I started
out my weekend with a foolish thought that perhaps Chicago during an
unseasonably warm time would have a mild St Patrick’s Day celebration. The
smatterings of thousand green t-shirt wearing revelers, half of them shouting
and using the holiday to feel as if they can out drink a person of Irish blood
was maddening. My friends and I had noticed, as I hope some of you have, that
some women have found that every holiday has become appropriate to dress like a
prostitute. The sea of dyed green on the Chicago river reminded locals that at
least there was one uniform color on a river that should be dyed light blue
(instead of the puke brown) the other 364 days of the year. I knew a few
minutes after noon, thirty people deep in a sweaty crowd for a peak of the parade
on Columbus Drive that I had enough. A teenage girl next to me in the crowd,
her arms folded like mine, looked around and said “this really isn’t fun.”
Five years
ago I celebrated a rather inebriated and yet surprisingly memorable St Patrick’s
Day in Limerick, Ireland. At twenty-five, drinking to excess seemed appropriate
as my friends at school and I realized that we were in the last vestiges of
using our either immaturity or devil-may-care attitude. One of those friends,
Stevie, chose to visit Chicago for the first time with her friend from Las
Vegas, Ashley. Wanting to show them a good time, at least where their swanky
post-modern Dana Hotel was stationed in River North. Seeing glimpses of the
gathering storm that was asshats in downtown that day before, I decided to get
some culinary joys in early.
On Friday
night we agreed to join in for a dinner at Chef Paul Kahan’s New American
legend that started it all in the West Loop – Blackbird. The winner of multiple
James Beard culinary awards seemed to have the magic formula between the stark
white walls and rustic wooden floorboards of its minimalist dining room. To be
sure, we sat at the end of the bar where a very knowledgeable and friendly
bartender served us up drinks to loosen up our wallets.
For an appetizer
I chose the blue hill bay bouchot mussel bisque with crispy potato, nicoise
olive, tomato and olive oil. I’ve had better bisques, for two main reasons.
First, one of the mussels wasn’t properly cleaned. When I took a bite, I nearly
had my tongue ripped open by a jagged shell that remained inside. Second, as I
cautiously waded into the soup for multiple spoonfuls, I was hoping for some
balsamic or crème friche to break up the watery pepper flavor.
The main
dish was the most impressive - chickory glazed lamb belly with escarole,
crunchy turnip, pine nut hollandaise and preserved meyer lemon. The lamb had
little of that gamey taste you get from lamb or duck. A hollandaise so buttery
delicious pulled the entire dish together. I secretly wished to ask for a small
to go container of it so that I might put it on every dish at home from popcorn
to salmon. My friend Stevie’s dish of aged duck breast simply was not impressive
to me thanks to the chewiness of a mediocre bit of bird.
Going for
broke – literally – I asked the girls to share with me a plate of toasted
peanut cake with balsamic carrots, buttermilk and lime. Another artfully
presented plate shattered the notion of cake as every bit is scattered around
in shapes and forms that are creative enough to not be presented. I almost wished the standard complimentary palate cleansers of beautiful dark chocolate balls and soft vanilla French cookies could have been more, much of what I felt about my Blackbird experience.
That is
where I drew the line, not because of the creativity, which I applaud, but the
damn small portions. I am not a red-blooded American pounding my chest for meat and
expecting to be gorged like a beast on a chain. All I am asking if for slightly
larger quantity of food to make my sixty dollars go as far as possible when
other elements are lacking. Any restaurant that would have these items would be
a band apart from the thousands of chain or mediocre restaurants, some of them
well known. Perhaps because Blackbird has become a name for excellence I was
quite judgmental of every aspect. I know a creative and backbreaking mind like
those behind the dining in the cramped spaces of the kitchen are artists, just
as ready to be challenged. I hope that Paul Kahan’s other staple restaurants in
the area of Avec and The Publican are a step above what Blackbird has – I’d
really like to embrace this food evolution in Chicago and believe that hype as
well.
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