Moto: Menu, Soup & Salad
Sep. 26th, 2006 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quisletOK, if you haven't checked out the Moto link, I suggest you do. The chef/owner is a food geek who has re-engineered an inkjet printer to use food-based inks on filo/soy paper in order to print some of his dishes. The menu is printed on this sort of "paper," and is stuck onto a parmesan/sage/chile sheet that both informs and whets the appetite. The menu *is* the appetizer.
Allow me to set the stage...
We're driving around downtown Chicago in a taxi, heading out Fulton St. into the warehouse district. The addresses are a little confusing, so even finding the place turns into something of an adventure, with Sanjeev at the wheel. He looks over his shoulder a few times, perhaps wondering why the fellow in the yellow shirt is so obviously non-romantic with this beautiful woman in the little black dress.
After a false start or two, we find the place, nearly invisible from the street, nestled between newly revitalized loft apartments and a corner bar & grill. The interior is a study in not-quite-whites, a mix of international fusion music playing in the background. The staff is attentive, each one wearing a trendy boom-microphone and earpiece. Coats are taken, seating is done, and the appetizer-cum-menu is served.
The menu has three choices on it: five courses, ten courses, and the "Grand Tasting Menu." Each has an accompanying course of wines and beers paired to each dish, but we decided to focus on the food and order the ten-course. The waiter gleefully explains how this meal will consume approximately 2.5 hours of our lives, but that it will be well worth the experience. A glass of full-bodied California pinot and a feisty Grenache/Tempranillo/Syrah blend are ordered (can you guess which one was for me?).
The first course arrives with an air of punctual leisure:
Soup & Salad-
The dish is white porcelain, the shape of a pointed ellipse; like a great Picasso eye that could hide a salad within a wink. The eye is split, crystal green on one end, murky orange-red on the other. It looks at you from green shot with white squiggles, black flecks and tiny beige motes. Not moss-green, not olive, this is simply green, vivid and clear. This green is the abstraction of a verdant summer's day, carrying the slightest fragrance fresh-mown grass. The taste is equally as clear, bright and crisp, the cold essence of romaine. This liquid salad is christened with the lemony pungence of fresh pepper, two snakey lines of tangy caesar dressing, and herbed croutons the size of split peas.
The chilled soup peers at you from beside another, this one warm. Creamy cheese, tangy tomato, hints of yeasty bread and...is that pepperoni? In contrast to the icy silk of the salad-soup, this has the luxurious feel of warm velvet against your tongue. This is pepperoni pizza distilled to its liquid essence, cheesy, somehow meaty and impossibly almost-chewy while still possessing the hearty simplicity of soup.
This is the work of an artist. Certes, this will be a dinner to be remembered.
Allow me to set the stage...
We're driving around downtown Chicago in a taxi, heading out Fulton St. into the warehouse district. The addresses are a little confusing, so even finding the place turns into something of an adventure, with Sanjeev at the wheel. He looks over his shoulder a few times, perhaps wondering why the fellow in the yellow shirt is so obviously non-romantic with this beautiful woman in the little black dress.
After a false start or two, we find the place, nearly invisible from the street, nestled between newly revitalized loft apartments and a corner bar & grill. The interior is a study in not-quite-whites, a mix of international fusion music playing in the background. The staff is attentive, each one wearing a trendy boom-microphone and earpiece. Coats are taken, seating is done, and the appetizer-cum-menu is served.
The menu has three choices on it: five courses, ten courses, and the "Grand Tasting Menu." Each has an accompanying course of wines and beers paired to each dish, but we decided to focus on the food and order the ten-course. The waiter gleefully explains how this meal will consume approximately 2.5 hours of our lives, but that it will be well worth the experience. A glass of full-bodied California pinot and a feisty Grenache/Tempranillo/Syrah blend are ordered (can you guess which one was for me?).
The first course arrives with an air of punctual leisure:
Soup & Salad-
The dish is white porcelain, the shape of a pointed ellipse; like a great Picasso eye that could hide a salad within a wink. The eye is split, crystal green on one end, murky orange-red on the other. It looks at you from green shot with white squiggles, black flecks and tiny beige motes. Not moss-green, not olive, this is simply green, vivid and clear. This green is the abstraction of a verdant summer's day, carrying the slightest fragrance fresh-mown grass. The taste is equally as clear, bright and crisp, the cold essence of romaine. This liquid salad is christened with the lemony pungence of fresh pepper, two snakey lines of tangy caesar dressing, and herbed croutons the size of split peas.
The chilled soup peers at you from beside another, this one warm. Creamy cheese, tangy tomato, hints of yeasty bread and...is that pepperoni? In contrast to the icy silk of the salad-soup, this has the luxurious feel of warm velvet against your tongue. This is pepperoni pizza distilled to its liquid essence, cheesy, somehow meaty and impossibly almost-chewy while still possessing the hearty simplicity of soup.
This is the work of an artist. Certes, this will be a dinner to be remembered.
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Date: 2006-09-27 10:18 am (UTC)