Sea Change

My wife and I attended a play at the Guthrie recently. I decided we should also give the restaurant there a try, while we were out on our date. A friend of ours made a sour face when we mentioned we would be dining at Sea Change. "I don't like floor to ceiling windows, especially not with Minnesota winters, and granite tabletops. It's too cold. Bring me warm food and put it on a cold table next to cold window? No thanks."


I'm pleased to report our dining experience was mostly the opposite. The theatrical production, on the other hand, left me shivering cold. During the meal, there was only one glaring misstep, and the responsibility for that lay chiefly with a decision made by the designer of the menu to incorporate the flavor of popcorn into the salmon entrée. Of course I had additional minor complaints about the food, but they are hardly worth mentioning.

I ordered the prix fixe (roughly translated: "fixed price") where three courses were delivered to me for just over the average cost of most of the entrées. Stephanie ordered the "popcorn" salmon, with a warm beet salad (minus the bleu cheese) to start. The beet, beet green, walnut, and (drum roll please) pancetta was wonderful. The pancetta, cooked to perfect crispy salty perfection was the star attraction. The walnuts, imo, would have benefited from a little praline action. My starter, the arugula with grapefruit and housemade ricotta salata, while quite tasty, would have benefited from a little larger serving, with a couple extra grapefruit segments and double the ricotta salata. Three puny slivers of cheese barely kept pace with the rest of the salad.

Our entrées were both phenomenal. Stephanie's salmon and my arctic char were executed perfectly. The char's accompanying white bean puree, white beans, and pickled artichoke melange were fantastic. The salmon's bed of popcorn grits, on the other hand, and accompanying corn related trifles, were not. But the langoustine sauce served on the side made up for the complaints about the popcorn. I think my Facebook post said "I'll have the salmon, hold the popcorn."

About the brownie, caramel ganache, and chocolate malt foam, I don't need to say more. It was every bit as delicious as you may imagine (pictured at the top of this blog).

I was not prepared for the strong negative emotions that arose within me during the second half of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew that rounded out our evening. I was enraged. I was close to tears. I almost walked out. I nearly stood up and interrupted the performance with a vilification of the villainy of the debauchery of 15th-century male domination. It really was too much. This play should not be performed. I'm in favor of a ban.

I had thought, with such modern adaptations as Kiss Me, Kate, an homage from the writers of the 80s tv show Moonlighting, among numerous other adaptations, surely this would be worth watching. I was not prepared for the stark reality of physical and emotional abuse as the main mover of the plot in the second half of the play. There is nothing funny about abuse. By the end of the play I concluded that I find Hamlet to be more of a "comedy" than Taming of the Shrew. By all rights, the latter should be considered a tragedy.

Braised Beef with Caramelized Onions

The origins of the importance of this dish in our household dates back to our four month stint living in Nigeria. The challenge: take a cut of West African beef and try to make it palatable, that is, make it resemble something you might find living in a land where cows grow quite large having eaten their fill, as opposed to skinny cows that barely get enough to eat. The first couple times I tried cooking beef roast over there were miserable. The beef was as tough as shoe leather, and about as flavorful. No matter how long we cooked it, the result was the same. Finally, I hit on a method that worked. Braise until barely tender. It took awhile, upwards of ten or twelve hours. It never really got "tender." There just wasn't enough fat on the meat to improve the texture much. After ten or twelve hours, though, the beef did lose a little of its leathery toughness.

You can approximate the dish here, but you will invariably end up with something far tender and far tastier. And it should only take three or four hours. On a recent trip to a suburban food mall that stands in for a grocery store, I reviewed the options: chuck roast, bottom round, top sirloin. I didn't know the difference, only that they all implied they were good for pot roast. I think I've most often used chuck roast and have always been pleased with the way that particular cut responds to braising. I tried bottom round this time, and was very pleased with the result, although it did require a little longer time to finish. The basic technique I use is outlined below, although there's a seeming endless number of variations you can riff.

