Part 1
the morning after, while eating a sausage, egg, and cheese everything bagel from Bergen Bagels
Last night, I had the pleasure, privilege, and audacity to eat at a Brooklyn restaurant named Aska. I know it's cliche to refer to a fancy restaurant meal as a life-changing experience, but this was straight up paradigm-shattering. I've written before about food being a medium of communication, about how I strive to reduce food waste as much as I can, about sharing our cultures and stories with each other through the meals we create, but seeing how Chef Fredrik Berselius is able to do this at such an intricate, elegant, and elevated level is both humbling and inspiring.
The experience started before the first bite. I walked into the 10 table restaurant, and they knew me by name. I was shown to my table (right in the middle of the place, looking directly into the open kitchen), and they even pulled my chair out for me and pushed it up under me. I was a little uncomfortable with that because it was a brand new experience. They only serve a tasting menu, and I also opted for the standard wine pairings (premium wine pairings cost a shit-ton more). Throughout the evening, each wine was brought by a server, poured at the table, and they told me some of the history of the bottle, as well as how the flavor profile worked to complement the course(s) to which it was paired. Each course was served by a member of the kitchen staff, who explained the inspiration and composition of each dish. Sauces were put on the plate at the table, and they answered every question I could think of.
When the meal started, I was furiously taking notes after they left my table, taking photos of the dish, then finally enjoying it. The staff noticed because they FUCKING NOTICE EVERYTHING, and they brought me a menu (typically delivered at the end of the meal, but they could tell I needed some help). After a few more courses, I just stopped taking notes because I didn't even have words to describe what I was putting into my mouth. For real: as you read my descriptions of these courses, you'll be able to tell that I was more out of my depth than a mediocre 6 year old in a peewee league playing against prime Michael Jordan playing with a grudge.
The first wine pairing was a rosé champagne. Did you know that was a thing? I sure as shit didn't. It was a dryer, more fruit forward champagne that included pinot noir and chardonnay grapes. I'm not usually a big fan of champagne, but this one had me caught from the first sip. I managed to make it last for all of the first four "snack" courses. It was explained to me by Nice Pretty Lady as being a palate cleanser. Also, the sincerest apologies for not remembering any names. I suck at names; I do remember that one of the ladies there had a name that started with the letter "A." I'm an asshole.
So, the food. The first course was "Sea Oak," and was inspired by the large amounts of seaweed that Chef Berselius remembered from his childhood near the shores of Scandinavia. The menu says "Blue mussel," so I don't know if that means that the seaweed was actually mussels or if the emulsion that dotted the snack was made from mussels or maybe it's just a misprint, though I doubt that since fucking everything was perfect here. My notes as I was chewing the tiniest bites: "crispy, explosive flavor with a soft aftertaste, not sure what kind of flowers (what kind of salt and seasoning? Definitely see salt)." See? That's a bullshit description of an artful masterpiece. I don't even know what the fuck was in that. I just know that Fat Man Likey.
Before the second course came out, Tall Chef Man brought out a board with some of the seafood ingredients of the evening: the different roe and caviars from Madagascar and Bulgaria they were using, a brown crab from Maryland, and langoustine (aka "fucking fancy lobster") from Norway, where the colder waters help them grow larger because biology and shit.
Of course, the second course came shortly after: shaved kohlrabi (a type of cabbage) compressed with linden leaf oil, topped with a linden oil emulsion and a linden flower, served on a chunk of ice in the shape of a filled bowl. The kohlrabi had a delicate flavor, which complemented the bolder flavors of the emulsion on top. My notes: "cabbage, shaved and pressed into shape, topped with linden emulsion, sweet yet savory bursts from the emulsion." The whole thing was about an inch long, but I still took it in 3 bites just to savor and try to understand it.
