Romancing The Strawberry

What can I say about a restaurant that’s so popular that people feel motivated to archive its menu since it’s inception and make a separate Yelp page for it’s famous fried chicken nights? Obviously I’m not the first to recognize that Thomas Keller of the famous French Laundry has done something right here, but just how wonderful his more affordable new project Ad Hoc is was not evident to me until I visited it this summer. My parents visit to San Francisco summer seemed the perfect excuse to hit up Ad Hoc, and on one breezy evening we finally entered it’s doors.

My family and I had been driving around all day visiting wineries and finally buying snacks and do dads in the quaint little downtown of Sonoma. When we headed to Yountville for our 7pm reservation at Ad hoc we were sleepy and not all that hungry. As we entered the large open dining room with dark wooden floors and simplistic table set ups I felt a small rush of disappointment. Was this really Thomas Keller’s other restaurant? It looked so boring. The menu of the day featuring a salad, short ribs, cheese, and ice cream sandwiches was far less interesting than I was expecting. We waited at the bar where we were given filtered tap water…..palate perks up…new thought..’I've never quite had water like this..’ The bar tender gets us two beers and some sparkling wine for my mom. The bar tender did a fabulous job picking my beer which was close to tasting like La fin du monde but even better. My mother’s sparkling wine was the perfect combination of dryness and fruitiness.

Then we were seated. I asked the server if we could move, which he happily agreed to do. The place we desired was right near the window. It was still sunny outside with a cool breeze coming through. The chairs had a velvety seat cover that made me rethink every review I’d ever written (Here I’d been so busy considering the oyster that I often forgot to consider my bum). My father, who is 80 and partially death, could hear everything we said.

Our server was excellent, a bonafide foodie who guided us along the wine list with stellar suggestions. We never had to call her over, nor did we ever feel like she wasn’t around when we needed her. The wine she selected, a pinot, tasted just as good on each consecutive sip as it did the first. It was quite literally as smooth as the filtered water we were served at the bar.

Our first dish was the Salad of TFL Garden Romaine Lettuces featuring big ranch farm’s tomatoes
marinated anchovies, torn garlic croutons, anchovy dressing and parmesan reggiano. The lettuce was a beautiful green with a clean and crunchy texture. The tomatoes were brightly colored and came from the French Laundry garden. They were unlike any tomatoes I’d had before, not overwhelming sweet and sliced thickly enough so that their juices could be secured in one jam packed bite. “I have never had a tomato like this before.” I heard myself say it, but I didn’t’ know it was me. The dressing, served on the side, was delectable enhancing rather than deviating from the raw richness of the ingredients themselves.

Then came the second course the Midwestern Beef Short Ribs that came with wilted spinach, pine nuts, golden raisins, cauliflower florets, fingerling potatoes and melted onions. Though I’ve heard about it a lot, I’ve never had anything cooked sous-vide, nor did I expect to experience it at Ad hoc. I assumed I would have to visit the French Laundry or Alinea to experience such techniques. After tasting these ribs I am a true believer in the benefits of cooking meat sous-vide. The product (in this case meat) is placed in air tight bags where it is then cooked in water for long periods of time in temperatures well below the boiling point. The procedure is so sensitive that just one degree difference in temperature could be a difference between having the best meal of your life and going to the hospital! When done successfully the meat retains much of its original form and is immensely flavorful.

Our short ribs were big hunky pieces of meat with fat and meat interacting as one. The meat was so tender it seemed to crumble, omitting juices on its way. They easily fell apart in my mouth, their flavor taking full range over what seemed like the universe. The fingerling potatoes were also tender with a delicious buttery flavor. The silky melted onions were better than caramelized they seemed to be mimicking the texture of water.

We got ready for another round of sparkling wine, sad to see the end of that ever delightful bottle of pinot. The sun was starting to go down, but we were still happy. We were then served ‘Browing Gold’ cheese from the 5 Spoke Creamery. It was accompanied with almonds and a unique cherry jam. I was not too impressed, but maybe that’s because I have been eating a lot of cheese lately? Or maybe I was still thinking about the short ribs?

But who cares, the ice cream sandwiches came next!

