subtitle: Salt

We received a tweet from Chef Ryan the other evening, “come have dinner tomorrow night we have some great white truffle from alba” – well, you can’t turn down a Chef’s direct request can you? Not when you KNOW the food is going to be amazing… And amazing it was – the food, the drink, the service, and the atmosphere.

We had briefly met Chef Jimmy a short while back, as we were expecting Chef Ryan we were a bit surprised when Chef Jimmy came out with the starter (we later learned that Chef Ryan wasn’t at bluezoo that evening)…

All you need to know, Chef Jimmy has mastered the art of using salt appropriately. Chefs today are scared to use salt or any other seasoning that might be deemed offensive or unhealthy to diners (bogus). At our recent visit to bluezoo, Chef Jimmy showed why using salt is critical to making a great meal… read on…

The caption doesn’t do this justice. The tiny vegetables had been delivered just this morning and Chef Jimmy had pickled them. Let’s see if I can describe what was on that plate! Three spirals of ham (looked like lardon with a bit of meat). Pickled beets, radishes, carrots, and little bits of broccolini (green and purple). Topped with a swirl of fried salsify.

The fried salsify tasted like a very delicate vidalia onion ring. The vegetables were little, itty bitty, crunchy, very flavorful delights. Each vegetable tasted like itself. There was a delicate cranberry gel underneath. We were both impressed with how well the fatty pig paired with the crispy, slightly vinegary vegetables. This pairing was better than on the charcuterie (at least in our opinion), on the charcuterie board you have so many heavy, fatty (but delicious) items that your mouth gets all coated with fat and you begin to lose distinction in what you’re tasting… not so with this lovely little starter. It was amazing, bright and crisp, with unctuous fat… very, very good.

The pasta course was tagliatelli (house made), alba truffles, broccolini, watermelon radish, and squash butter sauce. When this was put in front of us, our first response was “That smells so good!” Nick had to tell me to put my fork down so that we could take photos!

There was a little bit of crunch from the sea salt on this dish. The broccolini and onions were perfect. And, every time I have cooked radishes at bluezoo, I’m amazed at how good they are (maybe I should buy a bunch of radishes and roast them in the oven the next time I make brussels sprouts?).

This was simply OMG delicious. One of the best pasta dishes that we’ve had a bluezoo in a while (I’d still like to see more stuffed pastas over the winter, or heck, anytime of the year!). This was really right up my tastebud alley – pasta, a few vegetables, richness from the truffles and butter, and a very nice bit of salt (one of my favorite things to cook for myself when I was growing up was macaroni with margarine and salt). Load of umami.

We were fortunate that bluezoo wasn’t very crowded on this Thursday night (the week before, it had been swamped!). Paul was able to get a bit creative with his mixology efforts, he made Nick a special drink with mole chocolate bitters, cardamara, cinnamon smoke, benedictine, and Breckingridge Bourbon… It smelled like Christmas (and tasted very similar to my secret recipe Spice cookies). Sorry, but I didn’t get a photo… it was very tasty 🙂

Okay, by now you know that we don’t eat beef every week. This was pretty damned good…

The beef was nicely salted with a good crust, the bordelaise sauce was slightly winey and beefy. The potato pave was excellent with it’s little dusting of salt and dollop of bernaise sauce (I don’t think we’d ever had bernaise sauce before – OMG buttery and slightly tangy – think of the best salt crusted baked potato you’ve ever eaten drenched in butter and sour cream).

The texture of the trumpet mushrooms can be a bit challenging (they can be a bit chewy and hard to break down)… I enjoyed them (but I love mushrooms more than Nick does). The parsnip puree was tasty, it tasted like Harry’s parsnips roasted in lamb fat (only without the lamb – ha ha ha).

Overall, our notes say that this was a really great marriage of flavors. Everything was made more because of the other components on the dish. And again, we noted that Chef Jimmy has an excellent way with salt.

Have you ever noticed how restaurant food is either too salty (highly processed with a lot of salt in it) or under salted (there’s no salt in the dish and none on it either). Chef Jimmy doesn’t have that problem! Everything was salted perfectly – when we had his cobia crudo a while back we noted the use of sea salt, yum.

We decided against dessert, Chef Jimmy brought out another rendition of his cobia crudo… he explained that he feels as though crudo works as an excellent palate cleanser at the end of the meal. Nice information.

This version contains cobia (the white fish, raw), pomegranate seeds, hearts of palm marinated in orange and grapefruit juice, truffle vinaigrette, and a tiny touch of citrus hiding underneath.

You could definitely taste the citrus and it played very well with the fish.

I’ve been watching an old show from BBC (so, that’s nothing new!) – it’s called the Duchess of Duke Street. Anyway the main character wants to become the best chef in England (a woman in 1901)… There’s a chef who agrees to train her… He tells her that you eat with your nose, your eyes, and lastly with your mouth, all three are equally important. Chef Jimmy certainly lived up to that tonight.

One last parting treat… Paul went back to the kitchen to find out what our last course was going to be and created a cocktail to pair with the cobia crudo…

Meyer Lemon peel, muddled & strained golden beet, American Harvest organic vodka, blood orange liquor, a touch of pineapple juice, and rhubarb bitters… I’m going to repeat myself… OMG it was delicious.

Thank you to everyone for a lovely evening. Sorry that we missed Chef Ryan. Great job by Chef Jimmy and Chef Gene (soon to join Chef Bobby in NYC). It was so nice to see Gary and Chad. And thanks again to Paul for his surprise creations (including one that I didn’t talk about :))