You have not lived.

Seriously.

On Saturday, I had what was probably the best meal ever. This was a meal that will change your entire outlook on life.

Here's the deal. The style is basically "avant garde." The chef/owner Grant Achatz has got a serious pedigree. CIA. He worked under Thomas Keller at French Laundry in Napa Valley (universally considered one of the best restaurants in the world) and spent some time with Ferran Adrià at El Bulli, also highly regarded, and the originator of this sort of food deconstruction. Helmed his first kitchen at a place called Trio in Chicago, where he continued further experiments in this style. Now that he has his own place? He's just gone and taken it to the next level.

I have been hearing about this or well over a year. I originally planned on heading there last summer, only two months after it opened, when I was in Chicago last summer. Alas, any hopes of a reservation were quickly dashed as it was instantly booked solid. I now know why.

This summer, I decided I wasn't going to let anything stop me, and planned a trip specifically around visiting this restaurant for my birthday. That's it, basically. Fly in, spend an afternoon bumming around, eat, fly home.

It was worth every penny.

This isn't just an appetizer/soup/entree/dessert type meal we're discussing. We are talking about a 24 course experience that really can't be just described as a meal. It was more than that. To get clichéd, it was pure art. Pretentious? Oh hells yes. But fuck if they didn't live up to it. (there is also a shorter 12 course menu. Did anyone here really think I would settle for that? Seriously? After blowing $1200 on airfare and hotel, you think I'm going to skimp out on the whole raison d'etre? BAH! I say.)

For one thing, not only is the food cooked/frozen/atomized/gelled/foamed in non traditional ways, he's gone out of his way to change the way you are actually eating. Utensils and dishes? Nothing is as it seems.

Ready for the tour? Let's begin.

Course 1:

Corn. I was still nervous that this was going to live up to my expectations, and that fear was instantly dashed. The server brought out a small piece of plexiglass, about 2"x2"x1/2" standing upright, and placed it down in front of each of us. On one side there is a small metal "shoehorn" for lack of a better word, with a sugarcube sized lump of yellow and white, with a small pile of lime, cayene pepper and a third substance (Cucumber?) resting on three of the four corners. The yellow and white were frozen coconut and corn.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/corn1.jpg

One little bite. Less than, even. It rocked my world. I could easily say at that moment, that it was the single best bite of food I'd had in 6 years. It changed flavors in my mouth at least 3 times.

At that point I knew: It's on.

Course 2:

Yuba. essentially soy curd. The stuff they skim off the top of tofu, sounds delicious right? Surprisingly, YES. A stick about 5 inches long, wrapped with prawn and orange, and sticking out of a double rocks glass, with an orange miso mayonaise on the bottom. Couldn't get enough of it. It was like a high end shrimp flavored pork rind.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/yuba-l.jpg
Prepared the same way, but I had the rocks glass. Now I feel ripped off.

Course 3:

This is where things start really getting good. A strip of heirloom tomato, about 6 inches long, and 3/4" wide, with divots where the seeds were. Each divot had something different: a small cucumber blossom, a sliver of dried sausage, a small pile of couscous, a small pile of chopped cucumber. Each of them went fantastically with the tomato, but the real star was the crouton. Hints of garlic and bacon as it just fell apart in your mouth. Oh yeah, and there was a two inch diameter bubble of inflated mozzarella, with tomato foam inside. Yeah, you read that, inflated mozzarella bubble. Even better than it sounds.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/tomato.jpg

Course 4:

Mackerel. This one comes in a bowl, with a spoon resting across the top, and hooked into a slot on the rim of the bowl, oh yeah, and the bottom of the bowl was round, so you had to hold it in your hand or it would tip over. On the spoon is a bite sized piece of mackerel, flavored with I-don't-even-remember-what-but-it-was-good, and in the bowl was a lemon/coconut milk mixture. You take the bite of mackerel, and then instantly finish off the liquid as a chaser.
(I don't have a picture of the mackerel, but they used to use the same bowl to serve foie gras and blueberry soda (which I would have loved to try myself, sadly, the fucktards in chicago's city council decided to ban the sale of foie gras at restaurants in the city as of this past June.) Oh yeah, and I screwed up my initial description: Quite obviously from the picture, that's a fork, not a spoon.)

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/foiegras-l.jpg

Course 5:

Hamachi. Continuing the fish portion of our program. A small piece of hamachi, (1"x2" roughly)mildly roasted, with a satay sauce on top. Around the plate are dollops of buttermilk custard and blackberry gel, as well as green peanuts. Pretty much every combination worked fantastically.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/hamachi27.jpg


Course 6 (or why my wife is awesome):

In all of the reviews of their opening summer, there was one course that was universally pointed to as emblematic of the restaurant. Bacon. One single slice, hanging from what can best be described as a trapeze. Coated with butterscotch and wrapped with sliced apple. It was the one thing that made me go "I have to try this place" even if it amounted to a mere pittance of the meal, it just sounded so good. Well, it hasn't been on the menu for months now (they completely overhaul it and throw new things on there seasonally) and I was somewhat disappointed but figured I would be blown away by enough other things that'd make do without it.

Well, my wife, knowing my feelings, called them up on the sly before we went, and asked if we could make a request, and BINGO, two trapezes with bacon a dangling come out to our table. I was floored. (She was disappointed that everyone else that night got the bacon as well, whereas I thought it was awesome that they changed their menu for everyone in the restaurant just for me.)