I like this dish best served over mashed potatoes.

You can serve it with rice if you prefer. You can make an excellent risotto with the leftovers. It would also be extremely nice topped over a handmade wide ribboned pasta. But I'll probably never have the  motivation to make the pasta. In the title, I described the onions as "caramelized." Similar to my inability to make noodles, I never make caramelized onions. I am always too anxious to get the beef started so I never cook the onions more than twenty or thirty minutes. For a true caramelized onion, the minimum cooking time is closer to ninety minutes. Since I haven't mastered the technique, I can't advise you further there. If you want authentic caramelization, consult a standard cooking text such as Joy of Cooking or How to Cook Everything and you'll probably be just fine.

Three ingredients are all that are required for the basic version. Five, if you count water and salt as ingredients. Seven, if you like mushrooms and a thicker stew-like concoction.

Olive Oil
2 lbs. Onions
2.5 to 3.5 lb. Beef Roast

Optional:
1 lb. Mushrooms
a few tablespoons flour or cornstarch

1. Rub beef with kosher salt, then sear on all sides over medium high heat with a little oil. Discard oil, wipe pan clean, and start working on the onions.

2. Peel, trim, and slice the onions as thinly as possible. I like to use my mandoline, as it reduces the time required to slice and it produces a more uniformly thin result than I would have the patience or skill to produce if slicing manually.

3. Saute onions over medium with a bit of salt until volume reduced dramatically (20 minutes, minimum, up to an hour and a half or more for a true caramelized onion). Stir every little while and watch carefully. You may need to turn down the heat to medium low to prevent the onions from scorching.
4. Add beef and enough water to cover the beef by two-thirds
5. Bring to a bare simmer, cover with lid slightly askew, and cook until tender. Turn beef over every 45 minutes to an hour or so. Add another cup or two of water if needed. Minimum of about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, although some cuts my benefit from a longer cooking time. You want the meat to come apart easily when you poke it.
6. Let beef cool somewhat (20-30 minutes maybe) and tear beef into shreds.
7. Strain the liquid and discard onions. If desired, thicken remaining liquid to a gravy with flour or cornstarch.

To make a risotto with the leftovers, use between 1 and 1 1/2 cups of braised beef (with accompanying liquid) per 1 cup of uncooked arborio rice. For an unusually textured risotto, add the beef at the beginning of the roughly 22 minute stirring and cooking time when you're first adding liquid. The end result is sticky and gooey, as if you'd added a cup of mozzeralla. It's the strangest thing. If you prefer the beef to retain more of its original texture, add it instead at about halfway into the cooking time.

Lox

When I worked in downtown Minneapolis I went through a long stretch of stopping at the Brother's Deli every morning for a bagel. Alternately, I would order an unadorned onion bagel; toasted sesame seed with peanut butter; or something with cream cheese. After some time, I developed a taste for two breakfast sandwiches in particular that were my absolute favorites. Both of these needed an onion bagel. The first was lox with cream cheese, thinly sliced red onion, and capers. The second . . . well, let's just say that pastrami was involved and I'll leave it at that. I may write more about that one another day.

My first few sandwiches with lox did not have capers. But one day, Pam asked me if I wanted capers. She said that one of her customers claimed it was an essential part of the lox experience, and had actually provided them with a small bottle of capers for their use. I was forced to agree: they are essential.

I can't really remember the first time I had lox. It may have been New York when I was in my teens or early twenties. It's hard to remember much of anything with certainty from those days of summers long ago. I can say with certainty that my interest in lox was renewed when I was working downtown Minneapolis (1997-2009) and discovered the high quality of the bagels at the Brother's Deli. Their secret? They imported bagel dough from H&H, one the famed bagelries of Manhattan! I understand that the original H&H is closed, although one remains open and is operating under new ownership.

