Category: Restaurants & Stores

Entertainingly, those oddly sandy gram-flour balls sold at Ambala as desserts, studded with pistachios, make a very nice breakfast indeed with a cup of coffee. Oh the life of the food-obsessed career girl on the go. I would like to be rather less on the go, if I may say so. Yeesh.

I keep hearing how superlative the Italian subs are at Bari Foods on Grand, and it’s so close to my house, but I’d never managed to be over there at the right time. This morning I needed to tack a few minutes drive on to the trip up to the Emissions Testing Facility, so i headed over there to see if they were open at 8:45 on a Saturday morning.
They were more than happy to make me a sub in the gray of the morning. And it really is quite good, an extra-crusty, crispy, lightly yeasty sub roll filled with a well-balanced mix of salami, capicolla, mortadella, mild provolone, lettuce, tomato, oil & vinegar dressing & hot giardiniera. It’s not too heavy or oily, and it’s permeated with the dusty earthiness of strong oregano, and the spicy pickles make it nice & bright. The sub crust stays crispy to the end, even if it takes you an hour to eat because you have to get your car emissions tested in the middle of snarfing it up.
For $4.50, it’s a pretty good deal, and a very tasty Italo-American treat.

My goodness. I hadn’t even heard the hype about Alinea being Gourmet’s #1 restaurant in America, I’d just been flipping through the front of that issue reading the article about the food-scientist restaurant trend, and had Moto and Alinea on the brain. So when spleen arrived in town for a spur-of-the-moment visit, I asked her if she’d be interested in either of those. I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but she’s a first-rate foodwhore like me, so if she was up for it, she was an ideal companion.
I got back an email that went roughly like this: OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD, YESYESYESYES!!!!
So we looked for reservations. None to be had, of course. But then Alinea returned my call, to say that a last minute cancellation had opened up a single table for two at 8:45pm Sunday night. Of course we took it. (What’s a 9am client meeting 90 minutes drive away the next morning? Feh — an insignificance. I just needed to keep away from the wine, I’d be fine. And I was… but more on that later.)
We were instructed that ladies should wear “business elegant” attire. Since it is a stretch to consider us “ladies” we both found that highly amusing. And WTF is business elegant anyway? If I wanted to wear a cocktail dress, would that be inappropriate? It turns out that this is characteristic of the restaurant’s aesthetic overall — it is strangely uptight in its design, very restrained, very controlled, and with the steel-glass-and-neutrals blandness of a sophisticated modern hotel lobby. The hostess has the most upright and correct posture I’ve ever seen. At first the rigidity of everything put us off, though we did love the Chilewich stair runner and thought that the interior *was* quite elegant, and the armchairs comfortable.
But what we came to understand is that the bland serenity exists for the same reason that museum walls are a stark plain white: to set off the art displayed thereon. The food is so gorgeous, so creative, whimsical, and entrancingly delicious that a decor to match would compete with it, and detract from it. Instead, the plain dark wood table sets off everything that sits on it. The beige upholstery and simple steel staircase and inoffensive art are just there because anything even more stripped-down would be inhospitable. The lighting is perfectly orchestrated to focus on the food: all my photographs came out just fine, yet the two of us had our faces flatteringly lit as if in candlelight.

We didn’t know what to expect, given the descriptions of Grant Achatz as this crazy wacky food-science chef. Mostly we giggled quietly to ourselves as we observed the rigidity and formality of the setting and the staff. We took arty pictures of the flatware on its cushy pillows. We chose the 24 course tour rather than the 12 course tasting. DUH.
And then food started to arrive.
A tiny white wax lens-shaped bowl, pierced with a pin holding tiny bits of parmesan, potato & chive, with a sphere of potato at the end, capped with a generous slice of black truffle and some shards of salt. We were instructed to gently pull the pin out so that all the morsels dropped into the bowl, which contained a creamy bit of soup, and then knock the whole works back like a shooter.