A quick sip of the champagne, and course #3 came: a puff pastry filled with sweet shrimp and topped with some of the roe marinated in lilac vinegar. This was another combination of sweet and savory, with the roe popping into little bursts of sweetness as I chewed. The pastry and shrimp just melted in my mouth. It's been 14 hours and I can still taste it. Prior to this course, I was impressed beyond measure and, honestly, a bit apprehensive because I felt like I didn't even belong in a place like this, just some redneck who wandered into a foreign sacred ground. This course, though...fuck, my toes started tapping like Princess Nadia when she's about to get to take a walk.
But then the fourth course came, and I knew that I was leaving earth behind. A cup made of smoked eel, housing raw kingfish with gooseberry jam, topped with some of that Madagascar caviar. See, this is the kind of out of the box dish creation that I like to pride myself on pulling off. Chitlin-wrapped veggie wontons? Squid a l'orange with seasonal root hash? Now I see what happens when someone who knows what the fuck they're doing decides to play in the kitchen. I've seen, smelled, and tasted things that will insure that I keep pushing the envelope in my understaffed, underequipped, undertrained kitchen back home. My notes: "indescribable flavor: smokiness with sweetness of the inside and saltiness of caviar." I believe this was the first course where I dropped an f-bomb to a server (Nice Pretty Lady again); she told me it was totally acceptable to use profanity, and that it was, indeed, fucking amazing.
My next wine was another rosé from some fancy Italian people. It was originally crafted as a private blend just for the family who ran the vineyard, but, since it was fucking delicious and they decided they wanted more money, they started selling it. I ain't no sommelier, so I can't tell you much about it except that I liked it and would definitely drink it again if it was affordable.
According to the menu, the fifth course was "cucumber and summer herbs with fresh cheese and wild carrot flower." According to my notes, the fifth course was "I don't even know. Pastry shell with a sweet carrot emulsion, cucumber and flowers, slight vinegar aftertaste to the emulsion." It was really a work of visual art. Oh, and it tasted so good, y'all. Like, I've cooked maybe 3 meals in my life that I would say had "complete" flavors. Every. Fucking. Course. Every bite I put in my mouth, every nibble. It was all complete. Nothing was lacking or missing. Every component was the perfect amount. It was perfection. I really wish I knew what I was talking about so I could describe it. Despite a fairly decent mastery of the English language, I lack the necessary vocabulary (if such a thing even exists) to be able to tell you what this shit tasted like. Just imagine heaven, except a million times better and all in your mouth.
Oh, yeah. The sixth course. Finally getting into that langoustine with the claw meat, wild beach rose (what the fuck even is that?) and salted raspberry. You may not know this, but I don't like raspberries. Never fucking mind. I'd just apparently never had them done the right way. Goddamn. That's all I can say. I don't even want to try to imagine how they did the shape. If it had looked like a lumpy turd in a plastic spoon, it would still be transcendent.
There was another wine. I remember it was really good, and there was a funny story behind it. I'm pretty sure it was a white. My brain was crying by this point. I only have two notes left because I just couldn't anymore. Everything else from here is memory.
Shit. The seventh course gave my tongue a boner. Every other part of my body may as well not have existed as I slipped the live scallop, white turnip, and black currant leaf into my mouth and just...fuck. The flavors were a juxtaposition of pronounced and subtle as the components fell apart, only to be recombined via chewing, the sauce, the sauce, the sauce was goddamned beautiful. Caramelized scallop skirt and onion broth, like what the fuck? I told Nice Pretty Lady that I was close to just lifting the bowl and pouring it into my mouth. She said that would be okay. I don't think she understood the kind of Neanderthal savage I really am when it comes to putting tasty food in my belly.
