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That is too bad about Marc, but not surprising. The question is a good one. It remains a great space.

Dessert. The first foray into the definitive round of desserts of course had to have a savoury base. That it was served with a dessert wine, the unctuous 2002 Ochs Blaufrankisch beerenauslese from Welden-am-See, Austria was the first clue. The beautiful presentation of Nicoise olive, olive oil, saffron, cherry was the second. The final determination was the taste. This was a spectacular entry into the realm of the sweet, all the while maintaining great balance. Applewood, muscovado sugar, fenugreek was intoxicating and had no separate wine pairing. It came on a skewer. Pumpkin, coconut, basil, tamarind may have been my favorite of the desserts. The coconut was in the center of the pumpkin almost like a takeoff of a fondant cake even though there was nothing cake-like about this dessert. The tamarind lent bracing acidity to the dish and IMO elevated it to greatness. The 2004 “Viognier Doux” from Bonny Doon didn’t hurt either. That wine also served the Peanut, frozen pedro ximenez. Served in the “antiplate”. Flavor-wise this was reminiscent of “Peanut Butter & Jelly”, Chef Achatz’s signature from the spring. Texturally it was totally different. Cassis, goat’s milk, beet, violet served with Olivares Dulce Monastrell 2001 from Jumilla was a beautiful dish again with impeccable balance. The “crepe” was cassis with beet “cake” around it. The light droplets were violet. The wine was spectacular as well and one of my favorites of an evening full of great wine matches and great wines. Chocolate, avocado, lime, mint was next Chocolate and mint must be a hot combo now as I also had the combination presented differently on Thursday night at Blackbird. In both cases it worked remarkably well. We were served a wine cocktail with this; Alto Adige Moscato Rosa with Crème de Cassis. Beautiful. Our final dessert was fun and delicious. Dry caramel, salt was dehydrated caramel that rehydrate perfectly in the mouth. Wonderful. I will add some observations and comments later.

Thanks for the compliment, especially coming from the master Alinea photographer himself. Our table was well situated so as not to be a direct nuisance. It just wasn't cutting it without the flash. I asked and stressed that I would desist immediately if it presented any problem. Fortunately for me it didn't seem to be an issue to anybody, other than perhaps to my wife who was facing the flash. Nobody else was, as it directed was away from anyone else. It is nice that the tables are quite well separated. Perhaps they (and other like-minded restaurants) should keep a "photo dining room" where people who get their jollies this way can dine and photograph without self-consciousness or bothering those who would prefer to dine without it.

I’m back. Tuna, yuba, miso and grapefruit was up next without a wine pairing. This was good but not one of my favorite courses of the evening. The fried yuba had an interesting texture. The next course was simply great, Chestnut with too many garnishes to list. The chestnut cream was in the back of the photo. A dollop of this with each “garnish” was amazing as each bit was different and each exceptional.Chestnut purée with (in clockwise order): bay leaf foam on top of the purée and burnt onion stuck into the purée; lightly fried celery root topped with a piece of sugar in the raw dipped in bittersweet chocolate; crumbled bacon topped with clove cream; a brussel sprout leaf shaped into a cup and filled with Burgundy truffle purée; Marsala wine gêlée (the cube shape); poached egg infused with Thai long peppercorn. The sauce in the bottom is parsnip juice. Continuing the interesting and excellent wine selections, this dish was served with 2004 Vercesi del Castellazzo “Gugiarolo” Pinot Nero Bianco from Oltrepo Pavese, Lombardia. The honeycomb centrepiece has certainly been shown and discussed before. It was used with the next dish, Opah, endive, kumquat, ohio honeycomb. The honeycomb was pressed through a special device and the resulting honey drizzled over the dish. The bacon-like opah was superb with the kumquat, endive and honey. This dish was a great example of the balance Chef Achatz achieves in his dishes. It was neither too sweet, too bitter nor too anything, but too damn good. This was paired with Domaine de Beaurenard “Boisrenard” Chateauneuf-du-Pape blanc 2002. Another of my favorites followed,The Hot Potato, cold potato, white truffle, parmesan. The pin was slid out of the cup with the ingredients sliding into the potato leek soup. The contents were eaten like an oyster from the shell – magnificent. The wine was Henri Billiot Grand Cru Brut Rose, Ambonnay. We were starting to get to the end of the savory portion of the meal. The next course was one of the largest, Duck, quince, onion, pillow of mace air. This dish was very clever. The plates were rested on pillows. The weight of the plates would slowly cause the pillows filled with “mace air” to decompress releasing the air to the diner and flavoring the dish olfactorially. My two favorite components were the foie gras and the duck skin. Yum. The Clos Vougeot Grand Cru “Musigni” 2001 from Gros Freres & Seour wasn’t too shabby either. This was a premium upgrade. I’m not sure if this was the “Kobe Lozenge”, but the next course was Kobe Beef, yogurt, squash, smoked paprika candy. Another stellar combination, this was served with d”Arenberg “The Ironstone Pressings” 2002 from McLaren Vale, Australia. This concluded the savory portion of the meal. Coming up later will be desserts, kitchen and additional commentary. edited to add details to Chestnut.

