Docsconz- The Blog

Go Team USA!

American Candidates Jamal James Kent and Thomas Allan at dinner at Brasserie de L'Est two nights before competition along with Bocuse d'Or USA organizer Monica Bhambani. They will be getting underway in their quest for a medal at the 2011 Bocuse d'Or shortly. Best of luck!

Daniel Patterson Discourses on the Craft vs. Art Debate

Few chefs are more eloquent and cerebral than Daniel Patterson of San Francisco's Coi and Il Cane Rosso and Oakland's Plum. Few chefs also make more beautiful, thoughtful and delicious food. He is also not afraid to say it as he sees it. Here are his thoughts about the place of Art in cooking.

 

Coming soon: Albert Adria gets la ultima palabra.

Mattias Hagglund Pours His Thoughts on Food as Art

Matthias Hagglund of Elements Restaurant in Princeton, NJ, happens to be one of the craftiest and most creative mixologists I have yet had the pleasure of meeting. His beverages are products of great thought and consideration. The net results comprise a synergy of ingredients and magical cocktails. Here, he expresses his thoughts on whether food can be art. The question unasked, but equally pertinent, how about cocktails?

 

The Bocuse is Coming

The Bocuse D'Or is happening this week in Lyon, France. The preeminent cooking competition in the world, this biennial event is a bit crazy and a lot of fun. You can follow my reports and photos from the 2009 competition as well as the 2010 selection process for the United States representative here. To really get a sense of what the Bocuse D'Or is all about, though, I suggest reading Andrew Friedman's outstanding book, Knives at Dawn. It's a great read and it's not too late to do so before the fun begins on Tuesday.

 

 

Nils Noren Weighs in on Craft and Art in Cooking.

The other half of the creative team behind the wildly creative Cooking Issues (though Nastassia Lopez should be included there as well to make it a creative trio) along with Dave Arnold, who's response I have already posted, Nils Noren is the former Executive chef of Aquavit in NYC and current Vice President of Culinary Arts of The French Culinary Institute in NYC. He has serious chops in both the craft aspects of cooking and the creative realm. Once again, I apologize for the suboptimal focus of the video, but I think Nils' views are worth putting up with it for a brief period.

 

More Art vs. Craft in Cooking: Scott Boswell Opines

I know few chefs who plate more beautifully than Scott Boswell of Stella!and Stanley in New Orleans. Of course, in the world of food that means nothing if the pleasure of eating a dish does not at least match the beauty of a gorgeously plated dish. Boswell has that down too. In this short video he gives his opinion on whether or not food can be considered art as well as naming a chef who he considers "one of the greatest food artists of all time."

  

Art or Craft in Studio Kitchen? Shola Speaks

i don't know too many chefs who cook more artistically or better than Shola Olunloyo of the soon to open Speck and Studio Kitchen in Philadelphia. In this short video shot at the latest Starchefs International Chefs Congress in NYC, the wonderfully opinionated Chef Shola Olunloyo shares his views on whether cooking is solely a craft or whether it can aspire to art.

 

Rick Moonen's Views on Art vs. Craft in Cooking

The ever energetic Rick Moonen of RM Seafood in Las Vegas is a supremely talented chef, a bright personality and a truly great guy. Aside from being a whiz at the stove as evidenced by his second place finish on rthe 2010 Top Chef Masters, the outgoing and personable Chef Moonen is probably best known as an advocate for sustainable seafood. Here, at the lates Starchefs International Chefs Congress, he provides an opinion on the Art vs. Craft in cooking discussion. Fortunately for me, this interview did not suffer from any significant technical problems.

 

Alex Talbot's Ideas on Food: Art vs. Craft

While my technical difficulties with video at this past Starchefs International Chefs Congress continued, Alex Talbot of Ideas in Food shares his ever fascinating thoughts on Art vs. Craft when it comes to cooking. The video is short, but I think sweet. 

 

Dave Arnold Talks About Food as Art

Last fall at the Starchefs International Chefs Congress in New York City, I asked a few people from the culinary world the question that reflected the theme of the Congress, Is cooking just a craft, or can it be art? Unfortunately, I ran into some technical difficulties with my video equipment, but I did manage to record a few responses that I can share. While the quality of the video image is a tad unfocused, the perspective of Dave Arnold, the wunderkind gastroscientist of the French Culinary Institute in New York City and one of the folks behind the incredible foodblog, Cooking Issues, is just too good to not share.

