What did you eat last night for dinner?

Originally Posted by iammatt

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Weird **** like carrots cooked in hay.
There was actually a Michelin inspector at COI last night that enjoyed that dish. If I had known sooner, we could have played spot the inspector. Maybe it was the asian guy next to us eating with his two kids.

Originally Posted by Roikins

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There was actually a Michelin inspector at COI last night that enjoyed that dish. If I had known sooner, we could have played spot the inspector. Maybe it was the asian guy next to us eating with his two kids.
I totally believe you, but how the hell do you know this?

Originally Posted by iammatt

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I totally believe you, but how the hell do you know this?

Because the inspectors use Twitter to post updates:
Vegetable magic at Coi - young carrots roasted in hay and sweet tender spring onions with charred leek crumbs and hazelnut-almond puree. about 18 hours ago

Man **** that. That onion dish was just bad, bad in thought, bad in execution. That was really the ONLY dish I thought that was bad in conception. The others just failed in execution. But to give someone that much crunch, spice, and acid at the beginning of a long meal just equals fail.

Originally Posted by iammatt

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I picked up some ramps today from the market at lunchtime. Also some cepes. Should be nice together.

let me know

btw, when the ramps grow out they build a blossom. i'll try to fry it in tempura or so...

let's talk in a month about this project.

Before I caught my flight last night, Matt gave me a few packages of his homemade garlic sausage. So tonight I poached it, grilled it, and served it with a salad of tomato, grilled asparagus, shaved asiago, and lemon juice. The sausage was really great. Texture was perfect, garlic flavor was present and pleasant but not overpowering. Well done! I have tasted Iammatt's sausage and it was delicious.

Had a bit of an eclectic dinner tonight. Mrs. Piob made some gyoza from scratch. We crisped up two pieces of my pork belly confit and also baked off some Brussels sprouts in the oven. Put a La Crema Chard with it.

So we can dissect... tasting menu dinner at COI:



Mint something or other


Frozen Mandarin Sour - Mandarin ice, kumquat, and angostura bitters


Oysters Rockefeller California Style - Bloomsdale spinach, vegetable mignonette, and horseradish


"Calcots" - New onions, smoke and spice, hazelnut-almond puree


Spring - Chilled English pea soup, buttermilk, nasturtium


Abalone/Asparagus (Raw and cooked) - Veal jus, Seville orange, and mint


Young carrots roasted in hay with sprouts, radish powder, and shaved pecorino


Savory wild mushroom porridge with brown butter, garlic confit, and wood sorrel


Steak Bearnaise (Sort Of) - Prather Ranch beef, marrow, and herbs


Tomme Per Diou with Pink Lady apple and arugula


Lime curd and meringue with aloe vera and shiso


Cake and Ice Cream - Caramelized chocolate cake with raw milk ice cream


Sadly, no shots of KW's 1834 Madeira.

Did Manton plate all this?



jk jk M

My thoughts on each course. Roikins and Matt are free to post their thoughts, even if it's just to say that I'm a dipshit.

So we can dissect... tasting menu dinner at COI:



Mint something or other
This was a strawberry/watermelon/mint soda. You could taste watermelon, you could taste strawberry, and then you got attacked by this strange funkiness. Like imagine leaving your pot of coffee on the coffee machine (if you drink heathen coffee) for like an hour, and come back, and taste it. It's just sludge and no bueno.

Frozen Mandarin Sour - Mandarin ice, kumquat, and angostura bitters
Interesting idea, could be a great start to the dish. But no. All you taste is bitter. Bitter, bitter, bitter.

Oysters Rockefeller California Style - Bloomsdale spinach, vegetable mignonette, and horseradish
We all agreed that this course was just incredible. Two beautiful oysters, pickled turnip, grated horseradish, so so so good. But take note, our first experience with a gel set with agar agar. This will be a theme throughout the night. Matt and I were keeping "score" tonight because he kept saying that the place sucked, I said it was going to be great. This is the only point I scored.

"Calcots" - New onions, smoke and spice, hazelnut-almond puree
Looks good, but notice the use of the flowers. Another main theme throughout the evening. First off, the flowers taste great. Matt thinks they're ramp blossoms, I'm not sure what they are. Ramp makes sense, but they have a great onion bite. Very cool. The onions themselves however, are so acidic that they are on the verge of being pickled. The sand underneath had good flavor IMO, but A) It's really ******* stupid to give somebody that bold of a flavor when they have 8 courses to follow, and B) it was so gritty, like bacon bits, that it got stuck in our teeth

Spring - Chilled English pea soup, buttermilk, nasturtium
I thought this dish was a winner, overall. The buttermilk was made in house (no real major feat), but it was presented well. The soup was poured tableside. It had a good basil flavor to it and had some lemon in it as well. We all thought that the soup itself was great, but the garnish was bad. The peas were not cooked fully, they had the traditional pea "pop" but way too much of it. That and the nasturtiums, while pretty, added nothing to the dish except for a very strange floral note that belonged nowhere in this dish.

