A couple of months ago, Jenny and I were watching Iron Chef America, and were totally excited to see that the chef at one of our favorite restaurants was the challenger against Bobby Flay. The secret ingredient was cabbage. We decided that at the end of the competition, if he won, we would make a reservation that night to return. It turns out that not only did Chef David
Kinch win, he DESTROYED Bobby Flay. We immediately made a reservation. Given that its hard to justify an expensive meal without having a reason to celebrate, I made the reservation for Mother's Day to celebrate with the mother to be.
We had been to
Manresa before, and it easily became our favorite restaurant the last time we were here. Chef
Kinch is definitely a serious player in the Bay Area food scene. His restaurant has won several awards, is rated Michelin 2 star, Mobil 4 star, in the top 50 restaurants of the world by multiple publications, including Gourmet Magazine. He has also been twice nominated for a James Beard award, but unfortunately did not take home the Best Chef of the Pacific region last week. The cuisine is influenced by French and modern Catalan cooking, Chef
Kinch finds inspiration from European traditions and refinement, American ingenuity and the vast bounty that California has to offer. The show In Wine Country did a profile on him a while back and talked at length about his relationship with the Love Apple Farm, the restaurants own garden always providing the most fresh and
delectable vegetables for his dishes.
A couple of weeks after our original reservation, we got a call from the General Manager of the Restaurant that Chef
Kinch had decided to do several encore presentations of his Iron Chef victory menu. He was almost apologetic in the phone call, asking if it was OK that there would be a fixed menu based on the Iron Chef victory menu, since they
wouldn't have a normal menu selection. On the contrary, we were ecstatic to have the opportunity to try what had been on the show. It turns out that we were the first people to have a reservation for the first sitting, and the first people they had to call to let us know that the regular menu selections
wouldn't be available. They remembered our reservation as being the first!
So of course we have been eagerly anticipating this meal for months now. Talking to the general manager tonight, we learned that the episode that was shown in March was actually filmed in June of 2008! Chef
Kinch had to keep it a secret that he won, even from his own staff until the viewing party that he had in March. Per the manager, they were presented with three potential "secret" ingredients months before, and had to provide the show a list of ingredients that they would need to make their dishes. Aside from cabbage, which was eventually chosen as the secret ingredient, the other potential ingredients were
squab and farm-raised sea bass. According to Chef Kinch, he was most excited about the cabbage, because it was more in line with his style of cooking. Personally, sea bass being my favorite fish, I wish that was the ingredient they chose :)
Chef Kinch's staff told us tonight that it actually took some effort to make his Iron Chef menu available for tasting at his restaurant, because appearing on the show somehow made some of the dishes presented somewhat of a property of the Food Network. Sounds silly. We were glad he was able to show off his menu for his local fans.
On to the food!
Shaun decided to do the traditional wine pairing with the dinner, as opposed to the more expensive Premium pairing.
The first course was an amuse bouche of pastrami, scrambled eggs, and ramps (wild leek). It was paired with a Japanese origin Hitachin Nest Beer Belgium White Ale. The pastrami was delicious, the ramps added a wonderful and uniquely pungent flavor. The scrambled eggs were a nice accompaniment, but
didn't seem to have a ton of flavor.
The second course was a Delicate Salad of Sea Bream and
Geoduck clam with tasted sesame, seaweed and mushroom. Sea Bream is a wonderfully light and mild white fish that went very well with the dish as a whole. Given that Jenny is pregnant, they cooked the
geoduck through for her and
replaced the raw Sea Bream with cooked octopus. Overall, the dish was fantastic. The
dashi sauce and sesame added an incredible amount of flavor. The taste was similar to the type of dish that you would find at a very high quality Japanese
restaurant. It was crisp, clean, and
ohh so tasty. Of all the wine pairings, I have to say that the Sekt Solter Riesling Rheingau (Germany) paired with the dish was my least favorite, as it had a little bit of a metallic taste.
The third course was a red cabbage and pear borscht with stone ground mustard, pear and cabbage "
choucroute". It was presented as two
quenelles of the pear and red cabbage mixture and a creamy ground mustard mixture. They then poured the red cabbage and pear borscht (think chilled soup) over the top. It was very purple in presentation, but was delicious. The mustard component was my favorite. Yummy 2007 Domaine de L'Aujariere Sauvignon Gris Vin de Pays Du Val de Loire (France) for the pairing.
