yellow truffle

And one crazed person, a foodista. WTF is a foodista?

Don't know about this place, but I do know about this address. If this location is right next to Le Bouchon and it is in a red brick free standing house, I fear that it might have a short life span. I believe the average duration of the restaurant is about 2 years. Previous restaurants were New England and Mediterranean cuisine and they were above par, but for some reason, they could not bring in the customers. Perhaps this place can break the curse.

yellow truffle, The piece is called Antiplate. Grant Achatz asked me to design a service piece for foods prearranged on a spoon (traditionally presented propped up on a napkin). The goal was to keep the focus on the food as well as make the removal of the spoon very easy and natural. The pieces currently used at the restaurant are essentially a prototype run. ← martin_kastner, Thanx for the info on the antiplate. chefg talked about this briefly in the serviceware, but at that time had not come to fruition. Glad to see the prototypes make it on the tables at Alinea. I believe that you achieved your functional goals and aesthetically it fits the overall picture. Another question, if I may, regarding the dinnerware for the 12th course, PROSCIUTTO. Was this another custom job? Being able to see a side profile of the dish was a wonderful visual approach to this course. And the curvaceousness of the dinnerware, in its convexity, furnished a very elegant platform. BTW, the contrasting textures and the subtle flavors of the creamy filling, dehydrated prosciutto and the micro mint greens worked out well in my book.

Martin, can you tell us more about the donut porcelain dish used for the ARTICHOKE. Was this a custom job? I noticed the chef did not have a folded napkins in any of the presentations.

The last 2 were filled with prune and pumpernickle puree respectively. I'm sorry but I cannot remember the toppings/garnishes for either of those 2 at the moment. ← Prune filling and plum topping? Or is it the other way around. Help. Thanx. I had that written down, but I just could not believe it. Very intense. Also, I think the bulgar was with a garlic mayo.

Talking about every single dish, would a little too much and I don't have knowledge base to articulate each item, instead I will talk about some of my favorites and hope that others will pick up my slack and fill in the blank. But let me say that I enjoyed everything. The BACON was top on my list. This was such a wonderful combination of sweet and savory in one bite. The server brings out the bow (as discussed in the Alinea Forum) and hanging from it is the bacon, sliced thin and dried. This was covered with semi-solid, gooey butterscotch and a confetti of apple. You take the bacon strip and pull it from the bow, tilt your head back, and lower in down into your mouth, similar to the PB&J dish. First, your are hit with the sweetness of the apple and butterscotch, then a finish of the slightly salty bacon. He went the full 180 in flavor range in one bite. This was a wonderful transition to the sweet part of the meal and I really loved it. I only wish that there could have been more than one bite to enjoy this dish. The ENGLISH PEAS is also up there. First the server brings out a small bowl with a green thick liquid, slightly warm, but not steaming. Then another server comes by and places a white disk, that just covers the green liquid. As the waiter explains the dish, you see the yogurt melt into the pea soup. Very nice. As you dig in, all the elements have mixed together, without any mixing done by the guest. The soup was silky smooth and the frozen lemon was crunchy and not that citrusy. The shiso herb added a sort of light and fresh aroma to what I thought would be a heavy dish. I thought this to be the prettiest of the dishes. The BEEF dish was simply amazing. For me, the idea of using A-1 steak sauce on anything, is to mask the bad or poorly prepared item. Usually the sauce is so overpowering that you forget about what you are eating and just taste the sauce. Don't expect this to taste like the A-1 sauce. What we have here is deconstructed version of the sauce and an amazingly prepared meat all on one plate. Rather than reconstructing the ingredients of the A-1, the chef showcased all of them individually, giving them equal billing. I enjoyed tasting the elements that make up A-1, and found it weird to know what actually makes up the sauce. The meat was well prepared and enjoyed it last. It's like having two dishes for the price of one. The HEART OF PALM came out in five, square pedestal, dishes and were arranged in order, of the weight of the filling. First was the vanilla pudding with avocado topping, followed by fava bean, with meyer lemon topping, then bulgar, plum pudding and can't remember the last one, but it was very intense. There were utensils brought out for this dish and one had to treat it, "as if you were taking a shot." The heart of palms were very crisp and provided a nice contrast to the pureed filling. It is an interesting experience when the skin (HOP) does not change and only the filling grows in flavor intensity. In the end, my young and inexperienced palate, found all the dishes to be mind blowing. I had throughly enjoyed the experience of the wild, yet tamed ride of flavors, aromas, textures, presentations of both the food and wine, although, there were some dishes that were more memorable than others. Everybody was very professional and not pretentious. The whole evening was extremely comfortable, from a physical and emotional level. Everything was so much fun and I had an exciting experience. There is so much to learn over at Alinea. Thanx to all involved.

Thank you. You wanna know how the food tastes? It tastes great. I will give a more detailed account later.

I though that this was an interior design and a human interface thread.

I believe that the front of the house has been practicing their routine as much as the kitchen has. Even though we were the first official paying customers, I am sure that the restaurant has had many trial runs. Their are investors to satisfy and workers to thank. With a restaurant of this caliber, they would not take a chance on doing the first night as a trial run and I don't think that we were guinea pigs. Too much is on the line.

