If you seen my facebook food blog photo album you would have already seen this meal. But I felt obligated to document one of my all time favorite foodie meals in Vancouver for my general food blog audience.
The following meal was from December 2011:
I had an amazing dinner with a friend of mine. I've been reading about Chef Hamid Salimian (executive Chef of Diva) on a popular food blog - so I've been interested in trying his food out for awhile. He's also one of the chefs that I've heard of dabbling in molecular gastronomy in his dishes. One day I just called up a friend - want to go out for dinner? And away we went!
This is the bread course. Left to right: Onion and Nuts, Rye, Ciabatta. Sprinkled on the butter is 'brown butter powder'
Amuse Bouche #1 - Olive Marshmallow
An amuse bouche is a complementary gift that the chef prepares for you. It's supposed to be one bite and gets you excited for the meal to come.
Olive marshmallow starter was very interesting. It already sets the tone that this meal will stretch your culinary palette beyond a typical meal. It was pillowy soft and texture was like a marshmallow but with that olive flavour and basil accent.
Amuse Bouche #2 - Crispy Salmon Skin with Liquid Nitrogen blasted Gravlox
I love the crispy salmon texture. It had a nice crackle to it when I bit into it. Inside it had a cold pure type of filling. I don't know what a Gravlox is, but it tasted almost like salmon mousse. I really enjoyed this one.
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/11/30/chef-hamid-salmon-gravlax/
Amuse Bouche #3 - Parsnip and Mapled Cured Bacon
This tasted like crispy maple bacon, but it was perfectly flat, and no greasy texture at all. The maple syrup and smokey cured bacon flavoured balanced each other very nicely.
Amuse bouche #4 - Parmasean crisp with eggplant and onion purée
This was very light and delicate. Although parmesan crisp is not an original concept, I never seen it quite like this.
Amuse Bouche #5 - Potato crisp with truffle shavings
This tasted like one of those kettle chips, i.e. Thunder crunch. But it's so thin - it's transparent. Even though it's delicate, it still had a crunch to it. My dining companion and I puzzled on how it was made.
Amuse bouche #6 - Brioche topped with creme fresh and sturgeon caviar.
The caviar flavour was very subtle and it didn't have the salty briny flavour I associate with caviar.
Amuse Bouche #7 - Liquid Nitrogen grapefruit soda
This served as our palette cleanser before our first course. It tasted like frozen grapefruit soda!
Beef Tartare
Hidden underneath the topping (I couldn't remember what the topping was) was the beef tartare. It had both the creamy elements and acidic, bright limey elements that I enjoyed when I had beef tartare @ The Market. Instead of spreading it on a canopy that most tartare is served with - it came with beef tendon puffs! The puffs almost had a texture of pork rinds which was an interesting pairing with the tartare.
Sunshine coast sturgeon
The sturgeon was cured, and was accompanied by some prawn, dill ash cured scallop, salmon roe, and champagne jelly. I enjoyed the cured flavours of the seafood and when I bit into the champagne jelly it transformed the dish again and brought out different flavours. It was topped with grated egg. What's grated egg you ask? I'm not sure either. The server was trying to explain how it was made and all I got was that it took many days just to get the egg itself prepared.
Puffed Fois Gras
This was really interesting. Normally when I have fois gras it's either pan seared, or made into a pate. This is the first time I had it in a puffy light texture. It's served to you cold, but you spread it on top of warm brioche and it melts into the bread. When you eat it you get the light puffy texture, but then it turns melts into that rich creaminess that you associate with fois gras.
This dish was featured on Chef Salimian's column in the Vancouver Sun.
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/12/19/puffed-foie-gras-how-to-make-it-at-home-diva-style/
Sweetbreads
If you don't know what sweetbreads are - you don't want to know. Sweetbread is something that if you don't know what it is - you'll think it tastes great. But once you know - it'll probably turn you off. Hint: sweetbreads are neither sweet or a bread.
Despite knowing what sweetbreads are, I enjoy eating them on rare occasions. The offal flavour was very carefully controlled, and I only got a hint of it when eating it.
White alba truffles with smoke pork hock
This dish has a very comforting flavour. My dining companion says it reminds him of chicken noodle soup and that it was his favorite dish of the evening. An entire white truffle was supposed to be in this dish but I couldn't even smell that truffle earthiness nor taste it. The noodles I found interesting though. No wheat was used to make the noodles at all - but they somehow turned a cipollini onion into the noodles. There is no oniony flavour at all either.
Thiessen farm squab
Accompanying the squab was pomegranate pure, walnut, deep fried kale, quinoa.
This is just a single breast of the squab. No gaminess at all and pairing it with the tart pomegranate was interesting. The chef came from Iran and our server says that this dish reminds him of back home. Apparently pairing the tart flavours with savoury dishes is common in persian cuisine.
Leek ash crusted beef tenderloin
The round white ball you see at the top of the plate was a horseradish cloud. Have you ever ate a cloud before? I can say I have now! You break into it and taste it - and it's texture is what I imagine a cloud to taste like! The horseradish flavour was there but not overwhelming. On the left hidden underneath the crisp was something that tasted like a cheese dumpling. The dark green smear at the bottom of the plate was sunchoke pure.
The tenderloin itself (hidden on the top right under the crisp) was covered in black - apparently that was the leek ash. It was sous vide prepared and cooked to a perfect medium rare.
Dark chocolate praline bar
Underneath the chocolate wafer was hazelnuts. The top of the plate was hazelnut ice cream.
Slow roasted Pork Belly with poached egg. I love pork belly (it's the same cut of meat where bacon is from). This is a fairly rich dish but the chef wisely used a brighter vinegar based sauce to help cut through the richness. 
Crispy steelhead trout salad. This was a great starter. The trout was served raw and had the texture and fattiness of salmon. The plate was really well put together. Crispy fondant potatoes adds a crunchy element and smokey soft/medium boiled egg really adds to the dish. Arugula and dill completes the dish. By the way my friend is a professional photographer so you can see how well he uses an iphone camera compared to my own pics!
Lamb 3 ways. On the left there was a portion of the lamb the server called the 'Cap'. The middle is 2 pieces of tenderloin. The right is a sausage made from lamb meat. Accompanying the dish is a celery root pure, some sort of slaw made out of celery root, and pickled red onions. The sauce was some sort of red wine reduction. I enjoyed this dish tremendously. The gaminess of the lamb did come out but it was balanced by the tartness of the pickled sides. Each lamb portion was super moist and tender and seasoned and flavoured excellently.