Tasty chocolate chips encapsulated nicely cut slabs of vanilla ice cream. Every time I took a bite I thought I’d popped one of the chocolate chips, the chocolate running down onto the cream. It was a swell way to end things.

My father, whose taste buds are no longer what they used to be, was delighted with the meal and couldn’t believe I knew about this place ‘in the middle of nowhere’. My mom talked about it the next day on the phone. I was impressed with Ad Hoc, truly impressed, and now I am impressed with myself for knowing about it and sharing it with those I love.

I recently finished this fascinating and somewhat tragic article in the New Yorker by D.T. Max about budding Chef Grant Achatz who is now struggling with tongue cancer. His restaurant Alinea was declared the best restaurant in America by Gourmet Magazine in October 2006. Achatz has studied with such people as Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, as well as Ferran Adrià from El Bullin in Spain. It was during his time working with Adrià that he became interested in Molecular Gastronomy, a culinary school which I plan to invest some time learning about and which many would prefer go by another name (A minute of research got me this little cheat sheet from Chow.

Achatz’s menus are changed seasonally and feature inventive ingredient combinations that defy most standard conventions of what should be mixed and matched. The current menu showcases such things as Fava Beans with lavender, pecorino and Steelhead Roe with coconut, lime, and a vanilla fragrance. These examples, though different, do not properly exemplify the full range of Achatz’s daringness. For more information read Max’s article in the New Yorker where he describes how Achatz tries to create a dish using violet, olive, chocolate, and strawberries. Here is a quote from the article:

“Because his ability to taste has come back over time, Achatz feels that he is understanding the sense in a new way—the way you would if you could see only in black-and-white and, one by one, colors were restored to you. He says, “When I first tasted a vanilla milkshake”—after the end of his treatment—’it tasted very sweet to me, because there’s no salt, no acid. It just tasted sweet. Now, introduce bitter, so now I’m understanding the relationship between sweet and bitter—how they work together and how they balance. And now, as salt comes back, I understand the relationship among the three components.’

The layered dessert ball is born of this rediscovery. The diner who bites the food is taking a voyage through Achatz’s lost time. At first, he will taste nothing, just inhale the odor of the violet. Next comes the sweetness of the chocolate, then the brininess of the olive, and then a return to sweetness: the strawberries.”

What I find most remarkable about Achatz and Max’s reporting for that manner is the ways in which Achatz works to recreate memories and emotional scenes through taste:

“To me, I think we do a good job of evoking emotion through food, and that’s kind of our focus, our perspective. That’s our hope.” He mentioned that some diners cry during a meal at Alinea, brought back to their childhoods by the combinations of flavors and smells. The meal I had, Achatz reminded me, included liquefied hay in one of the soup dishes. Achatz hoped that the subtle taste would summon diners’ memories of long-ago hayrides. A goose dish on the Winter, 2006, menu came with a ramekin of orange peel, nutmeg, allspice, sage, and goose fat. The ramekin, which was heated, was meant to give off the smell that comes from opening the oven door on Christmas Day. Another creation, on the Fall, 2005, menu, had smoldering oak leaves surrounding poached pheasant breast. “The whole point of that aroma is not to flavor the food,” he said. “This is what happens to me personally when we set oak leaves on fire—I’m transported to my youth, raking the leaves in front of my house, jumping into the leaves, and setting them on fire.” He went on, “What we try to do is really search out that kind of emotional trigger.”

The difference between smell and taste in regards to memory is briefly discussed in the article. That taste is the only sense essential to survival is made quite clear. This is something that was quite relevant to Achat’z experience as he lost a significant amount of weight once he lost his sense of taste:

“According to Paul Breslin, a Monell researcher who studies the effect of radiation therapy on taste, people who cannot taste at all often have to be coaxed or fed by tube, because they lose their desire for nutrition. As Breslin and a co-author note in a chapter for a recent textbook, “Taste is arguably the only external sensory system required for life. (D.T. Max)”

Fortunately Achatz has survived tongue cancer and his sense of taste is coming back. However, since the disease is what it is, cancer, you never know what will happen. In the meantime I hope you read up on Achatz and visit Alinea. There is no way I’ll ever go to Chicago without entering its doors.