Spectacular food! The little crabs look sensational. This obviously did not correspond fully to the menu in the photo as some of the courses differed. Did you ask for substitutions?

Thank you, Molto. We did indeed have the tour. It consisted of 27 courses and 18 wines. The best cheese puff I can imagine was next up. It was Spanish Idiazabal with some maple syrup and smoke. There was some freshly grated Idiazabal coating the puff. The cheesiness was truly sublime. Although it is not absolutely apparent in the photo the puff was on the tip of the arcing spearpoint that has been used with other dishes in the past. This was served with Clos Mogador 2002 from Priorat in Spain. This was one of the premium upgrade wines. I love pistachios, but I have never had them like I had them in the next dish, Lamb, potato, pistachio, sweet spices. Iranian pistachios were stewed like beans to achieve a soft, creamy consistency. These are seen in the foreground of the photo. In addition there were ground fresh pistachios. The textural contrasts were wonderful as were the great flavours. This was served with 1999 Chateau Troplong-Mondot from St. Emilion. Served in the traplike pedestal, one picke up th cinammon stick handle to eat Sweet potato, bourbon, cinnamon fragrance like a lollipop. This morsel also had great balance and depth of flavor. This did not have an accompanying wine. The next course was one of the most interesting of the evening, but also the only one that I felt was slightly out of balance culinarily as I felt it had just a bit too much sweetness for my palate. This was Matsutake, pine nuts, mastic, rosemary. Prepared like a bread pudding with pine nut and rosemary gelees, this dish had mastic cream poured over it tableside. There was something vaguely reminiscent about this dish. It transported both my wife and I to a different location and a different era, albeit one we never lived through. My wife said that it reminded her of the apartment open for touring in Gaudi’s Casa Batllo’ (La Pedrera) in Barcelona. As strange as it was, I had to concur. Somehow this dish gave us the sensation of Belle Epoque Barcelona. That one sense can evoke others is nothing new. There is even a term for this – synesthesia. People describe sound in terms of color for example all the time, but I have personally never experienced this specific kind of phenomenon that we did with this dish. Perhaps there was something in the aroma of the dish that evoked similar subconsciously experienced aromas that we experienced in the apartment. It was strange, but real to us. I doubt that was the specific intention of the dish, but it was fascinating. Perhaps adding to the sense of another time and place was the delicious 1978 Sercial Madeira from Vinhos Barbeito. Marcona almond, white ale, tonka bean malt was served on a spoon. Excellent. The next course was a mid-dinner palate cleanser – Yuzu, pine, black sesame. This fun dish required mixing the frozen and non-frozen components to form a sort of slurry. It was a great palate revitalizer. Neither this course nor the preceding one had associated wine pairings. To be continued….

