finally.
@ me if you want to go halfsies.
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Just pulled the trigger. My Hannukah present to me!
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I went for the chef at home option because it will take me some time to get home anyway. Let’s see if it’s a lot of work!
I will give a full report later but the chef at home option is super fun. Never used so many different pans and tools to assemble takeout before lol. For example, below I am making a foam to garnish a soup.
If you want to eat and that’s it, don’t do the chef at home option.
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what tools do they ask you to use?
Plan for some small sauce pots (smaller the better), a few other standard pans, a whisk (or better yet an immersion blender or electric blender to make foam), rubber spatula, micro plane grater, and bowls for each course. Also good to have chopsticks or tweezers ready for plating. You will need an oven capable of 400 F.
What’s nice about the chef at home option is you can taste each component before you assemble to get a better appreciation for the dish.
Downside: 5-15 minutes of work for each course.
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vespertine x alinea
this was a fantastic meal and probably my favorite vespertine menu so far. the only thing i didn’t like was the supplemental table dessert, the flavors were way too christmas-y and tasted like i was eating a melted box of candy canes, fruitcake, toothpaste, and altoids. the other slight hiccup was the black truffle explosion–it had the truffle, but the explosion was missing from what i remember having at the restaurant. everything else was great.
pear | celery leaf & branch, curry
this had a liquid center with flavors of curry and pear, refreshing and delicious start. highlight.
oyster cream | lychee, horseradish, chervil
i thought this was brilliant, the oyster flavor was infused in the custard cream and the lychee mimicked the texture of the oyster. highlight.
duck | pumpkin, banana, thai aromatics
you eat the incredibly soft and tender bite of duck and then chase it down with the pumpkin and banana soup and it all worked together. brilliant.
halibut | shellfish custard, hyacinth vapor
for this dish you’re instructed to heat some water and pour it into the outer bowl to release the hyacinth vapor while you eat. i didn’t get much of the vapor but the shellfish custard and halibut was delicious and perfectly cooked.
black truffle explosion | truffle, romaine, parmesan
this required some cooking, and came with its own steel mesh ball. you need to poach the pasta, and in a separate pan warm up the truffle butter, combine the two and then plate (or in this case “spoon”).
bacon | butterscotch, apple, thyme
what’s not to like? highlight.
beef | elements of root beer
tender and fatty with a sweet glaze, i think there were some stewed prunes and fennel in there too.
idiazabal | maple, smoked salt
umami in cheese-chip form. highlight.
chocolate | avocado, lime, licorice
this was delicious, stick with this and skip the supplemental table dessert.
dessert on your table | gingerbread, peppermint, white chocolate
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Santa came early and gave you a lightbox!
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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.
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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 the excitement of eating and preparing, but in that regard, I found it one of the most unique take-home meals we’ve ever had. Especially because you do feel a bit closer to the food than you would be if you just ate it.
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Tools needed to prepare. Covered this in my post above. We washed the same few saucepans from course to course to avoid a sink full of dishes at the end of the night. The skill needed isn’t very high, you are after all reheating rather than actually cooking, but it does help to know your way around the kitchen in terms of timing and getting everything on the plate at the right temperature. Make sure you have a rubber spatula so nothing goes to waste between transferring from the takeout containers, to the cookware, and then onto the plate.
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Wine pairing. So many ways to go, there is no right answer. We drank a Walter Scott Seven Springs Chardonnay from Oregon up through and including the duck course. The duck dish is dominated by Thai flavors and the soup, so I don’t think you need to go to a red. A white or rose that is food friendly (i.e. high acid) and low/no oak will do fine for the vast majority of this meal. The beef course is a bit more tricky. You have vanilla in the potato puree and root beer and prune in the sauces. So there’s a fair amount of sweetness. I ended up choosing a California syrah with lots of blueberry-like fruit in it. Something less austere worked here for me, could also do a more smooth Cote Rotie like Xavier Gerard. I do think you need tannin and acid, because that beef is incredibly rich.
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Verdict. Loved this meal, everything was great. There is a nice progression of dishes, especially in the transition from savory to dessert were both flavors are blended. My highlights were the duck dish (a shot of heat, great flavors) and the dessert (not too heavy, fun). We were absolutely stuffed by the end of the meal, probably due to the gaps between each course to stop and prepare.
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The Vespertine takeout series has been a hit-and-miss affair for me. Greatly enjoyed Yucatán and Cuba, greatly disappointed by Japan, Sicily somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately Alinea didn’t quite meet the hype IMO, landing somewhere between the latter two.
The overriding issue with the meal was that the dishes just seemed a touch too complex and ambitious to really shine as a take home experience. Temperatures, textures, essences, presentation…all tough to replicate at the high level that these dishes require and deserve.
Prime example was the Halibut course. I got a blast of the hyacinth scent when I opened the box, but the hot water gimmick didn’t really work so that aspect of the dish kinda fell flat. We also microwaved it per suggested instructions (protip — don’t do this) and while I did it carefully in short increments, it still left the fish slightly tough / overcooked and the shellfish custard more of a melted soup. The flavors were still there and the shellfish soup-custard was particularly yummy, but it was hard not to feel like we were eating a B-rate facsimile of what the dish should be.
Another letdown was the truffle explosion supplement — one of them arrived punctured and leaked out while poaching. Major bummer.
The beef was nice, the caviar supplement was generously portioned, and the soup of the duck course was phenomenal, but overall it felt like we spent a whole lot of time trying to balance a piece of bacon on a coat hanger and talking about how the dishes probably work/taste/smell as an experience when prepared and served professionally.
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WeWantPlates is going to have a field day on that last one.
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WHO HAS TO
WASH THE DISHES
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I was going to make a Super Chargers joke but i didn’t think a)anyone still remembers the Chargers are a football team or b) that the plates underneath are called Chargers. Go Bolts
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This fuddy duddy still remembers when Dan Fouts would connect with Kellen Winslow (Senior) on ABC’s Monday Night Football.
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They just playin’ with expectations, man.
Haha that’s great
alinea to-go
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How prophetic!
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