That mouthful ranks as one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my life. It is a perfect harmony of creamy, starchy and savory, with an intense truffle flavor that lingers on and on in the mouth thanks to the unctuousness of the cream. Wow.

Then came a little jewel of a thing, a bit of crabmeat encased in soft mirin gelee, dabbed with tiny piles of different spices, and backed by a bit of sushi rice topped with tentacled seaweed. Each bite was different, because each one was flavored by a different spice. My favorite was the tellicherry peppercorn, which was so complex that I didn’t even register it as black pepper and had to ask the server to identify it — a scandal, since black pepper is my absolute most favorite spice. Spleen favored the sliver of fresh ginger. And the shredded lemongrass, black salt, saffron, parsley & shichimi togarashi bites weren’t too shabby either.

Then came a dish of golden trout roe, cuddled up to a cloud of cucumber foam. The rest of the dish was composed of little dollops of coconut cream & avocado cream, a bit of cilantro juice, and two shards of limerock. What is limerock, you ask? So did we. Turns out to be lime meringue that the chef dehydrated down into crispy little slabs. I thought this dish was perfect. And interestingly, when eaten without the limerock, it was a perfect harmony of separate flavors playing on the tongue, and when eaten with the limerock, it was entirely unified. I preferred the separate flavors, spleen the unified.

The next dish was an Indian-flavored dish made from Japanese butterfish topped with candied turmeric (Chicago chefs seem obsessed with sweetened turmeric at the moment), lemon tea gelee, radish sprout and another thing we failed to recall, all of which was balanced on a fork resting across a bowl holding white poppy seed soup. The bowl was weeble-style, with a spherical base that you had to hold in your hand until it was empty, lest it tip over and spill from the weight of the fork. Instructions were to eat the fish then drink the soup from the bowl, and not to put the bowl down until we’d eaten the dish.

Normally receiving instructions from servers on how to ingest my food is unbelievably annoying, but somehow in this setting with these dishes it became part of the pleasure, part of the fun game of wandering through the maze of the meal, never knowing what flavor, or deconstruction technique, or flamboyant serving piece, might show up next.

The matsutake custard arrived in a glass cylinder, which I assumed to be a shotglass until the servers whisked it off, revealing it to be bottomless. The mushroom flan slumped softly into the pile you see in the photo, studded with a fine dice of matsutake and onion and some edamame, topped with a soy foam and a bit of yuzu rind. Buried inside was a mango packet filled with peanut oil powder — this was itself insanely delicious, but a little incongruous with the meaty saltiness of the mushrooms & soy. Actually this dish was the closest the meal came to a flaw, being somewhat oversalty… but still delicious, with the sweet-tangy onion being a lovely counterpoint to the soft mushroom flavors.

The rabbit arrived with a pile of shredded brussels sprouts, a bit of cider pudding enclosing some roast garlic, and a few leaves of thyme. The entire works was enclosed in a heavy-bottomed tumbler, in which was trapped the smoke from burning oak leaves. The tumbler was whipped off by the server with the words “chef brings you the essence of autumn,” as the smoke wafted up. Which is a bit overblown, but damn, it *did* work. They took the emptied tumblers and poured in a bit of rabbit-thyme consomme, which was then infused with the scent of the smoke. The rabbit & its accompaniments were very good, but that consomme, good grief, that was spectacular. It was complex, rich, smooth… and light and ephemeral. I dawdled over every drop and wished for more.

And that was another theme of the meal: single bites, or tiny servings, of exquisite deliciousness that exploded in your senses, and then were gone. And somehow that was okay. What would normally drive me wild with thwarted desire was somehow just fine in the context of a meal entirely composed of such minutely crafted marvels.

Such as this bit of brilliant madness: a sphere made of cocoa butter & smoked paprika, enclosing peach juice, topped with lemon balm and floating in a splash of carrot juice, again intended as a shooter.