Oh, and speaking of fucking savages: the next course was brown crab over a crab brain custard with trout roe and a seaweed broth. Now, y'all motherfuckers better know that I looooove brains. Goat brains, pig brains, sheep brains, beef brains, I'll cook'em, eat'em, and ask for more. Crab brains are now on that list, and hoo-boy do I want more. I'm already one of those weird-ass sumbitches that opens and scoops out the cephalothorax at a crawfish boil, so this wasn't a totally new flavor to me, but what they did with it, making that custard, that was goddamn delightful. I was scraping the bowl with my spoon just to get one last morsel of custard, one tiny sip of broth...oh, and don't forget the actual fucking point: the crab and roe. Let's just say that they were even fucking better than the custard and broth. Every pretense I had of knowing what is done in kitchens was now gone. I was just along for the ride.
Yeah, the ride kept going as NPL brought out a bottle of sake. We talked about sake for a minute, and she brought me a free glass of the sake they use on the premium wine pairings, too. The first one smelled like overripe bananas, and the second one smelled vaguely of fish. They both paired well with the 9th course, but I have to say, as I told NPL: I've understood abstractly how wine pairings work, matching up flavors and aromas to dishes to bring out the best in each other. That second sake, though, made me understand what a real wine pairing is. It's about elevation, each piece of the symphony supporting each other piece into a crescendo of
fuck
"a crescendo of awesome" is all I can think to say.
Anyway, grilled langoustine tail with red gooseberry and a caramelized langoustine shell sauce. I used to think lobster was great, and I'm sure it's still pretty nice. This was like when you're a young teen hanging out with your buddy Lobster and his sexy 18 year old sister tells you you're cute and gives you a peck on the cheek and you're like "hello, puberty," except it's just a piece of tender, sweet meat in your mouth and you don't even want to go home again and then you sip the sake that smells kind of like fish and you're transported to a fucking Japanese fishing village and a kindly geisha is giggling behind a hand-painted fan because you're a blushing, fat gaijin wearing a kimono backwards at a hot spring realizing that life is bigger than you thought. Yes, it tasted good.
Part 2
two mornings after while eating a Cuban sandwich and fried sweet plantains from El Punto Cubano at the Dekalb Market Hall
I've slept twice since the Dinner to End All Dinners. Please bear with me as details continue to be lost in a haze.
Hake. I'd read the name before, but never actually heard anyone say it, at least not a time I can remember hearing it. I honestly assumed it was like "hockey," not rhyming with "lake." Always good to learn something. I also learned that it is what cod would be if it tasted better and had a flakier texture, and that's not to say that cod is bad. I fucking love cod. This hake, though, made me feel like the fanciest cod I'd ever eaten was nothing more than a Filet o'Fish at McDonald's. And that's not to say that the FoF isn't my favorite thing to get at McD's, but I digress.
Paired with a Burgundy pinot noir, the hake was adorned with some of that Bulgarian caviar, but the real star of this act (to me, at least) was the sauce. I have been outspoken to many people for many years about how much I absolutely despise Ranch dressing. It's just a sloppy, nasty, over-dilled mess. I'm glad other people enjoy it, but please keep that shit away from me. Unfortunately, my detestation of Ranch dressing has also spilled over into an intense avoidance of dill in general; however, this dill and "Swedish dark beer" sauce reintroduced me to the beauty of what dill can be when used properly. The herb brought a fresh kick to the heartier beer base of the sauce, and I could not get enough of it.
Luckily, I did not have to lick the plate because I was also served my bread course with the hake. The menu description is simply "malted barley with butter from Kriemhild farm." For those that don't know (like me before I was told), Kriemhild is a dairy farm near Hamilton, NY. The bread course served two wonderful purposes for me:
- I had bread to sop up that fantastic beer and dill sauce, and I cleaned that plate like a motherfucker
- The bread and butter were good, high quality stuff, but, at the end of the day, it was "just" bread and butter. Maybe I could do that? Yeah, nah, not happening. But it was delightfully normal and simple amid the pieces of visual art that I had been unceremoniously devouring all night.