Abalone/Asparagus (Raw and cooked) - Veal jus, Seville orange, and mint
Another course that was not bad, but not great. The asparagus were great, the abalone not so much. Very chewy. I understand abalone is a tough meat, but if you can't cook it to the point where it's easily consumed, don't put it on the menu. The veal jus was very salty, Matt commented it was almost like soy sauce. And I did not taste orange or mint anywhere in this dish.

Young carrots roasted in hay with sprouts, radish powder, and shaved pecorino
Big miss. Total fail. Carrots weren't peeled, Plus, our second little adventure with agar agar here. Except in this case, it was set so firmly that it was literally almost as chewy as the abalone in the previous dish

Savory wild mushroom porridge with brown butter, garlic confit, and wood sorrel
When you look at the description of this dish and then look at the pic, ou're probably thinking the same thing I thought when I got the course. "Where the **** is the porridge? All I see are two inches stacked up with flowers." Little did I know, the flowers would be the best part of this course. Although I think the others enjoyed the porridge. I did not at all. You can't see it, but in this porridge is our third gelatin set w/ agar agar.

Steak Bearnaise (Sort Of) - Prather Ranch beef, marrow, and herbs
Everything o this course worked but the steak. First off, far too rare for any of our tastes. Secondly, the texture makes it obvious that it was sous vide. But the waiter told me it wasn't. We all agreed he didn't know ****. Besides, if it really was seared, don't you think the outside would have an actual sear on it? Anyway, the bone marrow worked very well here.

Tomme Per Diou with Pink Lady apple and arugula
Cheese course was good. If you can really call it a "course."

Lime curd and meringue with aloe vera and shiso
No major complains here. Except--- uh oh! More agar agar with aloe vera! The shiso was very strong and tasted soapy. However, the lime curd itself was great.

Cake and Ice Cream - Caramelized chocolate cake with raw milk ice cream
This course was really great, although I think it got heavily overshadowed by the fact that they were serving our Madeira at the same time they brought us this dish, so it got left behind by our awe at the old wine.


My overall thoughts on Coi: Not good. Now I know to listen to what Matt says about restaurants. Still, I'm glad I experienced it. Also, the service was very professional and the room is nice. And anyway, it was the environment that allowed us to have a great time. I have never had a better dinner in my life where I disliked the food. I had an absolute blast every minute of it, even with the food that we all agreed wasn't quite up to snuff.

Thanks again to Matt and Roikins. you guys.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Frozen Mandarin Sour - Mandarin ice, kumquat, and angostura bitters
Interesting idea, could be a great start to the dish. But no. All you taste is bitter. Bitter, bitter, bitter.

Yeah, definitely too bitter. With the angostura bitters shortage, I would have preferred those to be used in a proper cocktail.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Oysters Rockefeller California Style - Bloomsdale spinach, vegetable mignonette, and horseradish
We all agreed that this course was just incredible. Two beautiful oysters, pickled turnip, grated horseradish, so so so good. But take note, our first experience with a gel set with agar agar. This will be a theme throughout the night. Matt and I were keeping "score" tonight because he kept saying that the place sucked, I said it was going to be great. This is the only point I scored.

Yep, I thought the whole dish was great, not just elements of it, like with the other courses.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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"Calcots" - New onions, smoke and spice, hazelnut-almond puree
Looks good, but notice the use of the flowers. Another main theme throughout the evening. First off, the flowers taste great. Matt thinks they're ramp blossoms, I'm not sure what they are. Ramp makes sense, but they have a great onion bite. Very cool. The onions themselves however, are so acidic that they are on the verge of being pickled. The sand underneath had good flavor IMO, but A) It's really ******* stupid to give somebody that bold of a flavor when they have 8 courses to follow, and B) it was so gritty, like bacon bits, that it got stuck in our teeth

Patterson's version of the Gargouillou style salad, which is done better at Luce and Manresa. After it was mentioned, all I could think of was bacon bits.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Spring - Chilled English pea soup, buttermilk, nasturtium
I thought this dish was a winner, overall. The buttermilk was made in house (no real major feat), but it was presented well. The soup was poured tableside. It had a good basil flavor to it and had some lemon in it as well. We all thought that the soup itself was great, but the garnish was bad. The peas were not cooked fully, they had the traditional pea "pop" but way too much of it. That and the nasturtiums, while pretty, added nothing to the dish except for a very strange floral note that belonged nowhere in this dish.

