A few weeks ago, I had the meal of a lifetime. As a foodie, I had always wanted to have that ?great restaurant? meal from somewhere. A place where wait staff knows what they?re talking about and chefs plate their food with ridiculous precision. I wanted pieces of art on my plate ? and be so in love with how good it looks that I don?t even want to eat it (hypothetically speaking, of course). Living in Chicago, there?s two places that stick out in my head. Alinea and L20. I had first heard of Alinea when I was actually in Hawaii a few years ago. I was purchasing a gourmet pizza from two chefs that sold their food outside a grocery store. After telling them that I was from Chicago, their eyes widened and they asked if I had ever eaten at Alinea. I hadn?t even heard of Alinea ? and thinking back, I probably?embarrassed?myself by claiming to be a foodie and not know anything about Grant?Achatz. A few months after my return to Chicago, I did my research and became extremely interested in molecular gastronomy. Next Restaurant is Chef Achtaz?s second restaurant, that had opened a few months back. Their menu rotates every few months, and is based on a specific time and place. For example, the first rotation was France cuisine in the year 1906. Just recently, my foodie friend and I had scored some tickets for their Thailand menu. I will not bore you with our many failed attempts to get them, but after much Facebook stalking and twitter following, we had obtained two of the 2,000 tickets that over 16,000 people also tried to get. Doors for dinner open at 4:45 and go well until 10pm. We went at 6:15 on a Sunday night. This is my post on my first experience at Next Restaurant. And hopefully it will not be my last. Be warned, if you want your Thailand dining experience to be a surprise, don?t keep reading! Tons of spoilers ahead.
I have to admit there are some pictures missing from this post ? I accidently deleted some pictures from my SD card and I often punch myself in the leg because of it. Any computer savvy people out there want to come salvage them for me?
The Thailand Menu was simply put ? amazing (amaesing?). Every bite had such amazing flavor I didn?t want the courses to stop coming. I wanted to chain myself to my chair and order them to get me more things. But sadly, I couldn?t. Thailand food is based a lot on street eats. A majority of Thai people are always on the move, and when they need or want to eat, they turn to street food vendors ? most of which serve mini and portable meals. At Next, they wanted to bring that aspect of their lifestyle to the diners. This first course was a platter of a variety of different types of street eats.
This was a roasted banana. Inside was fried garlic, pickled shallots, and cilantro blooms. The banana and fried garlic combination was amazing.
On the bottom right hand side is a prawn cake with white pepper, coriander, and lime zest. Crunchy and salty. Like a gourmet chip.
Oh these my friends, these are fermented sausages. It has peanut, galangal, and grilled scallions. It takes 3 days for them to sit in the sun to create these sausages. Here was my conversation with the waiter:
Wait? so? you guys had to wait 3 days before you serve these?
Yep.
Ohh.. wait.so you guys make these?
(I felt silly asking this afterwards. It was, however, my 4th alcoholic drink at this point. DON?T have happy hour before going to this dinner that has wine pairings.)
Yes mam, we let these sit outside in the alley for a few days to let them ferment. That?s how we made these.
Whoa.
Whoa. That?s how exactly it tasted. Tasted like whoa.
They were delightful! I don?t think that trying to recreate these by putting my Oscar Meyer links outside for a few days would do the trick.
This was sweet shrimp. It contains garlic, mint, and bird chilis. We were suggested to eat these last to cleanse our?palette?for the next course.
Well what do we eat first? Let me show you!
Steam buns! Steam buns with beech mushroom and green curry all placed in a bamboo steamer. Since they were the most temperature sensitive, we ate these first. Being Asian, I eat steam buns all the time. But these were so delicious!
This next course was a soup. A hot and sour soup (Similar to the Tom Yum soups you get at a Thai restaurant). This soup contained pork belly, tomato and kaffir lime.
Like any Tom Yum soup, it was both tangy and spicy. Great for warming you up!
After soup, the main course starts to come out. There are many condiments, and all of them are made with extreme detail and loaded with tons of flavor.
This condiment was my absolute favorite out of all of them. Hands down. This was salted duck egg with green mango and white radish. I finished this before the whole main course was finished twice, and the wait staff was always happy replacing me with a new one. And for that I am grateful.
This was a chili condiment with shallot and garlic.
This other condiment was pickled fruits and vegetables with basil.
The rice for the main course was placed in a bamboo container lined with banana leaves. It was steamed perfectly, light, soft and delicious.
This main course was a wild catfish braised in caramel sauce with celery and coriander root.
The plate it was served on was even in the shape of a fish! Isn?t that cute? The fish was very delicious, soft, tender, and the celery definitely hinted at that Thai food for me.
Are you ready for this one? Please prepare yourselves. Hold on to your seats.
This was my favorite course by far. This was a braised beef cheek, in a curry peanut sauce, seasoned with nutmeg, coconut, and lemon. If you don?t know anything about beef cheek, which I myself didn?t at the time, it is one of the hardest cuts of meat to perfect. Every one of my bites of this beef cheek just melted in my mouth. It was so tender and the sauce just blew the whole thing out of the water. Oh boy.
Next up is the dessert course. These desserts are different from my typical popsicles after dinner. Oh no no. Far from.
Out comes a smoked plank of wood with fresh coconut shavings. Also on there was two coconuts.
We were given the coconuts and were told to go ahead and open them since they were already pre cracked. And this is what you get when you open them. Inside was coconut shavings, corn, egg and licorice.
Isn?t it cute? Truly whoever in the kitchen that is in charge of cracking coconuts and placing the ingredients inside, let?s be friends.
The waiter then used the top of the coconut shells as a serving bowl. He then served some coconut sorbet to eat along with our pile of ingredients. Definitely beats popsicles.
The next dessert course involved this rose. (Notice the rose petals as our utensil holder.. and they also used a coconut shell as the utensil holder in the previous course)
This was a rose water dragonfruit dessert. The rose on the table was also sprayed with rose water. In between bites, you were told to smell the rose to heighten your senses when eating. Pretty neat thing to use multiple senses when dining.
To end the meal, the waiter brought back another rendition of Thai street food. This was a?roobios coffee, sweetened with palm sugar and milk. Sweet and refreshing. By the time I was done with this drink, I just knew that my amazing experience was at an end for several reasons. One was that the waiter had asked us if we preferred regular or decaf coffee after our meal. The second was that we had been dining there for almost two hours (we even apparently ate faster and passed up our table next to us that were seated about 15 minutes before us). Also, with our wine pairing and pre-dinner drinks, we were well beyond mellow. One waitstaff presented us with a Next menu for us to keep as a?souvenir.
All in all, Next set the bar for my dining experiences. The amount of talent that Achatz can be seen and tasted. The food was outstanding and complex. Waitstaff was always available, extremely great with timing and very knowledgable. Eating is definitely a different experience at Next. I want to go again. I need to go again.
So, to my readers. If you are in the Chicago area and would like to be foodies together, let?s start planning on more places!!
You can also check out my facebook album to see more pictures!
Source: http://callmeamaesing.com/onthestreets/next-restaurant-thailand-menu/
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