I have to say, it was every bit as good as I imagined. Perfectly crispy, and the flavors of the butterscotch and apple just totally rocked.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/bacon.jpg
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/bacon-side.jpg


Course 7:

Kobe Beef. Beginning with the bacon, the arc of these four courses were easily the high point of the meal. Two bite sized pieces of perfect kobe beef. Two bite sized chunks or watermelon infused with red wine and dusted with chocolate powder. One small piece of pickled watermelon rind. As well as a nice sized serving of chocolate foam. Altogether? Out of this world.

I don't have a picture of the kobe beef, so here is a picture of Kobe Bryant instead.
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/kobe-l.jpg

Course 18:

Hot Potato, Cold Potato. A small clamshell sized bowl is handed to you, with a pin inserted through the side. Skewered on the pin is a small baby new potato, with a sliver of truffle, a cube no more than a 1/4" square of each of butter and parmesan. The pin is pulled through the bowl from the outside, dropping the hot baby new potato into a cold potato/truffle cream broth, and the entire thing is taken in one bite, as though one is eating a clam. One of the high points of the meal, but how can you go wrong with truffles?

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/hotpotato-l.jpg
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/potato.jpg

Course 19:

Pork. This I loved, but was mildly different from the dish I was expecting (which, on the menu had bison instead of pork). A large rectangular flat dish, with a small divot off center contained a hash of pork and gruyere cheese over a bed of raisin sauce, with a flavored salt powder crumble off to one side. I'm not positive, but the savory duck stock flavor so prevalent in most french cuisine seemed to be present here, almost to the point of distraction, but still enjoyable. The flavors played very well with each other, but the interesting part wasn't necessarily just the horizantal mixture of flavors in this plate alone, but the vertical one, as it was at this point in the meal that you realize, retroactively, a number of flavors which had carried throughout, and had sort of been hidden in the background, such as the duck stock itself, and the fennel which had popped up time and again (though not in this dish). Almost as if there was a common theme of flavors that you don't unlock or realize until the very end.

(with the bison)
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/bison.jpg
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/bison-l.jpg

This is the point in the meal when I realized that I was pretty much at their mercy. If the server had come out to describe a dish made from the droppings of the urban rodents, I have to say I would have at least considered eating rat turds. And I would bet that they'd be pretty tasty too.


Course 20:

Sassafras. A small frosted glass plate is brought out, no more than 2" in diameter. It's actually a cylinder about 3/4" high, with a slot for the serving knife to hold it and a circular indentation about an inch and a half wide in the center. In the center is a small bite size frozen piece of white custard, with sassafras and sherry vinegar dolloped in the center of it. This was held on a pin, which you just grab and pop into your mouth. Another one to just savor.

Similar dish with mango:
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/mango.jpg
and with pineapple:
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/pineapple-l.jpg

Course 21:

Raspberry. This is where I stop remembering things as well. Mostly because I was on just about my 12th glass of wine (as it was the wine pairing, they weren't full pours, although they were certainly more generous than the usual half pours you get iwth a wine pairing). The dish itself? Raspberry, goat milk and red pepper taffee, with crumbled pistachios and pistachio powder? How bad could it have been? The wine however, was starting to really shine. This course had an absolutely delicious sparkling rosé (white moscato grapes, with red brachetto), that played off of the raspberry perfectly.

Course 22:

Chocolate. We're full on into the desserts now. A twirled ribbon of chocolate cream ran the length of the plate, with various gels and syrups made from green tea, elder flower and umeboshi sorbet. I say chocolate cream, because on the plate it had the semi solid consistency of cake frosting. As soon as it hit your mouth, however, it turned into pudding. Indescribable.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/chocolate.jpg
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/chocolate-l.jpg

Course 23.
Coffee. A frozen cylinder of coffee, with a coffee sauce inside of it, paired with a bit of buckwheat ice cream, and dollops of mint and passionfruit sauces. I barely remember it, but I do remember devouring it.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/coffee.jpg
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/coffee-l.jpg


Course 24:

Peanuts served five ways. An array of five peanuts, each on the end of a flexible skewer fanned out before you, and protruding from a metal base, all of which can be removed individually. The first had celery. Would never have expected it, but it was fantastic. Actually, it worked on a number of levels, because the celery flavor itself, recalled the earlier mussel/clam dish, and the combination recalled the flavor of the green peanuts.

http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/peanutpeacock1.jpg
http://www.bluegrin.com/images/alinea/peanut-l.jpg


One, a small grape, covered in peanut dust, evocative of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (though not nearly as much as their old opener, the "PB&J" which was a larger grape, covered in peanut and pankow breadcrumbs, and served in the Squid.)

Another had chocolate. And another, honey. two classic combinations.

The last, of course, was a bit of Elvis's favorite, with banana an peanut butter. None were more than a morsel, and ALL of them had a ton of flavor to enjoy, and it just wrapped everything on a nice note.

What's the final verdict?

OH. MY. GOD.

A lot of people are put off by this sort of thing. It's a rather scientific approach to cooking, that makes some people uncomfortable. But in spite of the techniques, the man is just a damn good chef in the classic sense (as shown by the squab, the pork and the beef, among others) and this sort of thing just gives a whole host of new avenues to explore.

All in all, as I said, it was worth every penny, and I'll probably try to do it again next year some time. It wasn't just a meal, the whole thing was an experience. All in all, it took just a shade under 5 hours. Each course was more than just food, it was entertaining. Both from the manner of eating, the presentation, and of course, the flavors themselves being combined in new interesting ways.

The future of cooking? I don't know, but it's certainly a style that will last for a while, because the potential is out of this world.

If you have the means, an appreciation for really good food, and an open mind, I highly recommend it. Next up for me? Well, I'm thinking about a trip to Barcelona to check out El Bulli.