I had to bite into mine to release the peach, but spleen’s exploded on contact with her tongue, which blew her mind. Either way, totally fun and wonderfully refreshing. At my next party, I am making a new cocktail: pepper vodka, peach juice, and a smoked paprika-salt rim. Damn.

The Kobe short rib came sealed to the plate under a beet gelee blanket, “to keep it warm.” The Kandinsky-esque mayhem on top is red cranberry gel, khaki roast-fennel gel, and dark green fennel-top gel, plus a crispy ribbon of campari, a baby golden beet, a pile of sweetened cooked beet greens, a few rings of shaved fennel, and a strewing of microgreens. The beef was super meaty and soft, with a great flavor, one of the nicest braised short ribs I’ve had. The gels appear in many dishes at Alinea, and they are pleasant, but a little weird, frankly — quite firm in texture, not a soft and yielding puree, almost like eating gummi candy in outlandishly savory flavors.

It was presented in one corner of a vast square plate. Chef Achatz very clearly enjoys playing with the plating of dishes, even when he stoops to the pedestrian use of an actual plate. We liked it too.

Just like we liked that beef short rib. Heh. We were scooping up every bit of every sauce and gel and blanket, discreetly applying fingers to the plates when necessary and stopping just short of actually licking those plates. We didn’t think that ramrod of a hostess would be amused — but we were sorely tempted.

Sometimes, though, there was nothing to lick. How completely insane is this? A “ravioli” filled with black truffle juice and braised romaine and parmesan, essentially a tiny little soup dumpling, topped with a shave of black truffle. Presented in a spoon, of course, but with that spoon tucked into the rim of an “unplate” without a bottom, so that the spoon balanced perfectly. Completely fucking insane. In the *best* possible way.

Crazy big truffle flavor, with just a bit of romaine to set it off. The pasta texture wasn’t the best, a little thin & chewy for my tastes, but certainly not shameful, and when you’ve got a mouthful of intense truffle action, you’re willing to forgive.

By this time, 9 courses in, we’d totally lost track of the time, and of the number of courses. We were just riding the wave of endorphins, giddily following along as the army of serving staff led us through the maze.
A plate of squab three ways arrived, with grilled tenderloin, a roast bit of breast, and rillettes with crispy bits of skin. 5 huckleberries were stacked on top like tiny cannonballs. The breast was quite livery but very tasty, the grilled bit was lovely, but the rillettes stole the show. SO YUMMY. There was a bit of huckleberry wine sauce underneath, and behind the squab where you can’t see it in the photo is a soft rectangle of thai long peppercorn mousse. I an not entirely sure what thai long peppercorns ARE, but I am exceedingly sure that I like them. Wow. That mousse had a complex and almost floral flavor, a bit spicy, almost sweet, I don’t know exactly how to describe it.
We were eating in the tiniest bites imaginable, savoring every combination of flavors, focusing entirely on the sensations, and dropping all pretense of conversation until the courses were gone. The food we were eating was art, there is no other way to think of it; it was like listening to a symphony or looking at a really cool painting, only it was food, and we love nothing so much as food. It made us so happy.

A palate cleanser arrived, in the form of a chewy semifrozen block of concord grape, balanced on a bit of sculpture. This one was unfortunately ruined for us by the server, who described it to us and then said it would be the grapiest thing we’d ever eaten. Perhaps so for most of the patrons, but both spleen and I grew up with concord grapevines, and this didn’t come close. After the outrageous flavor rushes of some of the dishes that had come before, we had every reason to believe the guy — but sadly it was only moderately grapey. Still delicious, and of an interestingly cool and gelatinous texture.

The next course was served with science-nerd flourish by servers sliding pill spatulas into the slots in the bottom of the glass disks and lifting them down to the table. On top of the disk was a little pillow of chewy-frozen chestnut, topped with Blis bourbon-barrel-aged maple syrup and fresh ground star anise. The star anise hit the tongue first, sparkling and intense, and then it mellowed into the chestnut and maple. (I have a bottle of that syrup at home, and it is lovely stuff, worthy of sipping from a spoon.)