  

Daniel Patterson's Coi - Culinary Poetry

Daniel Patterson of San Francisco's Coi is the chef in North America, who most reminds me of Rene Redzepi of Copenhagen's noma. It is not that Patterson is recreating Redzepi's food or vice versa. Although he sources the bulk of his ingredients locally from the cornucopia of the San Francisco Bay Area, much like Redzepi does from Scandinavia, it is not that that makes me equate the two. Sean Brock of Charleston's Husk and McCrady's, is probably closer to Redzepi in that way with his determination to find and resurrect the ancestral ingredients of the Old American South to build a new cuisine truly representative of the region, much like what Redzepi has done in Scandinavia. Nor is it the way Patterson highlights a single vegetable like Redzepi does with carrots and other vegetables. Blue Hill at Stone Barns' Dan Barber and his roasted parsnips, amongst other dishes, are more reminiscent of that. Both Patterson and Redzepi have become known for using local, wild foraged plants with a special emphasis on coastal products including seaweeds and beach plants, but it is more the sensibility with which they are used that unites the two chefs in my mind, how they make emphatic, personal culinary statements about their own terroir and about how each of them creates a very personal poetry with food. 

Changes Coming

With the beginning of the new year I want to say that my website and blog will be changing soon in the hope of bringing it up to a higher level. I am working with Danya Henninger of imagicdigital.com to redesign the site. I plan to continue providing the content that I have and hope to add some new authors as well - both to help me develop more content and to provide additional content from additional perspectives. 

To clean things up a bit I have already started removing some extraneous clutter such as Google or AdSense ads as well as Amazon ads other than for photo equipment that I use. I have found that they have done nothing for me but cheapen the site. To replace those, I will be instituting something much more interesting and useful. I will be adding various pages to the website including some for shops selling artisanal products. My aim is to link quality artisans, whether they be food artisans, artists or craftspeople, with a wider audience. Any artisans on my site will be personally known by me or a trusted source and/or have products familiar to me. I will not present anything on my site for sale that I cannot fully endorse. Sales and contacts will be made through the pages, but the artisans will remain responsible for completing the sales and supplying the products. If you think you might qualify and are interested in participating in this program, please contact me through this site. I am very interested in working with quality artisans and quality products on a reasonable commission basis.I will also be adding a way for individuals or companies to purchase photos that they may be interested in for personal or corporate use.

I also intend to have pages for potential blog sponsors. I will not accept ads from all comers, but only from companies and products that I respect and can fully endorse. Ad prices will be reasonable. Though I respect them greatly, I will not accept ads from restaurants, as much of my content comes from reporting on restaurant meals and I do not wish to have any suggestion of a quid pro quo. I will, however, accept sponsorship from food producers or equipment manufacturers if they are so inclined, but only if I feel that I can fully endorse their products. I will not accept a sponsor who's products don't meet my standards for quality. Please contact me directly through this site if you may be interested in becoming a sponsor. 

In short, I hope to enhance the experience and value of my website for you, my readers and to keep this a sustainable undertaking. Happy New Year!

Finger Limes

I first noticed these wonderful little Australian citrus fruits in L.A. in early December. They appeared in dishes at a Wolvesmouth dinner, in cocktails at The Library Bar at The Roosevelt Hollywood Hotel and again at Providence, all to great effect, working like a burst of lime caviar to accent the dishes with both flavor and texture. Since then, I've noticed them n a number of menus and had them at Roberta's in Brooklyn. I bought some at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. The limes in the photo are some of the last remaining from my purchase. They held up well as I used them yesterday in a dish of piquillo peppers stuffed with turkey, chevre, saffron, peas and citrus and covered with Hollandaise. I would not be in the least surprised to see finger limes become the hot ingredient of 2011 much like hay and pine were in 2010.

My Top 25 Restaurant Meals of 2010

This is, of course, a subjective ranking. While great food is the single most important factor, the ranking is a reflection of the overall experience and the significance of that meal to me on a number of levels. The bottom line is that this was an exceptional year of dining for me with a number of meals that would have been top ten in many other years unable to be ranked so high this year. For my number one meal - noma - I am counting both the dinner and the lunch as one extended meal. I decided to not include special, guest chef or one-off dinners on this list, since they are special one-time events, not truly reflective of a specific restaurant or chef doing what he or she typically does. That is not to say, that they wouldn't have been on this list. Special mention goes to these special dinners: noma at Corton; The Alchemy of Taste & Smell Dinner; Aldea with Sam Mason, and Aldea with Pastry Chefs, each of which was simply sensational.

