We are just back from a quick trip to Hyde Park which included two nights at the Culinary Institute of America. Sadly not a lot of pictures and those i have are not great.
Thursday night we ate at Ristorante Caterina de Medici. We were told by the hostess at out B&B that this restaurant is the first placement for students so they are less experienced and the service might not be perfect. Our waiter was just fine but we did watch a faculty member having another student change the tablecloth on an empty table four times until she got it right.
My meal: I started with pumpkin cappellacci with pumpkin seeds, parmegiano reggiano, butter and sage. Lovely. The pumpkin seeds gave a really nice texture.
My husband had orecchiette with broccoli rabe, garlic and anchovies. (Sorry - the picture is terrible.)
Next, I had a salad of baby greens with a mustard dressing, He had a radicchio salad with endive, grapes and walnuts.
We had the same main plate - venison loin with grappa sauce, a garnish of cauliflower and guava gel and a potato and turnip gratin.
We shared dessert: A gianduia mousee with coca crumbs, caramel sauce and cape gooseberries. I stopped myself from licking the plate. Just barely.
Friday night we ate at American Bounty. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and my husband didn't bring his phone so we have no pictures. Which is really sad as the presentations were gorgeous. I started with a roasted beet and frisee salad with baby carrots (REALLy baby carrots not the fake kind), candied almonds and a tangerine emulsion. This was easily the best presentation of both nights and I am so sorry I do not have a picture. My husband started chestnut and wild mushroom ravioli with butternut squash, crispy shallots, sage and cream.
My main plate was breast of duck with mission figs, salsify, sassafras and pine nut spinach. I wish there had been more figs but other wise it was fine.
Barney's main plate was pork tenderloin with kaboucha, freekeh tabbouleh and blood orange gel. we again shared a dessert - pressed apple - which was baked rectangles of thinly sliced apples, with smoked maple ice cream, gingerbread crumbs and caramel. Everything was good but the ice cream was absolutely amazing.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the evening came after we finished eating on Friday and started talking with our waiter. All the kitchen have glass walls onto the dining rooms and we were seated immediately in front of the pastry chefs area in American Bounty. My husband is a plumbing/HVAC contractor who has done HVAC in multiple restaurants so of course he asked about temperature control - and off we went. He ended up getting a tour of the the kitchen and an inspection of it's HVAC system. The entire kitchen was donated 2-3 years ago by Hobart and to say that it is top of the line is an under statement. The pastry area (they called it the 'pastry bubble') is kept cooler than the rest of the kitchen - although there is no physical barrier. (He told us how much cooler but what I remember is 25 degrees and that is clearly wrong.)The cooking line - with at least 25 burners and I am not sure how many ovens - is kept at a steady 68 degrees F. The pastry oven has a USB port that connects directly to the factory in Germany to be used if there are any problems. No one but the pastry chefs are allowed to touch the controls.
We were also told that the Bakery/Cafe (which was not open when we were there) had 3 kitchens, each with their own temperature (the one for chocolate work being the coolest) which have negative air pressure, ensuring that if a door is opened air will only move from the cooler room to the warmer room not the other way around.
My husband has installed HVAC systems for restaurant kitchens, research lab clean rooms and a surgical suite. He said this was very close to the surgical suite and way more complex than anything else.
I did ask our waiter if graduates used to this high tech kitchen would have trouble in the real world. He laughed and said that the kitchen in the third restaurant, Bocuse, is purposely small, loud and cluttered so they all have to work in that environment also.
We had a great time. Next time it has to be Bocuse....
