A couple years ago I had the amazing opportunity to eat at Alinea. Dallas and I savored every moment of the indulgent meal because we knew we’d never be back. It was just too expensive. Well, life has a funny way of surprising you and last week I had a second opportunity to eat at Alinea. We technically had the Tasting menu, but Chef Achatz customized it for our group, so if you go there tomorrow (not that you could get a reservation), you will not have the same things we ate.

I’m finally getting to sit down and write this post a week later. I’ll do my best to remember everything, with the aid of my menu, but some things are getting a little fuzzy already.

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When we were seated the waitress asked us if we would like to have alcoholic drinks with our dinner. Without hesitation we all said “YES!”. Little did we know our first course was going to be super boozy!

From left to right:
PASSION FRUIT: flor de cana 4 year, matusalem clasico, sailor jerry :: 3 types of rum plus passion fruit?!? Sign me up!

CUCUMBER: plymouth gin, rose, mint :: A little cube of cucumber with a slight dip on the top. I missed that it was cucumber and thought it was a gel cube so I was surprised by the crisp crunch. Real boozy, but the cucumber and gin together were a great match. Let’s get the party started!

KUMQUAT: rittenhouse rye, peychaud’s, demerara :: Whiskey and bitters on a kumquat. If you thought that last one was boozy, then this one put you over your limit.

CENTERPIECES: I don’t know for sure what these are called. They look like flags of rice paper. After our booze course, the wait staff came out and put them on our table without any explanations, but from past experience I knew that centerpieces are used in future dishes, so I waited patiently.

ENGLISH PEA: iberico, sherry, honeydew :: Very cold pea puree. Almost like pea ice cream. Tasted to fresh and sweet. Every bite was different because there were different things strewn through the pea mixture.

Wine: Szigeti ‘Cuvee Prestige’ with Qhilika, elderflower, and Peychaud’s

LOBSTER: lychee, gruyere, vanilla fragrance :: A piece of lobster and a piece of gruyere cheese fried in some crisp, light panko. The vanilla bean is coming out of the top. You use the bean as a handle, and eat the fried piece off of it, but you don’t eat the bean. Still, you get the fragrance of vanilla while you’re eating.

DISTILLATION: of thai flavors :: This was kind of like “what?” It looks like water, but when you drink it, it sure doesn’t taste like water. The smell was kind of like fish sauce. My fellow diner is Thai and when he drank this he was like “yep, those are thai flavors.” I’ll take his word for it.

PORK BELLY: curry, cucumber, lime :: The wait staff bring set a plate in front of you. But when you look at it, it’s a glass plate with a wooden plate underneath. The diner lifts off the glass plate. In the wooden plate there are two odd looking things you take out of the plate. When you assemble them they make a kind of framed bowl. The waitstaff take those centerpiece flags and drape them over the frame to make a bowl. The flags are rice paper with marigold and cilantro in them. Inside the rice papers they put a scoop of pork belly.

On the glass plate are your condiments. Black salt, cucumber, garlic chips, mango (?), lime, coconut, red onion, curry (in the spoon), basil seeds, micro greens, cashews.

Add whatever you want to your pork belly. Fold the rice paper and eat it. This dish was so delicious. So savory and tender. This was the first dish where you were like “ok. It can’t get better than this.” But, of course, it did.

Wine: Abbazia di Novacella Kerner, Valle Isarco, Alto Adige 2008

STURGEON: potato, leek, smoke :: OK. This dish is a little fuzzy. I remember eating it. I think I liked it, but it wasn’t a favorite of the night.

Wine: Avanthia Godello, Valdeorras, Spain 2008

SURF CLAM: celery, tabasco, thyme :: Interesting take on a classic. You can see how the dish is deconstructed. There’s even saltines on the left side.

Wine: L. Aubry Fils Brut, Jouy-les-Reims

KING CRAB: rhubarb, lilac, fennel : You don’t know when they set this dish in front of you, but it’s three parts served in one vessel. They just tell you to eat what you see and then wait. The top tier was king crab panna cotta.

Here’s a photo of my fellow diner’s dish after he ate his top tier.

So then the wait staff comes and removes the top part of the dish and reveals a king crab salad on a middle tier:

Someone at my table said they could smell fennel. But there wasn’t fennel in the dish… until the waiter lifted off the middle portion to reveal king crab cream soup:

The bottom portion had fennel and we could smell it even in the dishes where we couldn’t taste it. Also, the top two dishes were light and cold/room temp and the bottom was hot and savory.

Wine: Lucien Albrecht Pinot Gris ‘Cuvee Cecile, Alsace 2007

LAMB: reflection of elysian fields farm :: I think the liquid was like a corn chowder. The lamb itself was on a sprig of rosemary. Like the vanilla bean above, you used the rosemary for a handle to eat the lamb, but you don’t eat the rosemary.