1. noma
2. Town House
3. Stella!
4. Restaurant AOC
5. The Oval Room
6. Providence
7. Roberta's
8. McCrady''s
9. Kiin Kiin
10. Elements
11. Blue Hill at Stone Barns
12. Wolves' Den
13. Coi
14. Urasawa
15. Ubuntu
16. Mathias Dahlgren Matsalen
17. Oaxen Krog
18. minibar
19. Herman
20. Hawk's
21. The Red Hen
22. Sorella
23. Recette
24. Jean-Georges
25. Pizzeria Mozza

The lack of reports on some of these restaurants is an indication of how backed up I am. I will post them as I can. 

Happy New Year! 2011!

A Look Back at My Top Restaurant Meals from Recent Years

In anticipation of a list of my top restaurant meals of 2010 that I plan on posting at the end of the year, I thought it would be fun and instructive to review my lists from the past few years including those that I posted on the eGullet Discussion Forums. My formats (and numbers) have varied over the years. Here they are as they were originally posted (in backwards chronological order)

2009

1. Senzone
2. Aldea
3. The Four Seasons
4. Ideas (in Food) in the Studio Kitchen
5. Corton
6. Per Se
7. Le Bernardin
8. Stella!
9. Eleven Madison Park
10. Kabuki Wellington
11. La Mere Brazier
12. Principe de Viana
13. Soto
14. Cafe Boulud
15. Momofuku Ssam Bar
16. Noca
17. Paul Bocuse
18. Los Asturianos
19. Toro by Ken Oringer
20. Taranta
21. Bayona
22. Falai
23. Gramercy Tavern
24. Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napolitana
25. Keste

 

2008

1. Corton - NYC
2. Ideas in Slow Food - Queensbury, N.Y.
3. Alinea - Chicago
4. Bartolotta - Las Vegas
5. Asturianos - Madrid
6. Europa Deco - Madrid
7. Cafe Atlantico/minibar - Washington, D.C.
8. Moto - Chicago
9. Soto - NYC
10. RM Seafood - Las Vegas
11. Astrid y Gaston - Madrid
12. Tailor - NYC
13. Noca - Scottsdale
14. Raku - Las Vegas
15. Frontera Grill - Chicago

 

 2007

1. elBulli Cala Montjol, Catalunya, Spain 4-May 
2. Ca Sento Valencia, Spain 2-May 
3. L'Esguard Sant Andreu de Llavanares, Spain 29-Apr 
4. Blue Hill at Stone Barns Tarrytown, N.Y. 30-Mar 
5. WD-50 N.Y., N.Y. 17-Sep 
6. Fiamma N.Y., N.Y. 23-Nov 
7. WD-50 N.Y., N.Y. 5-Jan 
8. Huaca Pucllana Lima, Peru 24-Feb Lunch
9. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon Las Vegas, Nevada 23-Mar 
10. Binkley's Scottsdale, Arizona 27-Mar 
11. Wing Lei Las Vegas, Nevada 25-Mar 
12. Levante Benisanó, Valencia, Spain 30-Apr 
13. Bodegas Casa Montaña Valencia, Spain 30-Apr 
14. Monastrell Alicante, Spain 2-May 
15. Tailor N.Y., N.Y. 24-Nov 
16. Coi San Francisco, CA. 16-Oct 
17. Canteen San Francisco, CA. 18-Oct 
18. Kokkari Estiatorio San Francisco, CA. 15-Oct 
19. The Dining Room at the RC San Francisco, CA. 17-Oct 
20. El Celler de Can Roca Girona, Spain 3-May 
21. Las Machitas Cevicheria 20-Feb Cusco, Peru

