from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Upon our arrival we decided to dine at the counter, so we could interact with Katsu and see how he prepared each individual plate. We were the only ones at the counter and it made for a rather intimate experience including Katsu showing us how to eat sushi with just our hands.

My friend and I decided to each order the sushi and sashimi tasting menu. While the sushi and sashimi were very fresh and tasted great, it was the unagi egg custard and Oregon Red Pine mushroom soup that really made our trip to Katsu exceptional. We were told this seasonal soup is a major hit at Katsu and that we were some of the last diners for the season to get to try it.

Katsu and his wife were both lovely personalities who I hope to see again sometime in the near future. The only complaint we had was that Katsu served Escolar with the tasting menu. Banned for consumption in Japan in 1969, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises against any sale of the fish. Per an article in the Star Tribune it is “packed with an indigestible waxy substance called gempylotoxin that can make people who eat too much of it ill for days with diarrhea, nausea, cramping and other effects.” Fortunately Katsu is a very understanding chef and substituted the escolar for my friend’s meal while I decided to give it a try.

Overall Katsu Japanese Restaurant is highly recommended if you want to try the best sushi in Chicago. While the price of dining at Katsu is on the high end for sushi restaurants in the States, it is well worth it for those residing in the Midwest.

Minneapolis

Umami Dim Sum

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In this afternoon’s Travail newsletter it was announced that UMAMI will come to an end on Sunday, December 22. Final tickets for the all you can eat dim sum experience will go on sale through Tempo tickets tomorrow at 10 AM. Brunch will also be offered the first three Sundays of the month.

This is bittersweet as I really enjoyed the dim sum menu, but understand they need to focus on the new Travail. In my opinion the dim sum menu was better than the tasting menu that UMAMI offered originally when it opened its doors at the end of September. When I tried the dim sum last month it was not all you can eat and was roughly $200 for three people including drinks and tip. Our party tried every dish available. Some twice. While they were all very good, the standouts were the bulgogi beef, baby bok choy, pork rib, and avocado and soft-boiled egg.

With all you can eat tickets at only $30 or $40 per person excluding drinks and service fees I’ll be going back for one final experience before this chapter of Travail history comes to an end.

We have decided that December will be the final month of the UMAMI pop up in North Minneapolis. We are not leaving because the business was unsuccessful, but rather because its success came at time when the organization was already overextended. The Asian comfort food turned dim sum restaurant was busy and buzzworthy and it demanded too much of the team’s resources in terms of chefs, kitchen equipment, time and energy. With the upcoming launch of the new Travail and The Rookery, it turned out to be more than a manageable side project, so we have made the decision to pull in the reins, put the UMAMI concept on the shelf, and free up the 904 West Broadway space for another community-owned restaurant.

Links:
Facebook
Tempo Tickets

Spain

Moments

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With snow rumored to hit the Twin Cities tomorrow it’s time to catch up on some of summer’s finest moments. While in Barcelona, I had the great fortune of dining at Moments. Located within the Mandarin Oriental, Moments is a two Michelin star restaurant operated by Chef Carme Ruscalleda and her son Raül Balam. If those names sound familiar that’s because they should. Ruscalleda owns Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar and Sant Pau de Tòquio in Japan. In 2010 she was the world’s only five-Michelin-starred female chef.

My brother and I ordered the tasting menu which was easily one of the best tasting menus I’ve had to date. The wine pairing was superb and included a 20th Aniversary Cava for Ruscalleda’s Sant Pau. If you ever dine at Moments jump straight to the Tasting Menu. Personal favorites included the Iberian Pork and Parrot Fish.

The service was friendly and staff even encouraged I take photos of the team working in the kitchen. The crowd was as diverse as the clientele that frequents the Mandarin.  Out of all the restaurants that printed the tasting menu in Spain the Moments menu was probably my favorite layout. I enjoyed that they used a high quality cardstock and that it was the perfect size to fit into my pocket.

Instead of attempting to express my love for this tasting menu using culinary terms I’ve just started to learn I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Links
Moments
Carme Ruscalleda

Minneapolis

Heidi’s Closes

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It’s a sad day for food lovers in the Twin Cities as Heidi’s has come to a sudden end. According to the press release posted on the Star Tribune website

After 12 years of marriage, Heidi and Stewart Woodman have mutually come to the decision to divorce. With this news, they announce today that Heidi’s Minneapolis, the restaurant they created and co-owned for six years, has closed its doors.

In a statement from the Woodmans: “We kindly ask that our privacy be respected. While we’ve made the decision to end our marriage, we share the same love and commitment to our two children. Our focus is on them at this time.”

The original plan for Heidi’s announced earlier this month was that they would close at the end of the year and then do a complete revamp for 2014. Unfortunately this sounds like it won’t happen. Personally I’ve had some great memories dining at Heidi’s and will be sad to remove them from my Top 10 places to eat in the Twin Cities list.  This is the second restaurant of the Woodmans that has closed this year. Birdhouse on Hennepin Avenue closed over the summer.

Links
Star Tribune Article