HOT POTATO: cold potato, black truffle, butter :: This is one of Alinea’s signature dishes that is almost always on the menu by popular demand. Pull the pin through the paraffin bowl and the salt, black truffle, hot potato, chive, butter and Parmesan fall into the bowl of cold potato soup. Slurp the soup like an oyster in a half shell.

TOURNEDO: a la persane :: Before serving this dish, the wait staff came out and set down some really old china and silverware and some quaint looking wine glasses. Very different than you’d think at Alinea. We inquired about the dishes and were told that Chef Achatz found them at a local antique store. Next we were served the tournedo, which was a small medallian of Australian wagyu beef. Underneath? A fried banana and tomato. This meat was so tender we didn’t even need knives. The banana added a surprisingly nice sweetness and creaminess.

Wine: Larkin Wines ‘Jack Larkin’ Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2005

BLACK TRUFFLE: explosion, romaine, parmesan :: Another one of Alinea’s signature dishes. I remember eating this dish the first time I visited and was excited to have it again. Just as good as the first time. When this exploded in my mouth I immediately wanted to demand a bowl of them!

BACON: butterscotch, apple, thyme :: I like to call this “swingin’ bacon” because of the servicewear used! I’d seen photos of this dish and had heard about it, but never eaten it. You just pull the bacon off the wire and eat it. Yum. Crispy bacon with sweet butterscotch and apple. More please!

EARL GREY: lemon, pine nut, caramelized white chocolate :: This dish was served on top of a pillow of earl-grey-fragranced air.

As you ate, the pillow deflated, but the entire time you were eating you could smell the scent.

Wine: De Bortoli ‘Noble One’, New South Wales, Australia 2006

BUBBLE GUM: long pepper, hibiscus, creme fraiche :: Transparency of raspberry with yogurt and a shot of bubble gum flavors, served in a long plastic tube.

I was taking a couple photos as my dinner mates started to suck on their tubes. It was making such a funny noise. Everyone was commenting on it and I started laughing so hard. Then I had to suck on my tube and it made the same noise. I was literally crying laughing.

I had to wipe tears away on my napkin!

Let me take a breather, wipe my eyes, and show you the dining room.

Ok. Now the grand finale. The waitstaff asked us to lift our glasses up. They then laid out two silicon mats on our table. We had 6 people at our round table and we had to scootch to two sides and sit across from each other, three across from three. After that the wait staff started laying down the dessert’s mise en place on the open sides of our table. Who showed up next?

None other than…

… Chef Grant Achatz himself.

CHOCOLATE: coconut, menthol, hyssop :: Chef Achatz and chef de cuisine Dave Beran each took their places across from each other and painted our table with the ingredients of this dessert.

Next they plopped down this log of… who knows what! It looked like it was from outer space. We found out that it was chocolate mousse that had been frozen.

They broke the log open and it was smoldering and smoking. Like dry ice.

This is the final dessert presentation. You’ll notice that in the beginning they put down those glass beakers and poured chocolate pudding into them. At the end they took the glass part away and the pudding stayed there. In the shape of a circle. Chef Achatz then made his exit and we were free to dig in.

So the dessert is just sitting there spread all over your table. Everyone you’re seated with just starts eating it right off the table. The mousse was really good. When you put it in your mouth it was cold and frozen but it melted right away and was rich and creamy. The white menthol. Whew! That was strong!

Stuffed, stuffed, stuffed. After all those courses and that huge dessert we were so stuffed. I just had to take this one last photo of part of our dessert. Somehow when chef poured the coconut mixture out onto the table it was in the shape of circles, as was expected, but before our eyes the small puddles turned to squares! Magic.

Wine: Barros 20 Year Tawny Port

So, I think it goes without saying that this was a fabulous dinner and one I will remember for years to come. I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to eat at Alinea not once, but twice.

- Kitchen Experiments visited Alinea about a month before us and wrote a great blog post. They had the extended menu, but some of our courses overlap.

- Getinmebelly also visited Alinea just before I did and wrote a great blog post.

- Plate and Pour at Alinea in June. Some of the dishes match up, some don’t.

- Finally, here’s my Alinea post from 2007.

P.S. Another thing I wanted to mention. One person at my table had a gluten allergy and one could not eat shell fish. Both of them had modified meals based on these restrictions and were served just as exquisitely as the rest of us and witout a glitch. Alinea does a really great job at accommodating food restrictions. At the end of the night they give you a menu of what you ate and each person’s was custom made and printed showing exactly what they had, restrictions or not.

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