Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of dining at a few fantastic restaurants outside of Portland, Maine. Although I don’t travel too often, when I do one of my focuses, of course, is on food. This will be the first in a series of three posts where I will report on two meals from outside of Portland, before reporting on one of our city’s own nationally-recognized restaurants. Based on my completely unscientific (and way limited) method, we’ll see how Portland stacks up.
Up first is Commis, Chef James Syhabout’s new restaurant (opened last fall) in Oakland, California. Chef Syhabout has spent time at El Bulli in Spain, The Fat Duck in England, and served as the Chef de Cuisine at Manresa in Los Gatos, California. Commis is the first restaurant that this 30-year old chef has owned and it’s quite unlike anyplace at which I have dined.
The focus here is entirely on the food, with stark and minimalist decor. White walls with no artwork, black tile floor, and simple modern decor: all attention is drawn to the large stainless open kitchen and six-seat dining bar in the center of this 30-something seat restaurant. Some might feel that the restaurant feels cold, but I liked it: no distractions, we’re here to eat.
I was lucky enough to have a seat at the end of the dining bar for the nightly multi-course tasting menu. The dishes were carefully and calmly composed directly in front of me. It was fun to watch complex food prepared with such efficiency and precision (tweezers were frequently used). The chefs anticipated each others moves, often only speaking when it was time to cook a protein (“fire two chicken” “fire one lamb”).
The food? This is one time I wish I took pictures, because I am sure words cannot do justice to how great these dishes looked (and of course tasted). Check out this blog for some great photos of the food (including the poached egg and pork jowl dishes I describe below).
Poached Farm Egg: smoked dates, onion cream & malt. Served in a small bowl, the hard poached farm egg was set in the middle of light onion cream. Off to one side of the cream was a small mound of granola, with the date puree hidden beneath everything. This was perhaps the best dish of the evening — I’m a big fan of “breakfast-like” apps. All components of this dish were in complete harmony: rich egg yolk, subtly pungent onion cream, brought together by the sweetness of the dates. The granola added a welcome contrasting texture and furthered the breakfast feel of the dish.
Cool Watercress Soup: Marin oysters in milk skin, nasturiums and sorrel. This chilled soup had a bright, refreshing spring-like flavor underscored by the raw shaved asparagus curls set in the center of the dish. But the oysters! Each individually wrapped in milk skin, they burst in my mouth with briney perfection.
Salad of Green Fruit: unripe tomato and pickled strawberries, avocado and green olive. This dish was interesting. Each cube of green tomato was sprinkled with salt and marked with a touch of avocado mousse. Interspersed among the tomato were slices of green pickled strawberry, which were sweet with a slight vinegar bite. The only part of the dish that didn’t quite work was was the green olives, whose saltiness seemed to overwhelm and clash with the other fruits on the plate.
Local Halibut Tartare, Lemon Vinaigrette: ginger and horseradish, kelp and coriander. Great dish with Asian (for lack of a better word) flavors. The diced halibut was wrapped in a thin slice of daikon and set atop horseradish cream, with kelp and flowering coriander. Fresh, subtle, yet bright flavors.
Seared Gulf Shrimp: artichoke and spinach, algae emulsion. As the server placed this dish in front of me she suggested, “you can eat the heads.” You don’t have to ask me twice. All the flavor was concentrated in the heads of these medium sized crustaceans. I wish I could recall the flavors in the rest of this dish, but I can’t. Just memories of the deep, rich, “shrimpiness” within the crunch of the heads remains.
Grilled Ling Cod from Fort Bragg: english pea porridge and marinated favas, mint milk tea. The mild ling cod (apparently not closely related to cod) had a great crisp crust and was accompanied by some of my favorite spring flavors. It’s May in California, how can you go wrong with peas, mint, and favas? The pea porridge was rich yet fresh-tasting and the mint milk tea (basically a foam) brought all the flavors together.
Corned Pork Jowl Salad: black trumpet vinaigrette, lettuce stems and leaves. Crisp, fatty cubes of pork jowl were set among both raw and cooked lettuces. Have I found a new favorite cut of pork? Quite possibly. This was not unlike pork belly only perhaps better – a great ratio of meat to fat. The cooked lettuce imparted a welcome bitterness, cutting the richness of the pork and the raw lettuce brightened everything up a bit.
Slow Roast Loin of Lamb and Braised Shoulder: caramelized cauliflower and fermented eastern spices. The final savory dish of the meal did not disappoint. The loin, cooked medium rare was tasty, but it was the rich and intensely flavored braised shoulder (shredded almost like pulled pork) that virtually melted in my mouth. It’s also hard for me to dislike a dish with cauliflower, a greatly underrated vegetable, in my opinion.
And finally …
Chocolate Brioche Perdido: strawberries en rescoldo, chartreuse chantilly, garden herbs. This was a satisfying finale to the meal. The brioche wasn’t too dense, but was intensely chocolaty. Strawberries reappeared, this time fully ripe, sweet, slightly smokey (from being cooked over burning embers). The scented cream and herbs completed the dish.
I was not quite sure what to expect before dining at Commis. After reading about the restaurant and its dishes, I was worried that I’d find the food too precious (many of the dishes include edible flowers) or too contrived. But it was none of these things. Chef Syhabout takes fresh, seasonal ingredients and creates complex dishes through which true flavors shine. Having infrequently dined on the west coast, I’m a “California cuisine,” neophyte. However, I’d guess the food at Commis is a fine example of this style.
Stay tuned for Part II: Frasca Food and Wine.
