On the road again: Chicon, day 3

Another Worldcon day, another day spent almost entirely in a hotel room in front of a laptop doing email.  Ah, well; it comes with the job.  I did manage to get out for almost two hours during the day, during which I picked up my program participant packet, checked out a bit of the con's layout, and watched most of the opening ceremonies.  A pleasant time.  I hope to do more con stuff tomorrow.

Lunch was half of a small pretzel roll and a little bit of Coke Zero.  Partly, that was because I was so full from dinner last night.  Partly, it was due to tonight's dinner...

...which was at Alinea, Chef Grant Achatz's main restaurant, and was utterly wonderful. 

I could write a novel about my two meals there, but seeing as how I'm actually under contract for two other novels, I won't do that.  I will hit a few high points, though, to try to explain a bit of the Alinea magic.

When they opened the restaurant doors tonight--we were in the first seating and actually seated first--the two attendants said, "Have fun!"  All night long, servers and other staffers said, "Have a great time!" and "Have fun!"  They also asked if we were having fun.  Never did anyone question whether the food tasted good, as servers at other restaurants often do.

That difference is due to two reasons:  They know their food is delicious--and, man, is it!--and the emphasis is on the complete experience you have.  They want you to have fun, and you most certainly do.

When we stepped through the open doors, we found ourselves on slightly wet grass, as if we were walking outside on morning dew.  To our left, a small aluminum washtub filled with cold water sat atop a small stone wall.  In it, bumping into each other gently as they circulated in the moving water, were glasses of lemonade.  The lemonade was just the right blend of sweet and tart, the whole entrance a nod to summer. 

The meal contained many courses, most of which took advantage of various modernist cuisine techniques to intrigue your imagination visually and fool yet please your taste buds.  A course of mushrooms sat atop four rocks.  A single piece of pasta stuffed with the most delicious black truffles and black truffle water perched in the center of a spoon sitting in a circular container built for just that purpose.

The penultimate course was a balloon on a string weighted down with a shiny nail.  The balloon and the string were made of fruit leather, and the balloon was filled with helium.  If you didn't want to sound silly, you poked the balloon with the nail.  We bit into it, sucked out the helium, and talked in squeaky voices as we ate the delicious balloon and string. 

The final course was amazing.  First, they covered the table with a light gray neoprene tablecloth that matched the color of the building's exterior.  Then, they put down a set of small bowls full of brightly colored powders and gels.  A translucent white egg the size of an ostrich egg came next and occupied the center of the table. 

A chef appeared from the kitchen.  With a set of spoons and very careful motions, he spread the contents of the bowls in broad strokes across the table, literally painting it with food--strawberry powder, Chantilly cream, sweet English pea powder, and much more.  He poured liquid nitrogen into the egg, held it up before our eyes for a few moments as it steamed, and then dropped it hard onto the table. 

It shattered and revealed a world of small, colorful dessert objects inside.  Here's a look at part of the table. 

We ate as they instructed us, by dragging our spoons across the table and into the contents of the white chocolate egg, mixing various flavors and trying out all the many different items inside.

It was glorious.  We couldn't help but laugh the entire time, permanent smiles stuck on our faces as we ate like kids, the very act of our eating further changing the art that was the tablecloth. 

Getting into Alinea is tough, and the meal is expensive.  It's worth every bit of that trouble, and more.  It's worth a flight to Chicago.  It's an amazing experience I wish everyone could have. 

On the road again: Chicon, day 2

Due to work demands, I spent most of today in my hotel room either on email or phone meetings.  Still, I can't complain about the day as a whole, as you'll see shortly.

Lunch was a fine blue pig and fig sandwich at Pastoral, a shop I recommend highly.  The cheese and the jamon serrano were both excellent, and if I lived here or had a refrigerator, I would have bought a lot of cheese. 

In the afternoon, I managed to escape the room long enough to register and say hi to a few friends who were wandering around the hotel. 

The big treat of the day, though, came late, when by luck my request for last-minute tickets to Next came through and I was able to eat dinner at Grant Achatz's wonderful second restaurant. 

If you're a foodie, you already know all about Next and can skip this paragraph. If you aren't aware of it, the basic idea is that three times a year--what it calls "seasons"--the restaurant does a completely different menu that the chefs design around a theme.  The first four themes were Paris 1906, Thailand, childhood, and El Bulli.  Each was a huge hit, and entrance to the restaurant became harder and harder and harder.  You don't reserve a seat; you buy a ticket.  Thousands of people fill the online lottery to buy year-long season passes.  And so on.  The rules get more complex, and the chances of getting in lessen from there.

After I was lucky enough to score tickets for tonight, we grabbed a cab and headed to Next to enjoy the menu on the current theme, Sicily.  Having eaten once before at Achatz's first restaurant, Alinea, and having seen pictures of and read about Next's seasons on El Bulli and childhood, I was prepared to eat any number of strange foods built loosely on Sicilian cuisine.

Instead, what appeared in multiple amazing courses were dishes built to evoke eating in the home of a Sicilian family--one whose cooks were amazing.  I'll go into the individual dishes another time, but suffice to say that from the antipasti to the pasta to the fish to the amazing pork shoulder, everything we ate was delicious and clearly in the Sicilian tradition.  I loved it all.  My only regret is that I do not own tickets to every Next season; each would, I am confident, be worth the additional cost of flying to Chicago. 

If you can ever wrangle a chance to eat at Next, do it.  I am confident you won't regret the choice or the cost.