So I was in Chicago last weekend for my birthday. Ate at Moto on Friday and Charlie Trotters on Saturday. Moto’s chef Homaru Cantu had previously worked at Charlie Trotter’s but now has branched off into some very experimental wacky type of cooking. I had the “Grand Tour” which was about 20 courses and it included all the things I had read about in various magazines and reviews. He invented a box made of some sort of gelatinous type material which apparently retains heat very well. They heat the box in an oven to 400 degrees, then pour in a bit of broth, drop a little rack into it, and on the rack goes a medallion of sea bass. The box is then closed and rests on your table and cooks the fish while you enjoy one of your other appetizers. Gimmicky, yes, so I didn’t expect too much flavor-wise. Boy was I wrong. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t absolutely perfectly cooked. The fish was plated and then the broth poured over it which was a perfectly balanced accompaniment. All night long I was expecting gimicks and got served surprisingly delicious food. Probably my favorite dish of the evening was lobster pieces served with a little nob of browned-butter ice cream. It was a wonderful match and the ice cream itself was so startlingly intense. If you’re interested in more of that kind of stuff, just Google it and you’ll read tons of reviews of his other dishes like edible menus, stuff made with inkjet printers, etc. I’d write more about it, but it’s a bit exhausting just thinking about it. I didn’t leave feeling over-stuffed, but I did feel tired from 4 hours of eating. Bottom line is the food tastes great to go along with the zany preparation of it.

Then Saturday was the old school reliability of Charlie Trotter’s. Classically refined and brilliantly executed cuisine as always. Vegetables that taste bigger and brighter than you could imagine. Sauces made from vegetable purees that were decadently rich yet somehow contained no butter or cream. He really coaxes the essence out of all his superior ingredients without cheating with butter or bacon. And when he does use fat, he does so in a balanced fashion. Probably the highlight of the meal was a dish of Pork Three Ways. It consisted of three slices of pork tenderloin that was so ridiculously succulent it had the texture of rare duck breast, a strip of pork belly, and the star of the show- shredded pork tortellini. Great hand made pasta is a treat in itself, but when you stuff it with something as delicious as shredded pork, it is just so over the top. Again, I’d write more, but the whole Moto experience has mentally exhausted me so I don’t feel like trying to recall and write about all the things I ate. Suffice it to say, the Charlie Trotters experience was once again flawless from the very beginning when I was shown a menu personalized with birthday wishes, through all the wonderful food and wine pairings, to the very end when the valet attendant stopped traffic so that we could make a U-turn.

Oh yeah, as a footnote, I should mention that I ordered the wine pairing option, a different wine with each course, and I was absolutely delighted to see that one of the dessert wine selections was my favorite ol’ standby- Saracco Moscato D’Asti! How great is that?