2006

1. Studio Kitchen 3/17/2006. link to dinner description with photos. An amazing combination of delicious, beautiful, creative food in a comfortable and intimate atmosphere, served by the food's creator and shared with nine other fascinating people (including the late M.X. Hassett) all the while savoring excellent wines at a steal of a price - what could be better? Shola Olunloyo stopped doing Studio Kitchen very shortly after or else this would likely have popped up several more times in my top ten.
2.  Alinea 6/11/2006. link to dinner description with photos. The third time I have eaten at this restaurant and the only time (unfortunately) in 2006, it just keeps on getting better. Sharing this meal with Ronnie Suburban and Yellow Truffle added context, history and great companionship to the meal. It was also to be my last experience at Alinea with Alex Stupack and Jordan Kahn in the pastry kitchen and Joe Ziomeck in the FOH. They have moved on to other pursuits at which I have no doubt they will prove exceptional. Though their shoes are large, i have faith in Grant Achatz and the rest of the team at Alinea, my favorite restaurant in the United States.
3. Jose Andres' Minibar 5/16/2006. link to dinner description with photos. If one can't have fun eating at this restaurant, one can't have fun eating. The food was beautiful, creative, playful and of course delicious at this cozy interactive restaurant set within a restaurant. things can't get any better for those diners who enjoy watching food prepaaration as theater and interacting with the preparers at the same time. It also didn't hurt that my wife and I shared this experience with Ruben Garcia and Llorenc Petras and their wives. I subsequently had the pleasure to get to know both a little better at a couple of culinary conferences.
4. Jean-Georges 9/20/2006. link to lunch description with photos. Lunch at Jean-Georges is the most incredible value in fine dining (with the possible exception of dinner at El Bulli). The food is sensational and downright inexpensive ($12/course?). Sharing the meal with my great friend Joe Bavuso, his wife and a friend helped make this extra-special.
5. Chez Panisse Cafe 3/30/2006. link to lunch description with photos This lunch culminated my California spring culinary odyssey with Elliot Wexler aka Molto e. The cooking and ingredients are just so pure and so right. There is a reason that this restaurant has lasted so long in this day and age of ephemeral restaurant life - the food is simply perfectly prepared and satisfying.
6. The French Laundry 3/28/2006. link to dinner description with photos. My first of two visits to TFL in 2006, was all things considered the better overall experience. Though the second dinner was perhaps more uniform in quality from top to bottom, the highs were higher with this meal. My company was stellar both times, the first with Elliot and the second with my wife, the best man at our wedding and a friend of his. Ultimately, what probably made the difference in my enjoyment of the meals and my final ranking was the fact that the second time was the culmination of all day cross-country travel. In short, my wife and i were already exhausted by the time we arrived for dinner.
7. Perry Street 9/18/2006. Link to dinner description - unfortunately no photos.There was a time not too long ago that I was one of those who thought that Jean-Georges Vongerichten had "jumped the shark." That was before Perry Street and my most recent meals at J-G. The food was vibrant, creative, beautiful and full of flavor. I partook of this dinner with my brother and my sister. Bruce Willis was at a neighboring table. He also must like Jean-Georges' style as I ran into him again two days later at J-G. Well, if JGV has jumped the shark, I am happy to say that he did so unscathed.
8. Ame 3/26/2006. link to dinner description with photos.Sunday night dining is not supposed to be very good. I'm glad that nobody told that to the people cooking at this San Francisco star. Once again, this meal was with Elliott and was the first of our culinary tour together. A strong friendship rose from this.
9. Pujol 3/9/2006)My wife's and my Culinary Trip to Mexico in March was not only a highlight of 2006 for us, it was also one of the best trips of our lives. The food was fabulous, but much of it was not restaurant based. Of those that were, Pujol was outstanding; providing a modern touch overlaid on traditional Mexican cuisine. It was a fitting finale to an outstanding vacation.
10. El As de Oros 3/7/2006.Also from the Mexico trip, this was street food at its finest, though it was located in a market stall in Puebla. The cemita milanesa may have been the single best sandwich I have ever eaten. 

2005

1. El Bulli 28-Aug
2. Alinea 3-Dec
3. Alinea 21-May
4. Citronelle 22-Apr
5. WD-50 10-Dec
6. Erlowest 22-Jan
7. Jean Georges 9-Dec
8. Jaleo 20-Apr
9. Rafa's 29-Aug

My All-Time Favorite Dish

In the animated film Ratatouille, the feared food critic Anton Ego, was won over by a dish that transported him back to his childhood and to a dish made special to him by his mother. This is that dish for me. Bucatini with crab sauce was my favorite dish when I was growing up. My mother would make it for me on my special days, such as my birthdays or when I came home from college. The blue crabs impart a slightly sweet and complex flavor to the long simmered tomato sauce. I still love it more than any other dish. The very first time I ate at elBulli, I had a dish made with crab that reminded me of it. The crab dish made an already incredible meal that much more so, even though it resembled this dish in no other way. Do you have a dish that transports you?

Decisions, Decisions

Which one? Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas!

What I'm Making For Christmas Eve

My Mother's Crab Sauce