hamburgertuesday:
I ordered the Vespertine x Alinea takeout and found it a little too precious. Later looked at the “be the chef” version instructions and lost my mind. It was like 45 pages of insanity that no home cook would be able to pull off, successfully, in a reasonable amount of time—EVEN if they’d given instructions in advance. I work at a 1-star and even I wouldn’t do all that shit just trying to have a nice meal with my family.
It was indeed more work than I’ve ever done for “take out” at home, and the entire meal did take a long time, like 3 hours. But my wife and I had a blast and I’d do it again. The skill required was relatively low, so I disagree that no home chef could pull it off:
Interesting to see how the dishes are supposed to be plated vs. what I managed at home with my wife. As you can see, our plating improved throughout the night. I won’t repeat @PorkyBelly ’s excellent summary, so here are some things to keep in mind for the “chef at home” option.
Time. We needed about 3 hours to complete the meal between unpacking, preparing the wine, assembling and heating the dishes, and eating. And in that time, it didn’t feel like a particularly leisurely meal between t…