P I C N I C

I read about Coi on some Portland cook’s blog a while ago and have been excited to go for some time. It’s not any particular cuisine, although it’s got a strong Japanese and East Asian bent. The above is beets smoked in hay, mixed with chevre and topped with sorrel sprouts. I’ve been reading about this hay smoking technique for a while now.

Martha’s favorite dish was a mushroom porridge with parsnip chips and tofu foam.

Pea juice, pea sprouts, then a cracker with dungeness crab, topped with a slice of melted pork fat. All the dishes had very colloqial names and this one was called a “crab melt”.

Wild spinach, beef, and mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes were totally amazing. I believe it was whipped cream with a little potato puree folded in.

The first dessert: lemon sorbet, pomegranate, mint, and meringue crackers. The last had a light flavor resembling bubblicous chewing gum.

This was totally amazing. Brioche breadcrumbs sauteed in butter, liquid chocolate held in a chocolate ring, “brioche ice cream”, whatever that means, tarragon, pistachio creme anglais, and a fluffy pistachio powder.

Me and Kate went to Little Big Burger for dinner. Really good food. It’s a sort of high end, local ingredients version of McDonalds, with beer. They run just about the most simple operation possible. Their menu has 6 items and there are only 2 perishable ingredients: bread and lettuce.

Tomorrow I’m off to San Francisco, to go to Chez Panisse and Coi, among other things. I would like to apologize to Katy and Elena and Matt in advance. We can still go together sometime. Anytime in fact. There are other factors in play…

One last piece of construction, the shutter for the display window.