This was definitely a case of keep it simple, because if it was just the pea soup served alone, it would have been perfect. The buttermilk alone was good, but for me, it just overpowered that slight sweetness of the fresh peas.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Abalone/Asparagus (Raw and cooked) - Veal jus, Seville orange, and mint
Another course that was not bad, but not great. The asparagus were great, the abalone not so much. Very chewy. I understand abalone is a tough meat, but if you can't cook it to the point where it's easily consumed, don't put it on the menu. The veal jus was very salty, Matt commented it was almost like soy sauce. And I did not taste orange or mint anywhere in this dish.

The abalone was definitely on the chewy side as abalone meat usually is, but I think that's why they served them in thin strips, which was smart. I've had larger, thicker slices of abalone meat and that's not the best way to serve them because of their chewiness. But if I didn't know there was veal jus in it, I would definitely have thought they just used soy sauce based on how salty it was. Unless that was the abalone that was so fresh and dripping with sea water.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Young carrots roasted in hay with sprouts, radish powder, and shaved pecorino
Big miss. Total fail. Carrots weren't peeled, Plus, our second little adventure with agar agar here. Except in this case, it was set so firmly that it was literally almost as chewy as the abalone in the previous dish

Not a huge fan of this dish, but I didn't think it was awful. You definitely could taste the hay which made you feel like you were eating on a farm. Not sure if that's a positive thing.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Savory wild mushroom porridge with brown butter, garlic confit, and wood sorrel
When you look at the description of this dish and then look at the pic, ou're probably thinking the same thing I thought when I got the course. "Where the **** is the porridge? All I see are two inches stacked up with flowers." Little did I know, the flowers would be the best part of this course. Although I think the others enjoyed the porridge. I did not at all. You can't see it, but in this porridge is our third gelatin set w/ agar agar.

Total opposite for me because I loved the earthy richness of the porridge. Like the pea soup, I could have lived with the porridge alone, or at least a lot less of the greens, because they added a bitterness I wasn't a fan of.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Steak Bearnaise (Sort Of) - Prather Ranch beef, marrow, and herbs
Everything o this course worked but the steak. First off, far too rare for any of our tastes. Secondly, the texture makes it obvious that it was sous vide. But the waiter told me it wasn't. We all agreed he didn't know ****. Besides, if it really was seared, don't you think the outside would have an actual sear on it? Anyway, the bone marrow worked very well here.

The near room temp serving of the meat was the biggest turn off. I would have enjoyed some warmth to my "seared" meat.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Lime curd and meringue with aloe vera and shiso
No major complains here. Except--- uh oh! More agar agar with aloe vera! The shiso was very strong and tasted soapy. However, the lime curd itself was great.

The curd was excellent, but yeah, at times I felt like I had just ate a glop of lotion/handsoap.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Cake and Ice Cream - Caramelized chocolate cake with raw milk ice cream
This course was really great, although I think it got heavily overshadowed by the fact that they were serving our Madeira at the same time they brought us this dish, so it got left behind by our awe at the old wine.

Again, a case for keeping it simple, because this was the better of the two.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Thanks again to Matt and Roikins.

you guys.

We should thank Matt for still agreeing to go even though he kept saying it would suck.

My mom taught me to only say nice things, so here were the dishes I liked.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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M

Oysters Rockefeller California Style - Bloomsdale spinach, vegetable mignonette, and horseradish We all agreed that this course was just incredible. Two beautiful oysters, pickled turnip, grated horseradish, so so so good. But take note, our first experience with a gel set with agar agar. This will be a theme throughout the night. Matt and I were keeping "score" tonight because he kept saying that the place sucked, I said it was going to be great. This is the only point I scored.
This was very good. The vegetable mignonette was sloppily cut.

Savory wild mushroom porridge with brown butter, garlic confit, and wood sorrel When you look at the description of this dish and then look at the pic, ou're probably thinking the same thing I thought when I got the course. "Where the **** is the porridge? All I see are two inches stacked up with flowers." Little did I know, the flowers would be the best part of this course. Although I think the others enjoyed the porridge. I did not at all. You can't see it, but in this porridge is our third gelatin set w/ agar agar.

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I thought this was pretty good.

Cake and Ice Cream - Caramelized chocolate cake with raw milk ice cream This course was really great, although I think it got heavily overshadowed by the fact that they were serving our Madeira at the same time they brought us this dish, so it got left behind by our awe at the old wine.

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This was great.

My overall thoughts on Coi: Not good. Now I know to listen to what Matt says about restaurants. Still, I'm glad I experienced it. Also, the service was very professional and the room is nice. And anyway, it was the environment that allowed us to have a great time. I have never had a better dinner in my life where I disliked the food. I had an absolute blast every minute of it, even with the food that we all agreed wasn't quite up to snuff.

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This is important.

^^What is all that ****? I rather eat a burger.

Had a nice beef stew with low carb biscuits and paired it with a Merlot.

Originally Posted by iammatt

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My mom taught me to only say nice things, so here were the dishes I liked.
You should apply this knowledge when you're talking to me as well. You know, just because it is good for a man to mind his mother.