Next up was another display of upcoming ingredients, this time quail and venison. From the conversation I had with the kitchen staff that brought the display, it sounded like venison is not as commonly eaten elsewhere as it is back home. This has to do with regulations about not serving private hunted meat in restaurants (of which I was familiar thanks to an episode of Dani and Country Cory, the morning radio show I listen to on the way to work), but I've known enough deer hunters throughout my life that I've been treated to venison steaks, sausages, and jerkies. I'm not sure that I could ever hunt and kill an animal, but if someone else wants to do it, I'd be damn sure to help them dispose of it.
The quail and venison dishes were paired with a white wine whose description included words like "cepage" and "hon hon hon French baguette" or something. Like I told the French folks I met in the hotel elevator, "je ne peux pas parler français." Also, my memory of the wine is pretty hazy because of the dishes with which it was paired. Apologies to all involved. I'm sure it was fantastic.
For the quail, they served a dry-aged breast and a "farce of the leg," which apparently is fancy-talk for "we made sausage from the meat and shoved it into the leg," which is ODG-talk for "what the fuck is this and why have I never heard of it or eaten it before? This cruel world is unjust for keeping such treasures out of my mouth." Melodramatic hyperbole aside, the quail was delicious. The breast was great, but that "farce of the leg" was where it was at. I have no fucking clue what spices, seasonings, or magic powders they used in there, but the flavor coated my mouth. Looking at the picture two days later, I can still smell and taste it. I don't rightly remember what the green foam patches were (maybe that's white truffle something or other?), and I don't exactly recall what the sauce was (maybe that's the black truffle in there?), but what I can tell you is that I was scraping the plate with fork, spoon, and knife to get every last bit of them in my mouth. I've never been the most detail-oriented person, but this was one assignment where every single speck was going to be taken care of.
Before I get to the next course, check out this knife. The knives for this course were manufactured by a company called Morakniv specifically for the restaurant; you can't see it from my shitty picture, but the restaurant's logo is actually branded on the blade. When the knives are delivered, Chef Berselius hand paints the handles, except for this one, which was painted by his 4 year old daughter. I was sooo fucking nervous about using the knife because that's some serious sentimental value there; luckily, I'm not a complete goddamn fool and managed to preserve its glory.
The venison steak. There were chanterelles, there were pretty flowers, I think there may have been two other kinds of mushrooms, too, but, honestly, that didn't matter.
The sauce, man! The sauce! Roasted venison bones, roasted shallots, reduced into a demiglace, a little leek oil (or "oil of leek" if you're not a bumbling redneck like me) added...the sauce was alchemical transmutation at its finest. Before I even put the deer meat in my mouth, I dipped my spoon into the sauce just to give it a fair shake, and I was in love. Now, please don't get me wrong: my hunter friends have always delivered on their promises for great venison, and this slice blew theirs all out of the water. Apologies to my friends, but I'm sure they'd understand. But yeah, that sauce could have been put on a deer turd and I would have happily wolfed it down and asked for seconds. There was just such a depth, a complexity of flavor, that no matter how I've tried wording it in my head over the past two days (because I have spent A LOT of time thinking about this one particular sauce), I can't capture the essence. Not even a Hemingway-esque stream of consciousness reflection about geishas and puberty can bail me out on this one. Just know that I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the kitchen back home trying my damnedest (and failing like a fucking normie with no culinary training, knowledge, or skill) to recatch this lightning in a bottle.
Apologies for the blurry picture here, but I felt guilty for asking the waitstaff to hold the bottles for me to get pictures, so I was in a hurry to get a shot while they explained about this Portuguese red and white blend that was paired with the first dessert course.
That first dessert course was I guess like a strawberry sorbet. It was cold and icy and strawberry, but it wasn't one of those half sno-cone "sorbets" you get at the grocery store. I don't know if I've mentioned it much on the blog, but I'm not really a dessert kind of guy, and I'm also not much of a strawberry kind of guy. The chamomile leaves, the peach leaf, and the frozen strawberry shavings combined to make something that I did enjoy immensely. It was light, refreshing, fruity, and yet still a little savory, once again, just like very fucking course, a complete flavor in each bite.
