Dinin' In The Dark

o·paque  [oh-peyk]: Adjective: 1. not transparent or translucent; impenetrable to light; not allowing light to pass through; 2. hard to understand; not clear or lucid; obscure

Last night, I had a truly unique dining experience - eating in a pitch black dining room at Opaque, in the . With the denial of one of the 5 senses, the other 4 senses are supposed to be heightened (Daredevil style!), and so the theory is that diners can truly experience unique flavors & textures in their food.

The concept's been around for more than a few years. It certainly caught my attention when it was featured in the CSI Season 8 episode "A La Cart" (of course, in the TV show, the dinner experience ended with the discovery of a dead body, which, in reflection, was probably more exciting than the molten chocolate cake I had).

Overall, it was a lovely evening of course (how can any evening with the Missus not be?). Conversing in the dark was a bit odd - I thought it would lead to people using either hushed tones, or overly loud ones. It was like carrying on an extended conversation in my head (c'mon, who amongst us has not had conversations in their head? I see a hand raised in the back ... yes, you there ... yes, I regret to inform you that you are clinically dead.)

Unfortunately, the part of the evening that underwhelmed was the food itself. The amuse bouche and the crudite platter were quite enjoyable - bite sized morsels of finger food that were easy to latch onto. The other dishes were bulky and hard to handle, and were surprisingly not very aromatic. To me, "flavor" is a combination of "smell" and "taste"; that is to say, flavorful foods are often either aromatic or react strongly on taste buds. Thus, with the deprivation of sight, I had rather expected heady aromas along with interesting flavors, the wines to have strong bouquets or long finishes ... a sustained assault on the remaining senses, if you will. But alas, the dishes were clearly lacking on both fronts. What made things more frustrating was the fact that the food stuffs would not stay on the fork. All too often, the Missus and I bit down on our fork prongs.

So, bottom line? I enjoyed the experience, and would seek it again, but only if the menu were better thought out.

Take me home, Bruce!

Foodtacular Results

I know, I know ... I'd said I'd blog about my results in the Foodtacular Challenge, but to be honest, I didn't do that well. I ended up cooking 2 dishes out of 4, since I ended up going to a "Mixologist Event" with Alef & Raj, and that led to dinner at DBGB ... and that led to hangovers & queasy stomach the next night. Anyway, here are details of two dishes.

Fettucini Alfredo with Pancetta & Peas

 A few months ago, the Missus & I took a stroll down 2nd Avenue and stumbled upon a tiny Italian restaurant (that has since been closed by the Department of Health & Sanitation), and I ended up having this dish. It's absolutely delish, if made right - rich and creamy sauce, sweet peas, some bit from freshly cracked black pepper, and a bit of protein from the Pancetta. I decided to try to recreate the dish at home, since I had the following qualifications: (a) I have cooked pasta, and (b) I had peas in the freezer.

I won't go into the details of how I made the sauce .. there are plenty of recipes that cary the proportions slightly, but end up with the same thing. Instead, I'll leave you with some key takeaways, and lessons learnt:

• Use good cheese. Don't skimp and use the CostCo stuff. Class it up a bit with a trip to Whole Foods! The CostCo cheese was pretty much inedible. Looking back, it's a wonder I managed to eat anything.
• Know how to cook pancetta. I still don't know how to ... I ended up with semi-burnt crunchy bits in my pasta

I recreated this dish for the Missus (minus the pancetta, and with good cheese), and it was pretty good. I give myself a B- for effort the first attempt, and a B+ for results the second time around.

Shrimp Stir-Fry

I'd picked up a copy of the Food Network Magazine, which happened to run an article on simple stir fry recipes, and I decided to try a shrimp stir fry with the spicy sauce. I didn't have ALL the ingredients, but tried to substitute the best I could (corn flour is the same as corn meal, right?)

Anyhoo ...

Again, I'm not going to bore you with the recipe, but let me share my biggest lesson learnt (learned?):

Have everything ready to hit the wok!

I didn't realize it at the time, but the wok is so hot, it'll cook the veggies or protein in no time. So there's no time ripping open packets of veggies or opening bottles of sauces while the garlic is burning on the stove, and the smoke's setting off your neighbor's alarms.

At the end of the ... umm, experience, the food was certainly edible. The flavors, not so great, but I think that was more from the sauce/ marinade combo than from any mistakes. I give myself a C+ for effort!

A Foodtacular Challenge!

The better half will be out of town for the next week, and normally that would mean putting a number of local eateries on speed dial. However, this time around, I've decided I'm going to cook a new dish for dinner every night from Monday to Thursday*.

Given my general ineptitude when it comes to cooking, I spent some time carefully weighing out the pros & cons of this challenge. For example:

• I would be cooking at home (pro), but I might not like the end result (con); 
• I would be trying interesting new dishes (pro), but I might end up buying (relatively) exotic ingredients that I'd never use again (con);
• I would be expanding my culinary knowledge (pro), but would have a ton of dishes to wash every night (con)

And so on ... you get the idea. Nonetheless, I have unfathomably decided to publicly humiliate myself, which might hopefully lead me to never having to cook for the rest of my life (which might not be that long, given I'd be eating my own cooking for a week).

I've already scoped out a number of interesting recipes to try - from stir fries, to simple seeming pasta dishes. I'll post a photo here along with a recipe and completely honest accounts of how I made them.

Wish me luck!

*Why Monday to Thursday? Well, I'm travelling to Boston on Friday, and this Sunday's the Superbowl. 

Trader Vic's

The dinner I had tonight has got to be the best one I've had in a YEAR. Also suffice it to say that I have had 2 very, VERY large, and VERY strong rum drinks in funny shaped glasses. You know that's dangerous, livin' on the edge shit y'all.

I had this barbequed duck dish ... I sincerely hope that the duck went to the big pond in the sky for bringing so much joy to the world. At the very least, I hope his wish to be reincarnated as a swan came true. An hour later, and I can still taste the .... oh, so heavenly taste of barbequed duck. This duck was like the Uncle Scrooge of duckydom - rich. This duck was definitely no quack.

Rob's Birthday

Had a bit of an office party yesterday, for Rob's 50th birthday party. We went to a bar immediately after work ... Somewhere on 47th, between Lexington & 3rd (I forget the name). Had a drink there, before moving down to a restaurant on 20th & Park - The Sushi Sambo (something like that). We popped open the champagne, and had a few bottle of sake too. The place was some sort of weird Sushi/Mexican fusion or something.

From R-L: Mike Long, Gavin Allen, Phil Brooks, Lynne Chippendale, Rob Chippendale, An Extremely Handsome Chap, Lisa (dunno the last name), and Blaine Pryce

Anyway, we let the waiter serving us custom-create a menu consisting of .. oh, a gajillion courses. I've learnt one thing - you know you're in an upper-class restaurant when the plate is roughly 10 to 15 times the size of the serving portion! That's why I treat in places like Chinese Mirch, where the whole plate is chock-full of steaming goodness - they measure satisfaction by the pound there! =p

After dinner we went to a bar just up the road ... I left kinda early. I wasn't feeling that good, and got rained on a bit as well. So now, I'm at home, trying to nuke a fever with multiple Tylenols!

Update: Just kidding about it being the 50th birthday! It was his 43rd or so.