The crabapple semifreddo was another crazy-mixed-up jumble of flavors that somehow worked. With the possible exception of the eucalyptus gel, which didn’t really seem to go with the others, everything else on the plate worked ridiculously well with all of its brethren. The crabapple was studded with a sugar tuile with tellicherry pepper & sage, and surrounded by the eucalyptus gel, an oilve oil gel, an unbelievable onion marmalade, and sharp cheddar custard.

You have not lived until you have bobbed for snacks at an absurdly expensive restaurant. The “hands-free” course was impaled on the end of a flexible wire attached to a heavy metal base; you had to just line your mouth up and grab it as it bobbled along. We were both in hysterical laughter the moment we got the thing in our mouths — it was just so silly and fun to do. And it was damn yummy: a spiral of quince & proscuitto, topped with lemon, juniper, cilantro shoot and a crispy sprig of proscuitto. This collection of flavors would make a fantastic salad done at home, it seems to me.

Then came a dense shellfish foam topped with finely carved bits of clams & mussels, and a barrage of celery flavors — a tiny dice of raw celery, the delicate leaves, and a celery ice. Underneath was a wonderfully strong horseradish cream, and a gooseberry puree.

Spleen liked the combination a lot but I unfortunately thought the gooseberry tasted absolutely nasty with the horseradish. The rest of it was fantastic, and I was totally digging the celery flavors and textures with the briny shellfish.

Skatewing arrived in a traditional collection of flavors — brown butter, capers, lemon & pepper — except that all of them were powdered. And there was a banana. I am cracking up just writing that. The dish was great, delicately cooked, absolutely delicious, and the banana did work, though it wasn’t *entirely* convincing. But hot damn, I want some caper powder for my home kitchen. It is the ultimate flavor crystals — salty, tangy, capery. Yeehaw! I would put that shit on EVERYTHING.

And because dehydrated powdered brown butter isn’t good enough, the next course was a crispy little packet of translucent yellow pineapple enclosing dried pineapple and powdered bacon. Let me repeat that: powdered bacon. Damn. That pineapple-glass stuck to your teeth something awful, but it sure did taste great with that bacon.
We learned later that they don’t actually powder bacon, but rather they take bacon fat and mix it with maltodextrin and then somehow dehydrate that mixture into a powder. It’s completely demented, and I love it.

Lamb three ways — course #18 for those keeping score — arrived on a sizzling bar of metal suspended in a rack. The servers leaned over and plucked the sprigs of rosemary that had been on the table as floral decoration, and stuck the sprigs into the holes in each sizzling bar, heating the rosemary and dispersing their fragrance over the dish and the table. The first bite of lamb was topped with mastic cream (a piney, resinous flavor), the next with marinated & pureed dates, and the third with braised red cabbage. The lamb was extremely tender and had excellent flavor; we loved all three versions.

The bathtub of flakes was one of my absolute favorite dishes of the whole meal. An irregularly oval bowl, looking like nothing so much as an old-timey bathtub, arrived filled with a snow of brown and white, topped with pickled leeks and a teeny leek sprout. The brown was pumpernickel toast flakes, and the white was shavings of dried gruyere, and that savory fluffy pile hid a few morsels of smoked bison, cooked rare and nestled into a sauce of stewed raisins. Holy crap. This was so unbelievably good. One of the most amazing meat dishes I’ve ever eaten, with the tender rich meat full of smokiness, and the rich sweetness of the raisins, and the pickled leek cutting through, and the fluffy crispness of the toast and cheese — it was intense in so many ways, and yet still light. Completely awesome.

And then began the parade of dessert courses. First a pair of fresh raspberries tucked under a raspberry gel blanket, and splattered with goat milk tapioca, red pepper taffy, squares of candied red pepper, lavender pudding, pistachio gel, pistachio brittle, and pistachio tuile. The goat milk tapioca is wonderful, and I would like to try making some of my own at home. The red pepper totally worked, and the pistachio items were all great, most especially the pure-nut tuile and the graham-crackery brittle. The lavender pudding tasted like hand lotion, but it was fun anyway.