My wife and I had dinner at Alinea last night. It was the second time we had been there and the first since last May shortly after it opened. That dinner will always be special to us as we had our two eldest sons with. It was particularly fun to share the dinner with them and my son’s friend. As wonderful as that dinner was, the food last night was even better. While I have been blessed with a number of spectacular meals in my life and particularly this year, last night’s dinner is second only to my dinner at El Bulli in my experience. This is the kind of restaurant and food that clearly floats my boat. While I realize that this food may not be for everyone, it sings clearly and beautifully to me. The combination of artistic, but playful creativity, sensational service, imaginative and spectacular wine pairings and tremendous flavor combinations that really work all set in an elegant, but comfortable environment is to me the restaurant ideal. We opted for the tour with wine pairings including several available upgrades. Our first glass was the Pommeau de Normandie “Couer de Lion” from Christian Drouin. I had never had this before. It was dry with fine fruit, a revelation and a perfect accompaniment to out first bite, Pear with Celery leaf and branch and curry. This dish was stylistically reminiscent of Adria’s Olivo Sferico, which is the essence of olive in a liquid encased in a soft shell that explodes in one’s mouth bathing it with the incorporated flavors. The flavors in this orb were simply delectable with just enough curry to add intrigue and balance. Next up was Salsify braised and fried, parsley, smoked salmon served with Wieninger Nussberg, “Alte Reben” from Vienna 2001. The salsify root was cooked sous vide, split down the middle to form branches and the branches were then fried to crispness. Embedded within the branches was a cooked oyster. The wine actually comes from the city of Vienna and is a cuvee of grapes grown in that city. The overall effect of the combination was delicious. Mango with sesame oil, soy nd bonito was an example of cleverness that really worked. This dish was fun. It came out frozen. One picks it up by the pin and places it on the tongue. The first taste is of bonito followed by soy then sesame and last the mango to freshen the palate. King crab, tropical fruits, meyer lemon, vanilla served with a white Grenache from the Priorato, the 2004 Conreria d’Scala Dei “Nona” followed. The tropical fruits consisted of passion fruit puree, papaya, kiwi, banana chips and vanilla toasted rice. Unfortunately, I cannot definitively remember the red fruit in the middle of the photo. This delightful dish was one of my wife’s favorites. A special surprise awaited us next. After reading all about the Truffle Explosion here I inquired about it at the beginning of the meal. Apparently the restaurant has had some trouble securing a reliable truffle supply of late due to recent climatic conditions around Alba. Fortunately the kitchen still ha some and Chef Achatz sent us up this course, Truffle, broccoli exploding ravioli. The addition of parmiggiano helped make this the most intensely delicious truffle experience of my life so far. This was a veritable “Wow! “ and one of my two favorite dishes of the evening. Keeping to the exotic and unusual nature of a number of the wines presented, the next wine wa Movia “Veliko Bianco”, Goriska Brda from Slovenia near the Italian border. Like all the wine of the evening, this wine had a tremendous nose. This matched the Halibut, brown butter, parsley and capers superbly. All the elements of this dish other than the halibut and the “lemonade” on top were in powdered form. Other than the halibut, the key element of this dish to me was the lemon. Delicious. The time came to move into the red wine sector. The pedestrian Napa Valley was represented by the 2002 Cabernet sauvignon from Honig. This was a sensational wine that I could have gone on drinking for a long time and I might have if it weren’t that I knew so many other fascinatingly delicious wines were still to come. It didn’t hurt that this wine from the Rutherford bench went with what was my other favorite dish of the evening, Bison with persimmon, cranberry and juniper aroma. This dish was absolutely extraordinary. This dish is an argument for an ala carte menu as I could have continued eating this for quite some time. As it is late and I am exhausted I will continue this tomorrow.

I have no doubt that this can be so. The quality of the product brought to my table was excellent and clearly had potential. Unfortunately much of what was on the plates tasted rather awful. There was too much of an imbalance toward bitterness in his flavor profiles. Nevertheless these dishes looked beautiful and the service was excellent.

Thanks.

Please tell us more about this place. Where is it in Brooklyn?

