[Seventh in a series.] Moto is a restaurant in Chicago that serves science food (or maybe even science fiction food). I heard about it on the radio, and had wanted to go for about a year and a half. We ordered the ten-course menu, and it was incredible:
GREEK salad
GREEK salad, again
CARIBBEAN escolar
BBQ PORK & baked beans
PASTA & quail
PRIME with potato
FRUIT & bubbles
TRUFFLE & white chocolate
PERSIMMON & cream
S'MORES
Moto: Course Six: |
February 23, 2008 |
We
were getting closer to desserts, only one more savory entrée
dish left, then on to the really fun part (not that the entrées weren’t
fun...). The last of the entrees was listed on the menu as
PRIME with potato. It came out on plates that were about
four by ten inches. The plates were like miniature tables, about an inch
high. Each plate had three shallow dips in it, like little
shallow round bowls built in.
In the farthest dish to the left had a small puddle of bacon puree with three extremely thin medallion shaped slices of steak. The bacon puree was the exact brown color of perfectly crispy bacon, and the flavor was incredible. It was like the flavor of my step grandmother’s bacon (the best in the world), but intensified. The steak slices were so thin they were almost translucent, but no matter how small the pieces were, the flavor was huge – salty and slightly peppery. They were cooked impeccably, just rare, so that they were somewhat pink in the middle, and tender, and slightly juicy. Because they were sitting in the bacon puree, they had the salty, smoky flavor of the bacon.
In the middle indentation, there was a hollow cube of poached egg whites, about the size of regular dice. Inside the egg, there was a bright green spinach puree. Perched on top of it all, there was a tiny sprig of micro-greens. When I put my fork through the egg cube, the intense green spinach puree spilled out. The texture of the poached egg was perfect - firm, but not to hard, something to bite into. The delicious grassy flavor of the spinach puree with the delicate egg flavor, and the dainty greens combined flawlessly.
On the far right, was a rectangular cube of hash brown potatoes. A perfect light brown in color, they even looked crispy. The outside of the potatoes was extremely light, with a nice crunch, but the inside was tender and moist. Sometimes, hash browns and tater tots can either get too dry or too greasy on the inside, but these were moist without that oily feel. The flavor was much lighter than any I had had before, with a slightly salty and almost buttery potato flavor.
This dish went beyond any steak and eggs meal I had ever had (or imagined), the combination had me wanting more as soon as I finished. And more is exactly what I got - next came the desserts.
Email questions or comments for these two young women to webmaster@drgourmet.com.