Licorice cake arrived wrapped in a twist of parchment. Under the parchment was a hoja santa leaf, which we were instructed not to eat, and under that was the moist little cake. Along the side of the plate were muscovado jelly, a pile of candied orange with peel, roasted banana, licorice leather, and a wee pitcher of sweet potato sauce. Gorgeous. The hoja santa gave an interesting herbal fragrance to the cake, and all the little toppings were delicious in their own ways. I forked out the last drop of that sweet potato sauce, which caught the eye of one of the servers.
We’d been bonding with them a little by this point, and they’d told us that Chef Achatz had seen one of them coming back with our empty plates and done a doubletake, thinking the waiter was coming in with clean new plates. He looked a little closer and saw the thoroughness of our devouring, and was apparently pleased. We of course were thrilled to hear that “chef liked your plates.” This, along with the fundamental weirdness of things like lavender pudding and eucalyptus gel and powdered bacon, made us wonder how many people sent back unfinished plates. Apparently only a few… but not too many are as devoted to the consumption of every last molecule as we are. We mentioned that we were struggling mightily with the temptation to lick the plates. They laughed and said there was an “Alinea lick” — you had to pick up the plate and lick straight down. And then that server double-dog-dared me to lick a plate.
You know me too well to think I could resist an open invitation like that.

The next course was a chocolate confection on an enormous flat bowl. Chocolate mousse had been dehydrated into a crisp cookie and topped with Venezuelan chocolate at exactly 94 degrees Fahrenheit, so that it was just barely melted. It was strewn with herb flowers, and tilted into the bowl which held stewed figs — which went oddly well with the chocolate — and a cassia bud ice cream. Around the ice cream, the servers poured tepid bergamot tea, so the whole thing was an herbal cinnamon-chocolate extravaganza. We were clinging to our last shard of decorum and planning to wait until the last course to actually pick up and lick, but our ever-helpful friend warned us that the final course had no plate at all, so that chocolate-and-tea goodness went bottoms up for a good solid series of licks.

That sealed the deal for me. The atmosphere may be business-stodgy, but the food and the service is pure play. Spleen and I were like two kids on an amusement park ride, giddy with the sheer rush of it all. We had such a blast consuming our 24 courses, and it seemed that everyone involved in creating and serving them was having a pretty good time too. Say what you will about the food-scientists, this meal was all about pleasure, play, and wit, and I am more than willing to endorse that.

We had no idea how much time had passed since we sat down to eat. Neither of us wore a watch, and we didn’t want to burst the bubble of magic by checking a cell phone for the time. We knew it was late, and we were starting to get just ever so slightly full, when the final course arrived: an upside-down lollipop of caramel dipped in tempura batter and fried, with a bit of lemon peel and a cinnamon stick handle. It was super-airy and collapsed instantly in the mouth, a fleeting taste of warm caramel and crunch, spiced like a Mexican cafe de olla.
As we collected our coats downstairs, we looked into the open kitchen and commented on its mind-bending cleanliness, which snagged us a semi-tour of the kitchen. It’s a squarish room of white tile and stainless steel, with one counter down the middle and two down the sides. Apparently they cook and prep around the edges, and plate and assemble on the middle lines. They told us how they make the bacon powder and the caper powder (dehydrate capers, stick into spice grinder), and were as enthusiastic as we were about the work they were doing.
And then we wandered out through the sleek metal door and futuristic entry corridor to our rock-star valet parking spot directly outside, turned on the engine, and checked the time. We’d been eating for 5 hours — it was the middle of the night, and we’d never noticed. We laughed and laughed and laughed. And then we went home to look at the pictures and write everything down — we didn’t get to bed until after 3 in the morning. Now THAT’S good eatin’.