Fourth course was the Cabbage Patch. This was probably the best of the bunch, both in presentation and in taste. The dish had a collection of cabbage, with a savory foam, edible flowers and leaves, and a creamy sauce that had the flavor of squash. It was accompanied with some truly delicious pieces of country ham. My favorite part of the dish was the "dirt", a toasted
hazelnut, chicory root and potato mixture that was sublime. It really added an incredible earthiness to the dish that was really delicious. It was paired with an excellent 2006 Domaine: Ostertag Gewurztrminer Alsace (France) .
Fifth course was Stuffed Cabbage with Forgotten Vegetables, exotic spice, and natural vegetable juices. This one was
probably the most fragrant, as it had a fair amount of Indian spices to it. It was multiple layered and had a very nice foam atop it. The dish was tiny, and I wish we had more of it, because it was really fantastic. It was paired with a very nice 2007 Yalumba Bush Vine Grenache Barossa (Australia)
Sixth course was
Farro grain cooked like a risotto, roasted breast of duck,
napa cabbage, stems and leaves, fried
brussel sprout, and meat juices. This was a truly fantastic dish. The fried
brussel sprouts leaves were
delicious, as were the chips of what I think was water chestnut. The duck was cooked incredible well. It was one of those that you just wanted to lick the plate clean. It was paired with a very nice 2005 Bodegas Victoria Pardina Tempranilla Carina (Spain)
Finally, the dessert was a dark chocolate
hazelnut feuillentine with olive oil ice cream and sea salt. We've had olive oil ice cream before, and really enjoyed it. This was truly excellent. The olive oil ice cream was so rich and creamy. I could have done without the sea salt on the ice cream. The chocolate
hazelnut component was incredibly
rich and smooth. Delicious! Paired with a late harvest 2006 Mas Amiela Vin Doux Narurel Maury (France) that really paired nicely.
After dessert and an espresso,
Chef Kinch stopped by the table and we got to talk to him. He talked about the whole Iron Chef experience, how much he enjoyed it, and how he was lucky to have his A-team of sous chefs with him. He was quite reserved, modest, and quiet. It was a pleasure meeting him and talking with him.
Jenny was presented with a rose for Mother's Day, and we were then invited to tour the kitchen. What an awesome experience. It was not at all like we imagined it would be. First, it was on the small side, but absolutely immaculate. There was a station for each dish for the night, and a set of chefs working meticulously to have the perfect presentation. All in all, there were 12 chefs working away at the dishes of the night. The kitchen was full of copper All-Clad pans of all sizes. The manager then showed us the 2 1/2-ton Bonnet
Cidelcem Maestro range, custom-made in France for a six-figure sum and one of just five in California. It is a
flameless cooking surface, avoiding what the chef says is the infusion
of fuel flavor into the food. Further, the stove gets to 420,000 BTU, and offers upwards of 700 degrees of cooking power. Wow! The kitchen was also full of salamanders for
heating, and all the good stuff you've seen in behind the scenes looks at the world's best kitchens. While there, we saw a tub of the olive oil ice cream we had just enjoyed, and in all seriousness, wanted to just grab it and run away into the night savoring that rich creamy goodness outside on the sidewalk under the moon.
After our tour of the kitchen, we finished the night grabbing a handful of the salted caramel candies. Shaun has lusted after these things since the last time we were at the restaurant, and when he was offered the opportunity to "take a handful" did so and darted out of the restaurant. Yummy.
BOTTOM LINE: All in all, another extraordinary meal at
Manresa. Probably the best preparation I could have imagined with cabbage of all ingredients. I feel bad in that my descriptions don't do the meal justice. Manresa remains one of those places that we look forward to going for (very) special occasions. The food is wonderfully inventive and well exceuted, the combinations and flavors are incredibly imaginative and as fresh as can be, the service is awesome, all for making a very pleasureful 3-hour (yes, 3 hours) dining experience. Was it worth the $135/pp price tag? That's hard to say. The ingredients certainly didnt seem to justify the cost. Its not like there were truffle shavings, kobe beef, or saffron in abundance. Actually, the menu was pretty much devoid of protein save for the pastrami in the amuse, the fish in the second course and the duck in the fifth. A large part of the cost has to be making that experience possible for the Iron Chef fan to taste what the judges were tasting (Even if we were to go to a taping in New York, from what I've read, the audience does NOT get to taste anything). Its not like one thinks about value when going to Manresa, but there is probably more value in a regular non-iron chef 3 or 4 course tasting for $75 and $95 respectively. I remember having like 4 or 5 amuse bouches with those menus as well, as opposed to just one tonight. One thing is for sure... If we ever leave the Bay Area, we are really gonna miss this place.
Read more about
Manresa here,
here, about the kitchen
here. www.manresarestaurant.com
