Have a great day everyone! Eat lots of chocolate!
XOXO -
Tiffany
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Restaurant Spotlight: Next: Childhood Menu
If you live in Chicago and you have not heard of NEXT by now, you must be living under a rock! Chef Grant Achatz has created a restaurant unlike any other, where the menu changes every few months, focusing on a different time period and/or part of the world, and pre-priced tickets are sold in advance rather than diners calling in to make a reservation. And these tickets are not easy to come by! After stalking Next’s Facebook page incessantly, I was FINALLY able to score day of tickets to the Childhood menu! And what an exciting and playful menu it was! Chef Achatz and Chef de cuisine Dave Beran created a menu based on their 80's childhood in Michigan, where they both grew up. Of course, everyone has had a different childhood, but the 10 course menu was a progression of memory triggers for both T and I! The food was whimsical and delicious and the service was impeccable. It was hands down the most memorable food experience I have had to date! It was so fun to see what was coming next, and to see everyone else’s reactions when their food arrived! If I don’t get the pleasure of enjoying another menu at Next, I will still be a happy girl!
Chicken noodle soup: Move over Grandma, this is the best Chicken noodle soup ever! The noodles were actually made from chicken. Chicken! Not noodles. Such a fun play on words. Phenomenal!
Fish & chips: Art on a plate – drawn on stick-figure children fishing for a piece of walleye trapped in a woven potato net over cucumber waves, alongside a deconstructed tartar-sauce beach.Themed girl and boy plates for myself and T. Amazing.
Mac & cheese: The actual noodles were surrounded by a plethora of ingredients, as everyone has their own version of Mac & Cheese as a kid. These fun additions included ham, manchego custard, a "rock" that burst with concentrated hot-dog flavor, and tiny pasta tubes resembling the classic Kraft version. The manchego was my personal favorite.
Hamburger: By far my favorite dish of the night. The deconstructed bun was actually a sauce. The meat was to die for. It seriously tasted like I was eating an In-N-Out burger. Want more now! This plate was pure genius!
Lunch box: Just like elementary school! What am I going to get today!? Served in vintage lunchboxes (mine was Pound Puppies,) a variety of fun items were served! The apple brandy fruit leather and the truffled oreo being my two standouts. There was also a sweet note from mom or dad in the box. So fun!
“Foie”sting and donuts: Yes, foie gras frosting was served on electric mixer beaters that you got to lick off, just like when you were a kid! (A very fond memory of mine!). Dipping the cider donuts in the foie was tasty as well. This is something that I will probably never be served again, so I savored it. But, it was super rich so I couldn’t finish it all. By this point in the meal, we were verging on sugar overload, but we kept on going…
Sweet potato pie: No.Room.Left! But I love sweet potatoes! And the addition of the bourbon caramel made it heavenly. Love the campfire presentation!
Hot cocoa: Officially in a sugar induced coma, thus I forgot to take a picture. A sugar coma, just like when we were kids, right! How fitting.
We had so much fun throughout the course of our childhood adventure. It’s hard to describe the nostalgia I felt while pulling my pudding cup and fruit roll-up out of my lunch box. While my mom never gave me black-and-white truffle Oreos, she always packed a napkin and a snack in a plastic baggie! Well done Mr. Achatz! Excited to witness what is in store Next, (El Bulli menu) if I’m so lucky to score those coveted tickets!
PB & J bite in a box: Love the present given to us. I was like a kid on Christmas morning. What is in here?! We were told to pop the entire tempura fried sphere of goodness in our mouths. If we were to bite into it, the hot “jelly” and peanut butter would probably explode all over our clothes. Instead, it exploded in our mouths in a good way. Ha! Sublime.
Fish & chips: Art on a plate – drawn on stick-figure children fishing for a piece of walleye trapped in a woven potato net over cucumber waves, alongside a deconstructed tartar-sauce beach.Themed girl and boy plates for myself and T. Amazing.
Mac & cheese: The actual noodles were surrounded by a plethora of ingredients, as everyone has their own version of Mac & Cheese as a kid. These fun additions included ham, manchego custard, a "rock" that burst with concentrated hot-dog flavor, and tiny pasta tubes resembling the classic Kraft version. The manchego was my personal favorite.
Autumn in the woods: Presentation wise, this was the most dramatic. An array of smoked veggies, suspended over a torched piece of birch that brings with it the aroma of campfire. My hair smelled like I had been camping out too, but the veggies were scrumptious.
Hamburger: By far my favorite dish of the night. The deconstructed bun was actually a sauce. The meat was to die for. It seriously tasted like I was eating an In-N-Out burger. Want more now! This plate was pure genius!
Lunch box: Just like elementary school! What am I going to get today!? Served in vintage lunchboxes (mine was Pound Puppies,) a variety of fun items were served! The apple brandy fruit leather and the truffled oreo being my two standouts. There was also a sweet note from mom or dad in the box. So fun!
“Foie”sting and donuts: Yes, foie gras frosting was served on electric mixer beaters that you got to lick off, just like when you were a kid! (A very fond memory of mine!). Dipping the cider donuts in the foie was tasty as well. This is something that I will probably never be served again, so I savored it. But, it was super rich so I couldn’t finish it all. By this point in the meal, we were verging on sugar overload, but we kept on going…
Sweet potato pie: No.Room.Left! But I love sweet potatoes! And the addition of the bourbon caramel made it heavenly. Love the campfire presentation!
Hot cocoa: Officially in a sugar induced coma, thus I forgot to take a picture. A sugar coma, just like when we were kids, right! How fitting.
We had so much fun throughout the course of our childhood adventure. It’s hard to describe the nostalgia I felt while pulling my pudding cup and fruit roll-up out of my lunch box. While my mom never gave me black-and-white truffle Oreos, she always packed a napkin and a snack in a plastic baggie! Well done Mr. Achatz! Excited to witness what is in store Next, (El Bulli menu) if I’m so lucky to score those coveted tickets!
953 W Fulton Market
Thursday, February 2, 2012
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