(postscript: I am counting only 23 courses, both in my photos and on the souvenir menu they gave us with the bill — in a sober black envelope, of course. What a bummer.)

As a preview of the amazingness of the alinea dinner, dig this photo. It should look rather familiar to the Gourmet readers among you. *drool*

when you work too damn much, and haven’t had time to cook, and find yourself alone on a Friday night without enough energy to actually go out and do something fun, this is what happens: a quick drive to Goose Island Shrimp House, and an evening in front of the TV with fried seafood, hot sauce and spicy chips.
The breading is thick and crunchy — they clearly bread and fry to order, given the wait time and the quality of the crunch — but the shrimps aren’t really all that. Not really fresh enough in my opinion. The oysters, though, are winners, huge & briny & hot, very yum.

An interesting article on the Walmartization of organics:

“But Michael Pollan, a writer for the New York Times Magazine and author of a book on organic agribusiness, notes in a June 4 article that Wal-Mart’s entry into this new market will almost certainly perpetuate practices that are at odds with the original vision of organic farmers. For example, demand for organic milk has already caused agribusiness companies to apply the tactics of factory farming to organic milk production. Cows are herded into organic feedlots where they never eat grass — just organic grain. Thus their milk satisfies federal standards for the organic label, even though it lacks essential nutritional ingredients, to say nothing of the misery caused the animals.”

Food for thought, as it were. [via our friend Jul at her new blog Veggie Chic]

So last night a bunch of dancers and I went out for Chicago deep-dish pizza, and since I had not yet been to Gino’s (home of the insanely long lines) I went along with the plan, just to see if ALL Chicago deep-dish pizza sucks or just the stuff I’d been having.
Pretty much it all sucks.
But Gino’s is much better than the others. The crust is butterier and drier in texture, almost crumbly — it’s nice not to have it be all doughy, but there’s still way the hell too much of it, and it’s not that tasty. Way too much cheese, pretty decent sauce, and the spinach mushroom pizza has a very nice lightly-creamed spinach topping, if almost zero mushrooms.
It’s fine, it’s not horrible, but I can’t imagine voluntarily going there, forking out absurd amounts of money, waiting in line, and then waiting another hour after ordering to get food ever again. What is the point?

I have been absurdly busy lately, AND i left my digicam cable in Boston, so i have yet to write up all the good stuff from my trip to CA and beyond. So sorry for the lack of posts, y’all. But tonight I had dinner with C for the first time since July, since by some miracle we are both in chicago at the same time. I’ve been reading all kinds of buzz on Schwa, which is just up the street from my place, so because we both needed to watch the season premiere of Lost at 8pm (mildly disappointing, but i suspect only b/c they need to set up a whole season’s worth of mindfuck in 45mins or less), we decided to get a late dinner at Schwa. Yum.
They do fixed menus of either three or nine courses. The 3 course meals appear to be standard sized portions (american style), while the 9 course is a standard haute cuisine parade of tiny plates. We went for the nine, of course, despite the appetizer course of fancy cheeses and Ur-Weisse that went along with Lost.
The entire staff is 4 guys, doing everything from booking reservations to cooking to dishwashing to waiting tables to marinating the enormous tub of beef shortribs we were eyeing from the dining room. It’s a little odd when you walk in off a seedy stretch of Ashland Avenue into what looks like a shuttered storefront, and find yourself in the middle of a tiny dining room, elegantly decorated and half full of diners. It feels like having a fancy dinner in your living room, but once you get past that, I’d say that Schwa can compete with any dining room in the city.
A few of the dishes were a little over-elaborate in my opinion, with an element or two that didn’t work or could just have been left out entirely (the butter-poached lobster with passion fruit puree and potatoes didn’t in any way need a lavender foam, no matter how groovy a lavender foam may be — and no matter how well the lobster and passion fruit work together, which you’d never guess, but they totally do), but as i said to C, that’s pretty much picking nits that in a lesser restaurant i would totally let slide. Everything was well cooked, delicious, and inventive, and we had a fantastic meal. The service was attentive without being formal, and I definitely had the sense of being in a craftsman’s workshop — it reminded me of my brother’s glassblowing studio, if you swapped out the furnace for a cooktop and ever so slightly lowered the volume on the hip hop.
I am a little goofy on wine, since we had a bottle of champagne and a bottle of burgundy, and i have to get up in 7 hours, so i am not going to go into detail about all 9 courses right this second, but let me just mention a few highlights:
turmeric ice cream with date puree
fleur de sel over all the icecreams (i am SO doing this at home)
beef tartare with asian flavors and a quail egg
yuzu syrup on the plate with the trio of beef – tartare, pickled tongue and shortrib
a tiny spoon filled with confit eggplant and pickled trimmings
quail egg ravioli with ricotta and brown butter, at once insanely rich and somehow light
perfect sweetbreads with a melted pool of humboldt fog and a bit of wine-poached rhubarb, apparently local from the market even in october
strawberry foam with berries and salty olive oil ice cream
I think probably i could live without having absolutely everything reduced to a paste or puree smeared on my plate, which is pretty much the way it is at Schwa, but since i have no shame at all i just ate everything with my hands or at the least scooped up all the smears of whatnot with a finger so as to truly appreciate every bit of them. And not one paste or smear was anything less than exquisitely delicious, so i think i forgive them their youthful extravagances. We had a lovely time, and we’ll go back. Stay the course through the annoyance of having to leave voicemail to get a reservation — it’ll be worth it.