At the time, I thought I was getting the real deal, a real New York bagel experience. Some years later I was in New York on an extended layover and found myself in a random bagelry in Brooklyn. How could I not order the lox? It was a jarring experience, being barked at by the impatient counterperson whose Brooklynese I couldn't understand, and who couldn't understand that I wasn't ready to move at the pace of everyone else around me. I survived the ordering experience and was shocked by the size of my sandwich. I think the bagel was 40% larger than the one in Minneapolis, the cream cheese increased by 70%, and the amount of salmon nearly double. I was surprised I could finish it. I think I skipped lunch that day.

These days, I no longer work downtown, and I don't like shelling out > $5 for a bagel sandwich, not to mention my despair at the inferior quality of bagels at some of the more prominent chains. I've settled for a miniature version of the lox. Once upon a time I calculated the monetary cost at $1.71 per serving, with a caloric cost of around 200. Conveniently, you can get all the ingredients at Trader Joe's! My principal complaint with this version is that there are no onion bagels at Trader Joe's. My only other complaint is that I really long for one of those gargantuan lox sandwiches like the one I ate in Brooklyn.

1 Trader Joe's plain mini-bagel
.5 oz. whipped cream cheese (.75 of an oz. if you prefer)
.5 oz. smoked salmon, a.k.a. nova lox (1 oz. if you prefer)
a small amount of onion sliced as thinly as possible (red onion is traditional but I'm not a purist)
a small spoonful of capers

1. Toast the bagel
2. Layer on top, in this order, cream cheese, capers, onion, and salmon
3. Enjoy!

Origami

I recently experienced "omakase" at what is reputed to be the finest sushi establishment in the Twin Cities. If you are unfamiliar with the term, the essential meaning of the request is that you entrust the sushi chef to design your meal. I had always been a little hesitant to try an omakase experience, mainly due to the expense. You can normally get an adequate amount of sushi for between $15 and $25, depending on what you order and where. I had heard that it is not uncommon for omakase to run upwards of $70 or more, which is not a part of my normal every day dining experience. The other reason I hesitated was because I didn't know how it worked. A belated birthday celebration for my good friend Alan and I seemed the perfect opportunity to give it a try.

At Origami West, in the Ridgedale Mall, Minnetonka, MN, the way it worked was this: ask the server (or sushi chef) for omakase. At Origami West, at least for lunch, the minimum was $40, from which you could increment upwards in roughly $5 increments. While I wasn't certain if that was $40 per person I was pretty sure it was, so we decided to start at the bare minimum. The dialogue continued, do you prefer nigiri or sashimi, any particular items that you don't like, anything that you really like? We opted for a "nigiri, no uni or ikura, and please include some mackerel, and tobiko with a quail egg." The chef also asked if we might be interested in some toro. We increased our omakase order to $45 per person after toro was mentioned. I love toro.

We were presented with plate after plate of exquisite perfection. The first course was six pieces of nigiri; a pair of mackerel, a piece of fatty salmon, a pair of eel, and then some finely chopped toro with a small amount of green onion. I was extremely impressed with the way the flavor and texture profiles were designed in perfect harmony. The second course challenged my palate and sense of adventure. I had not had raw shrimp before, nor had I consumed a fried shrimp head. The raw shrimp, or ebi, was remarkably similar in texture to the piece of amberjack nigiri that came on the plate. Three pieces of marinated gourd in a maki roll, and a perfectly executed spicy scallop hand roll rounded out the plate.

The third course (pictured above, at the top) included a trio of roe; tobiko, wasabi tobiko, and masago (in a hollowed out cucumber end, no less!); tamago, and a piece of red snapper. Our meal concluded with the sweetest, freshest pineapple imaginable. All in all, I would have to rate the experience a perfect 10!

Update December 2012
A number of weeks later, I invited another friend to give "omakase" a try at the flagship Origami in downtown Minneapolis. It was every bit as delicious, but it ended up costing nearly double what we spent in Minnetonka.

Update February 2013
Origami West is no more. They have relocated to Uptown Minneapolis.