One of my favorite restaurants in the world is Aquavit in NYC. And it's not just because they serve nine different kinds of herring.
Anyway, Marcuss Samuelsson who's the chef there is going to be at Draeger's tonight. I'm very excited...
Check out details here.
(several hours later...)
Well, I have to say that the class experience was absolutely sublime. My only complaint is that my classmates were too quick with their food thereby depriving me of the chance to rob them of it when I was done with mine.
Everything was fantastic. The evening proceeded roughly like this:
Marcus started out by talking about Scandinavian cuisine, how it evolved, why he thought it wasn't more popular than it is, how he plans on changing that (sort of) and his basic approach to cooking, combining flavors, constructing dishes, etc. Our three course meal was going to be representative of his "New Scandinavian Cuisine".
As a side note, I'd had brunch at Aquavit with Ben (who was taking this class with me) and I had dinner there once with Mark. Both were fabulous. So my expectations were plenty high.
First course was "Lobster Rolls Wrapped in Pickled Asian Pears" which were served with a frozen citrus salsa. The accompanying drink was a shot of mandarin vodka with what seemed like an ice cube but turned out to be ginger ale granite(!).
I watched Marcus make this perfectly ordinary lobster salad filling (cringing when he added cilantro as I normally hate it) and yet I could not believe how amazingly it came together. The tastes all blended, complementing each other, playing off of each other, each distinct yet none overwhelming. I didn't even mind the cilantro. The side salsa tasted like highly flavored citrus granite. A touch of fish roe on the salsa tied it into the seafood rolls nicely. And the pickled fruit wrapper nicely echoed the fruit in the salsa. Yum!
Second course was "Salt-Cured Duck Breast". I've never met a duck on a dinner plate that I liked *except* when I tasted Mark's duck at Aquavit last year. Tonight's duck was truly amazing. First of all it had a nut vinegrette on it made with nuts and duck fat(!) that was out of this world. The two accompanying sides were coconut milk bock choy and sweet potato made with some slightly spicy soy sauce. Every single bite was like a song of flavors in my mouth.
Some red wine was served with this, a red, possibly a Cab (I gave mine to Ben after tasting it).
For dessert we had "Miniature Chocolate Ganache Cakes". These were incredible delicious slighty undercooked chocolate cakes (so they were moist in the center) but it's what they were served with that blew me away... Beets. Yes, they were accompanied by a sweet beet syrup (with tiny chunks of firm beets) and a very tart yoghurt sauce. Even Ben who normally doesn't like beets at all ate every last bite and frankly I had to work really hard to keep myself from licking my plate (and everyone else's).
After dinner Marcus hung around answering questions, chatting with folks, and signing his book.
I'm looking forward to later this week. We'll be flying to the East Coast for my dad's 70th birthday and the four of us are going to Aquavit for dinner. Luckily Marcus will be back from his West Coast Tour by then and will cook for us again. I can't wait. If you're ever in New York, of if Marcus is ever in your town and if this sounds at all like your sort of thing, don't miss it.
Posted by asya at October 20, 2003 10:55 PM | TrackBack