Wow, what a thread! What increedible dining! I have to get back to Philly expressly for this.

Steven, you are not really taking much of a leap here by saying that the best dried herbs are better than the worst fresh herbs. The best dried herbs cannot compare to the best fresh herbs, even if they maintain their place in the kitchen by their sheer availability. I don't believe that it is seasonal either as even dried herbs lose their potency over time.

Toque has always been a restaurant to promote local ingredients. Whether they are still doing so I cannot say as unfortunately it has been awhile for me since I've been there. David macMillan has always been good about using local ingredients as well. I daresay many if not most of the top-end restaurants do. Perhaps they don't use them exclusively, but I would bet they use them to a significant degree. I am salivating just thinking about Quebec foie gras and salt-marsh lamb.

Felix, no doubt for what you are describing you are correct. for those of us with an occassional jones for spanish style tapas there is little in this country outside of Jaleo in DC that I have found that can beat it. As expensive as it is it is still cheaper for a NYer to go there than to DC or Donostia.

The key to both Dim Sum Dynasty and Silver Pond is getting there at the right time. You don't to go Silver Pond, for example, after 1:30PM -- and you never, ever want to take anything off a "Mixed" tray. Ever. You follow that rule, you will never get cold fried items at Silver Pond again. At Dim Sum Dynasty, they told us the best time to be there is at 12 noon, because then a lot of stuff is just getting out of the steamers and the fryers and they are putting them in the oven to keep warm. ← I've never been to Silver Pond later than noon. I had the worst soft-shelled crab ever there. In fairness, I have had some very good dishes too, but my experience is too stay away from the fried dim sum and go more with the steamed. At DSD, it seemed as if everything was prepared to order for us on Friday. Of course they didn't have the carts nor the selection that generally goes with them.

a bigger mistake i cannot think of. ← At this point neither can I- at least not in the realm of food.

This was how Ed Behr described it when he wrote about it in The Art of Eating. That is to say he described as a working class restaurant catering to locals.

My wife and I had lunch there last Friday. We shared the chicken hot and sour soup (good), the pea shoot/shrimp dumplings, golden crab claws, spring rolls, shrimp dumplings and beef chow mai fun. The dim sum was the best I've had in a while as it was all extremely fresh and hot. I found what I had to be much better than Silver Pond of late. Many of the fried dishes there that have come from carts have been cold and greasy. Not so these. The beef in the noodle dish was excellent though a bit sparse. the noodles themselves, however, were no better than ok. We made the mistake on Saturday night of ordering take-out from Ying-Ying rather than the usual Hunan Villa.

Excellent report, Robert. Sea urchin has always reminded me a little bit of coffee yoghurt. Thinking of this dish is making me salivate.

Ah, but are there other restaurants in NY serving that kind and quality of food for that money? ← I guess you're asking if there are other, cheaper high-end tapas places in NYC. Good question. Are there? ← Not that I am aware of. Welcome to eGullet, Felix!

Ah, but are there other restaurants in NY serving that kind and quality of food for that money?

I think that aprt of the allure of L&B is that they have been around for a long, long time and there is a huge nostalgia appeal. Personally, I haven't had it since I was a kid so can't say one way or the other. It does, however, elicit many fond memories for former brooklynites.

Do you think they are likely to succeed? Why or why not?

Ms Reichl is certainly practicing what she is preaching. There is a nice article in the latest issue of Gourmet about high end restaurants that are looking at sustainability issues when composing their menus. Chilean sea bass for one is off the menus of restaurants like Le Bernardin. Kudos to them. It is getting to be very difficult being a lover of seafood. It must be even moreso to be a seafood restaurant with a conscience.

My wife and I used to love lemon chicken in Chinese restaurants in NYC back in the 1980's, but then either the preparations started getting too sweet or our tastes changed. I made this dish for dinner tonight with your recipe and used even a little less sugar than you suggested. It was excellent. Thank you for restoring my faith in this dish. I served it with steamed broccoli and rice with bacon and scallions.