Dorm Dinner Redux

Last night, the mrs. and I had the opportunity to attend the Dorm Dinner at 33 wine bar. I think I have explained this in the past, but here's the skinny: a local chef is invited to cook a dinner at the wine bar (which has no kitchen) for two seatings of about 30 people each. The rub is that they can only use implements that would be allowed in a dorm room to cook. I'm talking microwaves, hotplates, toaster ovens, etc. This forces the chefs to take things way out of their comfort zones, and get really creative.

To start, since this is "Sippin' Saint Louis", we had a 2006? Alaia from Castilla y Leon, Spain. This is a really cool little inexpensive drinker made from Prieto Picudo, Tempranillo, and Merlot. It has quite a bit of acid to it, and also some earthy funk that I thought would go well with the pork-centric menu. Speaking of, here's what we ate, all prepared by Gerard Craft, and the guys from Niche:

"Chips and Dip"-
They took french onion dip, added tapioca to it, and fried it. The result was these delicious little fluffy chips, with a really strong french onion taste. Wow. I could have put a hurting on these things during football season!

"Pork of the Sea"
This was pork rilletes, served with warm bread and home made pickles, in an open tuna can. One thing I loved that these guys did was to keep "pure" in the whole dorm room thing, including presentation!

"Pork and Noodle Soup"
This course was fantastic- a pulled pork wonton served in a really rich broth. It came out in coffee mugs, which again was a great homage to dorm life. This was needed on such a cold night!

"PB&J"
Okay, follow me here- two peanut butter cookies, with moscato jelly and foie gras in between. In the vernacular of modern texting tweens, "OMG". This was so rich and delicious it blew me away. My table mates where a little overwhelmed, but I thought it was ridiculously good!

"Pot Pie"
This was a small pork pot pie. The crust on this thing was absolutely perfect.

"Candy Bar"
served on a plastic plate, this was a home made version of a "Whatchamacallit" bar, made with ice cream. I thought it was amazing.

Kudos to Gerard, Adam, and the rest of the guys from Niche for pulling off an amazingly fun and delicious dinner!

Cheers,

James Beard Nominations

Congratulations to two of my cooking heros, Gerard Craft, owner of Niche, Brasserie, and Taste (one of my favorite places for an after-work drink) and Josh Galliano from Monarch for being nominated for James Beard awards. They are both on the long list for "Best Chef Midwest".

Another chef with a Saint Louis connection is Frank Stitt from Birmingham, Alabama who was nominated for Outstanding Chef. Frank's brother David owns Veritas on Clarkson, which is a really cool place to grab a bite, a bottle, or just about anything you need in your kitchen.

Cheers guys! I hope one of you makes it to the final list!