On one of the dishes, I stood up to use the restroom and as I rounded the corner, the servers had the dish in hand. I could have ignored them and walked right past, but instead, I looked them in the eye knowing it was for our table and smiled. He smiled back and asked if I would mind. To that I returned to the table to enjoy the next course.

Canon 20D with a 10-22mm zoom lens.

I can't resist asking: Where's the beef? Underneath the fried potato chip.

The server was holding a long flat paddle wrapped in linen.

The serving piece was made of glass and it has glass balls as the feet.

9:30 for the Tour, huh. You might want to take a disco nap before going, you could be in for a long night. I am sure the kitchen will do their best to make you comfortable, and the following day they would have disclaimer on start times for the Tour menu when making reservations.

The pacing was primarily set by us. Once we were done, then they quickly sprang into action and remove/replace dinnerware. There were two occasions when they tried to take the plates before I was done. They pulled away when they saw me going for my fork. I believe they are only set for only one seating an evening. chefg was still there when we left. Our ginger was also used on course 10, Beef. The ginger was grated on a white porcelain grater until a few drops of the juice can be drizzled onto the plate. Nothing fell down or spilled. Of the 28 dishes, porcelain was used 17 times, glass 5, metal 4, acrylic 1 and fabric once. I hope to go into more detail later.

Lets do an empirical study here, shall we. With the age of digital cameras and their time/date stamps on each shot taken, one can see exactly when each dish arrived at our table. Take a look at this slide show for the times when a photograph was taken (also see the uncropped, but reduced and compressed version of the images). In the chart above, column A is the course number, column B is the time (24 hour clock) when the photo was taken, column C is the time difference (in minutes) between each dish from the time the photos were taken, and column D is the approximate bites it took to consume the dish. Row 29 is the total/average for each of the columns. Column B's total time of eating was six hours, fifteen minutes. Column C's average time between courses ended up to be 14 minutes. And in case you were interested, there was an average of 4.14 bites per course for a total of 116 bites for the whole Tour. As you can see the eating experience was around 6.25 hours. Take a look at the first and last photos from the slide show taken at Alinea, and notice the time in and out (1825 & 0147). Seven and a half hours was the total time we were in the restaurant. The other times were spent talking to Chef Grant Achatz and Mr. Nick Kokonas who took the time to give us a tour of the restaurant after everyone had left. So it is possible to shorten your stay at the restaurant if you want to bypass the smelling of the roses. This graph represents the pacing of our meal. In the early part of the Tour, we were unaware of the current time. We were just enjoying ourselves. Not until midway that we found out the time and noticed that we were no where near the end. And if we kept up this pace, we would not leave until sunrise - opening day was Wednesday, and Thursday is a workday here in the Heartland. So of course we had to speed things up. This meant less photos, no more note taking, and accelerated food/beverage consumption. I believe the graph shows this to be the case, as you notice the decline of time in between courses at the second half. This a marathon of dining. The key here is pace, find it and stick with it for the whole evening. It is best that you do not hasten your experience. This will lead to consuming just because it is there. Look at the wines that were left unconsumed. Such a faux pas. When I do the Tour again, it would have to be on a day where I am not going into the office the following day.

There seems to a concern with the duration of the Alinea experience. Please remember that this was my party's adventure. You, on the other hand, may not wish to smell the roses. When chefg was in the kitchen at Trio, the Tour de Force of 24+/- courses took us an average of six hours for my many visits there with different people. The last night at Trio in the kitchen we had 31 course and that took us over 8 hours. Of course there was a trip around the block and a stop at the now defunct Marly's Chocolates to purchase gifts for the staff. Alinea is similar. If you had the Tour de Force at Trio and you were one of the ones that can do it in under 3.5 hours, then you can do the Tour at Alinea in under 4. The staff are well trained, experienced and can read how you are progressing in your meal. They do their best to make sure their is no void in the action at the table. At our table, there was an architect/professor, facilities manager, and a graphic designer. We were deconstructing each dish before we even took a bite. And in my case taking snap shots and notes, before, during and after each item. And then savoring the item and some cross table commenting. Now repeat that for each dish and wine. But before they reclaim their dinnerware, they have to make sure that everyone is finished with their dish, and not just taking a break. Oh, and of course the restroom breaks. This all adds up. I am confident that the staff can do the Tour in an accelerated mode, but why would you. This is the Tour. And it is not for everyone. It will take some time to go through. How long is up to you. Remember that there is an option for a shorter menu. Perhaps someone can write about that experience.

28. SPONGE CAKE tonka bean, vanilla fragrance

27. LIQUID CHOCOLATE milk, black licorice, banana

26. STRAWBERRIES argan, lemon verbenna

25. SASSAFRAS CREAM encapsulated in mandarin ice

24. PINEAPPLE angelica branch, iranian pistachios

23. BACON butterscotch, apple, thyme

22. BISON beets, blueberries, smoking cinnamon