I have written on this site before about the goodness to be had at the Caribbean Baking Company on Howard Street between Sheridan and the El. But today I was reminded anew of the tastiest thing yet that i have had there: the jerk chicken patties.
The beef patties are excellent, canonical renditions of spicy ground meat in bright yellow pastry. The curry chicken patties are even better, sweet indian-style curry in a paler yellow pastry, flaky and wonderful. But the jerk chicken, sweet jesus, these things are perfect. Surprisingly spicy, faintly sweet, deeply savory, and in a shatteringly flaky, pale, almost-sweet-but-not-quite pasty shell.that perfectly complements the filling.
If you haven’t already, get yourself there. Yum.

I managed to connect with Cindy from FoodMigration this time out, and we dragged ourselves through rush hour to Milpitas to check out the Chinese Muslim cuisine at Darda Seafood.
Yum.
As you might imagine, Muslim Chinese hail largely from the northern and western parts of China, and the food leans strongly to lamb and wheat. We ordered the thick sesame-scallion bread and the cold ox-tendon terrine, both recommended by the magic article from Gourmet, along with a dish of pan-fried hand cut noodles with lamb that we saw on the table next to us. (Cindy took one for the team and leaned over to ask our neighbors what they were eating — just one of many reasons why she is such a delightful dining companion.) After some consultation with the waitress, who by this time in our ordering had figured out that we were not just a couple of amateurs wanting General Gao’s Chicken, we chose a black cod steamed with salted vegetables and a plate of sauteed pea tendrils with cloves of roasted garlic to round out the dinner.
Everything was delicious. The gamy lambiness made the noodles more interesting than usual, and the noodles themselves were thick and chewy, sparked with bean sprouts, shreds of cabbage & bits of cilantro. The pea tendrils, well, not much need be said about pea tendrils other than yum. The tendon terrine was beautiful, all marbled shades of brown, savory with a bit of five-spice, and just slightly chewy, becoming more yielding as it warmed. The cod was perfectly cooked and tasty, and the bread, oh my god — the smell alone, all yeasty and oniony, is just dreamy.
There’s a ton of other places in this same mall, which as described in the magic article is indeed huge and almost entirely Asian, so if you are in the area, stop by and explore. (The mall itself is tucked into the corner of the junction of the 237 and the 880 freeways, so it’s conveniently accessible to many locations, assuming it’s not rush hour.)