The last month has been a whirlwind of good food and interesting invitations to dine at various restaurants around town. It is a rare and wonderful thing when a Chef thinks enough of you and what you are doing to invite you come in and dine. I always feel so honored and flattered, but mostly I am excited, because I know that the Chef is going to take good care of me. They are going to put out the food they are most proud of, or something they believe deserves to be highlighted in some way.
Sometimes, I get invited in the hopes of a mention on the blog or in Tastebud Magazine, sometimes it is because they want my opinion on a dish or a new menu, and sometimes it is to prove me wrong on something I have assumed about their food or their restaurant. Don't get me wrong, if I am invited to dine to "right a wrong", it is done light-heartedly, in a sort of "check yo' self, before you wreck yo' self" sort of way. Trust me, I appreciate it. If I need to be schooled, then school me.
Sometimes I pay for my meal, sometimes they pay for my meal, or at least some part of it. I never assume that anything will be comped when I agree to accept an invitation to dine, but of course it is lovely when it happens.
Are they buying a mention in my blog, by picking up part of the tab? I don't view it that way. If I go and there is nothing about the meal worth mentioning, then I do not mention it or them. I write this blog to please myself, to put thoughts I have in printed word so that I can ponder them, learn from them and hopefully spread what I have learned to you.
I usually never turn down an invitation from a Chef, because there may be a story that needs to be told. Whether I have dined there before. . .if you keep asking questions, you will learn something you didn't know before. Either about the restaurant business or about cooking in general. It's my homework and my boot camp, to go and dine out as often as I do. Some weeks, I am really full. Some weeks, I wish I was full. It's feast or famine. Welcome to the world of restaurants.
The most intriguing and surprising invitation came from The American restaurant after reading my post called The American Anew. Napkins across laps? Good, then let's dig in to my most recent meal there.
The American Restaurant - Um, yea, so when Chef Debbie Gold, Executive Chef at The American, calls you on your cell phone and says she read your blog post about The American, and would like to invite you to come and dine at the restaurant so you can taste her food . . .you tend to take that call. I know I sure did.
The truth is, I have met Chef Debbie Gold before, but not in a way she would remember me. I had also met General Manager and Wine Director for The American, Jamie Jamison, at a couple of different functions I attended last year at The American. I always found him to be gracious and entertaining as well.
So, of course, I accepted the invitation to dine on the rainy Thursday night at The American. I arrived and met my husband, Eatie, at the bar located on the top level tier of the restaurant just as he was ordering a cocktail from the near famous veteran bartender Willie Grandison, who was absolutely proper . . .almost regal in his presentation of Eatie's drink. That man is history. He could sit you down over a stiff drink and tell you some stories, now. I guarantee it. He has seen some stuff, and heard some stuff at this bar over the years.
The meal that followed was 5 courses of Chef's choice at my request, with a couple of excellent wine suggestions from Jamie. The food that came out of Chef Debbie Gold's kitchen was much different than the food I had enjoyed a year ago for my birthday, when I had celebrated with Chef Celina Tio at The American. This is not to pit one Chef against the other, but to say the differences in their cooking and plating styles and their culinary points of view were much clearer to me now seeing each of them at the helm of this culinary icon in our city.
Chef Debbie Gold is writing the next chapter of her culinary story in Kansas City right now at The American. Her food is the same, yet completely different from her 40 Sardine days. She has a refined, yet unfussy, way of putting together her dishes. They are serious plates with a mature and educated view of timely, seasonal ingredients that blended together in a sophisticated, yet uncomplicated way. Artful plates, beautiful to look at, with simple ingredients that were meant to be together, yet they were not the usual suspects. Eating her food, to me, was a surprise with each bite. That is what I found most amazing. That, as a fan of her work, she was still able to surprise me with how interesting, or delicious or creative or humble the flavors of the dishes were. This, from one of the best Chefs in KC. I wondered, "who am I to be surprised?" As a fan of Chef Debbie's, I was pleasantly surprised.
Clearly, she is changing the stuffy image at The American, not to a more casual one, but to a more up-to-date culinary one. I thought, eating her food and seeing her dishes, that she was really producing dishes that were "of the moment" in what's happening in food today. Seasonal, local ingredients, edible art, making things in house - goat butter for the table, then using the whey left over in a sauce on the fish. Wha . . .? Really. Oh, yes and they are now making their own sausage and dry curing it in the basement of The American. (But more on that in a minute . . .)
Finally, pastry Chef Nick Wesemann, who we missed that night, but enjoy his work, gave us a dessert worth talking about in "Beer n' Pretzels" - Oatmeal stout sabayon, spiced porter cake, Guinness profiterole and pretzel ice cream. All I can say is "bottoms up" . . .when it came to the table it was lovely, and carefully crafted. Once we dug into it, the flavors began exploding in our mouths . . .the Guinness profiterole was like biting into a sweetened, beer soaked, cream puff. The flavor of beer shooting into our mouths was inventive, fun and playful. The pretzel ice cream was salty and creamy and delicious. It's nice to see artful desserts with a sense of humor in this town. Bravo! No cheesecake, no key lime pie, no molten chocolate brownie exploding tower of power . . .beer and pretzels.
Let's face it, being the Executive Chef at The American . . .well, being a chef working for The American period, is an honor. It means you are working in the most lauded and highest ranked restaurant in the city. A restaurant that has won more awards over the years than any other restaurant in town to it's credit. The Halls have given every Chef that comes through their doors to cook at The American the opportunity of a lifetime. As another Chef said to me, "the folks at The American work in the greatest culinary playground in this city."
The American may be the Hall's Family gift to Kansas City, but it is expecting a return on its investment in that they want to have the best, most interesting, most heralded food in the city. The Chefs at The American are expected to have the best equipment and be allowed to experiment with the latest techniques. I want them to have this freedom because if The American restaurant is going to be the iconic symbol of high culinary cuisine in KC to the rest of the country, they need to be serving and creating some of the best food in this city. I think they are.
You can enjoy 3 courses for $65 at The American on up to 9 Courses for $111 per person. Go back to The American to see what you think of Chef Debbie and her band of creative young Chefs . . .see if their food doesn't change your mind, like it changed mine, about the kind of food coming out of that kitchen.
Of course, I might be a little bias. Chef Alex Pope, my first Chef at Test Kitchen, who works at The American under Chef Debbie, came to my table to say "Hi" and dropped off this house-made dry cured sausage that he is making in "the basement" of The American for me to try. It is not often that Foodie is given a Chefs sausage to taste, especially in front of her husband (sorry bad joke), but it was the perfect goodbye gift and a symbol of the culinary playground and the exploration in food that is happening at The American.
Phew! What a great post. This may be your best yet. They're getting more-and-more literary. I'm seeing the Chef Kelli Daniels piece as a chapter in your book, Chefs. You are such a cheffie. Also, like the photos. Your eye is keen and you set them up very well.
Posted by: Cookie | April 20, 2009 at 04:58 AM