Chef’s Creation at bluezoo + that tomato salad!

This dining experience took place on Friday, April 11, 2014

We had gone to bluezoo with a specific goal in mind – to try the changed tuna from the new menu introduction – it now comes with freshwater eel (yum yum! unagi!)… However, when Tony (our server) told us that the special was Florida flounder with shrimp, razor clams and romanesco puree, we decided that the tuna and unagi would have to wait until next time.

Nick is really liking the Antidote and I can’t disagree that it’s an extremely nice, refreshing cocktail. I went with my standby… One Night in Mexico.

We had the heirloom tomato salad again. This is a regular portion.

The salted popcorn ice cream is so, so good. It adds a salty, creamy note to the salad – you might think that comes from the house made ricotta, but it isn’t salty at all… more herbaceous and milky.

One last photo (at least for this blog post) of the tomato salad.

Nick REALLY likes this salad, especially when he can get a taste of everything on the fork at the same time – he continues to say that the ricotta and tomato jam tart is a suitable dessert

I thought that there was a nice crispy crust on the pork belly and I liked the salad with cornbread croutons, a good rendition. Nick agreed that the salad went well with the pork belly, although the sweetish barbecue sauce wasn’t really to his personal liking. Also, after having experienced lamb belly, pork belly has slid down a notch or two on the list of decadent deliciousness.

Chef Jimmy came out and surprised us with some octopus sous vide. We both love octopus!

This was very tender and very tasty. The texture was not like tako (octopus sashimi). The myer lemon pudding (the yellow dabs) went very well with the fleshy octopus and the baby coconut was a surprise. A later twitter conversation with Chef Ryan revealed that our dish was missing the “kimchee lime peanut foam” – oh well, it was mighty tasty anyway!

The salad was very tart, bitter, and peppery (in a good way). The shrimp had a nice flavor and a bit of “snap” (meaning they weren’t over cooked). The pickled green pistachios were very piney (meaning that the flavor was like pine needles smell). The flounder was smooth and mild (I could eat more of that right now). The razor clams (also known as Atlantic jackknife clams) were yummy too.

Chef Jimmy came out to see how we were doing and when I remarked that the razor clams weren’t very prominent, he brought out a small dish with a few more [Thank you].

Oh, I almost forgot the wines… good thing I make notes! We asked Chad to pair the Chef’s Creation with a couple of wines.

I had the Chalk Hill Chardonnay and Nick had the Round Pond, Sauvignon Blanc. This dinner was the experience when it really hit me that we experience wines very differently, for example, here are my notes:

• Round Pond Sauvignon Blanc
  • Nick: nose smells great, the taste without food is not awful, actually pretty good, it’s drinkable on its own
  • Nora: nose is SOUR! too much citrus, the taste without food is tart and sour
• Chalk Hill Chardonnay
  • Nick: nose is grassy and smells of rubber, not so great without food, but I’m going to “trust the pairing”, Chad hasn’t steered us wrong
  • Nora: nose is citrus and smoke (?), slightly buttery taste without food

And yes, the wines paired well with the flounder.

Another excellent evening at bluezoo. Thank you to Chad, Tony, and Chef Jimmy.