A second dessert wine, this time a chenin blanc, which was a white very reminiscent of a sauvignon blanc, but not quite as sweet as I would generally expect from an SB. I took a sip of it between finishing the strawberries and digging into the next dessert "course."
I'm sure you've noticed by now that most of the courses consisted of a single plate or bowl. Well, the second dessert was the "milk & whey" plus the "confections."
The milk and whey was listed in the menu as "caramelized whey and milk sorbet with grass-fed cream and meadowsweet cordial." As described when it was served, it's milk three ways. As described by me, it was "goddamn amazing ice cream with a cream base and a creamy sauce and fuck, I like dessert now." I ate this first so it wouldn't melt (based on the wise recommendation of NPL).
Next up were the dark chocolate cakes. You hear people throw around words like "decadent" and "rich" when they talk about chocolate. I usually use words like "chocolate" or "chocolatey." This shit was decadently chocolatey. It was still warm, fresh from the oven, and melted in my mouth almost as quickly as the ice cream...I mean, the "milk sorbet."
There was also this delightful little sweet Swedish bun. I've had croissants made by actual people who knew what they were doing, and they were nowhere near as light, flaky, or mouthwatering as this little speck of bread. Once again, the warm, fresh from the oven display of gustatory opulence melted in my undeserving mouth.
Okay, full disclosure: the reason I'm not swearing off of ever cooking again is these marshmallows. Don't get me wrong: it was the best fucking marshed mallow I have ever put in my mouth, but it was, dare I say it, normal enough that it showed me that Chef Berselius actually may be mortal, perhaps even human. As I said to my brother, tasting that marshmallow was the type of moment when Batman looks at Superman, saying, "Ah, so you *do* bleed."
Next up, I enjoyed these nice little sour gummy candies. I ate the first one straight up, and it was indeed sour, gummy, and kind of a candy. I'm pretty sure they were black currants, but calling it a gummy is, in my opinion, an oversimplification of what this was. It was distinctly fruit, just compressed very smoothly, not a flavored sugar blob. I found the sourness to be a little out of balance with the first candy, but I wrapped the second one in whatever the fuck kind of leaf it was served on, threw that joker back, and, holy hell, it was perfect.
Last, not least, but I don't know the answers to the questions anymore, were these little savory cookies with some kind of cream filling. Or maybe it's a creme filling. Some kind of stuff inside the cookies. It was good. I'm sorry that I can't tell you more, but goddamn, look at all this shit I've written.
I finished everything off with a nice glass of port, thanked the kitchen crew, thanked the servers, talked to one of the server ladies for a minute before my Lyft arrived and took me back to the hotel. In addition to the menu, they also gave me the wine list and the list of plateware, cutlery, and knives that were used with each course.
In Conclusion
What the fuck can I say that I haven't already said? There are experiences in life that show us who we are, what the world is, where we fit, and, maybe, just a little bit about what we can do. Beyond just indescribably beautiful and intricate plating, complex and complete flavors, deep and enticing aromas, kind and cordial service, and informative and patient explanations of everything that was happening, my dinner at Aska showed me that I'm on the right path, that I'm understanding the basic concepts that can help me use my food to communicate my soul to others. I'll never ever ever ever ever be able to do what these demigods did, but that's okay. Chef Berselius has dedicated his life to achieving culinary heights that are just not in the cards for me. I have another job, I spend time playing video games, reading books, practicing music, and writing rambling blog posts. It's not just that he possesses natural talents greater than mine, but also that he has practiced, experimented, tried, and failed more in this realm than I ever will. But now I know what kind of heights can be reached with something as simple as some bones, onions, seasoning, heat, and technique. So let's sharpen up our knives, find some fun new ingredients, and try some real stupid shit. Who knows? Maybe we'll even make something special.
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