June a la carte:
sazerac: absinthe, Basil Hayden bourbon, Pechyaud bitters,
chamomile, orange peel, hibiscus.
housemade bread, butter
veal sweetbreads, herbed Parisian gnocchi, baby fennel, pickled fennel, hazelnuts, red ribbon sorrel
Snake River Farms corned wagyu beef tongue, confit fingerling potatoes, Bordeaux spinach, pickled cippolini onions, sauerkraut vinaigrette
Claiborne & Churchill, Pinot Noir
Edna Valley, California 2007
Dayboat red rock fish, manila clams, fregula, piquillo peppers, baby leeks, Spring Bay Farms Japanese garlic, housemade pancetta, harrisa butter
"Deviation" Andrew Quady
anise hyssop, huckleberry ice creams
tuscan melon sorbet
June Tasting sans pairings:
old fashioned: muddled orange, lime, cherry, vanilla, bitters, Templeton Rye, club soda
housemade bread, butter
Gioia buratta, amaranth, micro broccoli greens, beetchips, roasted shallots, fig balsamic, Podere Vallari extra virgin olive oil
Dayboat "Mano de Leon" scallops, baby hakurei turnips, carrots, black garlic, foraged matsutaki mushrooms, matsutaki dashi
Dayboat red rock fish, etc(see menu 1) with a complimentary pairing of rose'
Meadow Haven Farms chicken, housemade cotecchino, onion pique, Wieland Farms cranberry beans, cabbage, dried cherry jus
Painted Hills Farm skirt steak, Blue Lake beans, confited chanterelles, truffle-roasted beef fat aioli
they opened three bottles of Arcangelo, Negroamaro for me; all over-fermented
replaced with a perfect valpolicello
dessert courses:
a young tokaij: Chateau Pajzos, Tokaji 1999
Crow Creek Farms Watermelon
yogurt mousse, espelette pepper,
heirloom tomato jam, cilantro lime sorbet
Valrohna Chocolate Bread Pudding
toasted hazelnut ice cream, cocoa nibs
Andrew Quady "essencia"
Tungortok, an Inuit word for blue. The colder blush through my veins, refining the lion's milk I sip from an ocean green glass. Pabst Blue Ribbon, a ghost in a wifebeater berating his kin, kin won't sleep, can't bed down, instead they snuggle, jump up, run about the landing.
I shiver outside June. Each of my cigarettes, puff. Each puff a conflagration. Think the smokes in the dark in Wild at Heart. I remember Wild at Heart that and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, I was 16? My dad and I had just got back from a tour of Alamagordo and near Houston Channel 13 played trailers for Lynch's new one in the motel room.
It got cold here. Peoria aloof like the storefronts along the stripmall. Peoria shuttered except for June's light within, and my smokes without.
I think of June as one big meal.
I want to parse the individual components; tell you how June met me.
Okay, first time out(a la carte) they seated me beneath the air conditioner. My server was mildly patronizing. I was not so thrown that I couldn't ignore it. I could ignore it, rock my finger of a Sazerac, damn was that the shit.
An oddly-General Tso's-ish sweetbreads followed
And the pickled Wagyu beef tongue with sauerkraut vinaigrette, possibly the perfect Jewish deli staple destratification
Next, my Edna Valley red paired well with the rock fish and harissa butter, manila clams an amusing diversion
My Andrew Quady "Deviation" turned anise hyssop and huckleberry ice creams bitter
But the tuscan melon sorbet + =omfg(exceptional with Quady's tipple)
I own The Cook, The Thief... on dvd now and Wild at Heart has a special double-wide all it's own in my private tornado-swept campgrounds. Lynch's cherry funereal smokes kin to Irving Penn's crushed, cold ones.
So, if June is more Lynch than Penn, if it's really wifebeater vs. whatever Peorians aspire to when they dine out. I saw octagenerian birthdays and trust fund babies, middleclass families and those solo(like myself).
June didn't bat an eye as I videoed my food.
Last Friday when I returned for the tasting menu they hit all cylinders
My server couldn't have been better, attentive, sweet, inquisitive...as the evening progressed we started talking, her along with another server, sous?, man-of-many hats...talked about the chef, Josh Adams, who I'd met the last time(talking with him: his stage at Alinea)...the sommelier joined in, great guy, in fact everyone I met was effusive, welcoming, convivial...he worked at 160 Blue, iirc.
My requests upon reserving a table for that Friday were relative privacy(which they provided...in an open space, no mean feat), not to be seated beneath the air conditioning, and as few repeats as possible vis a vis tasting menu vs. my a la carte.
All this they accomplished with aplomb...I encountered only one double and that was my rock fish entree of the night previous(consequently, also my favorite dish then).
the burrata exquisite, tangy, luscious, an indulgence
the scallops, seriously, the best I've had, and I'm no scallop fan, tensile, ephemeral, and the matsutake dashi accented with everyone's favorite new toy, black garlic, simply yes
my rock fish, again, playful manila clams, unctuous, spiked harissa butter, fregula soaking up what broth I didn't catch with the crusts of my bread ...the sommelier provided a taste of the rose' paired with this dish... a thoughtful tweak to an already considered plate/and a better insight into what I intended with my pinot the time before
the chicken stuffed with house cotecchino: my god, and I make my living in chicken, "to know life you have to fuck chicken in the gallbladder"-misquoting Andy Warhol's Frankenstein
my gawd, a sweet chicken dish and the crispy skin and cranberry beans, and cherry jus, and I'm beginning to think just kill me now, or, I'm already dead, or I need one more smoke and I'll make it through, and, I wonder if dessert's coming up soon, there's always room for dessert...
Narcotized, I slumped back outside as the house lights across the way trickled on and everything was me and my belly and a cigarette brokered peace.
They opened three bottles of Negroamero Arcangelo for me all overfermented, the sommelier(GM, Rafael Tenjo) offered a glass of his choice, a valpolicello
Skirt steak, truffled roasted beef marrow aioli, need I say more? You had me at marrow. Or was it truffle? Or, "I'll have what he's having." Wilhelm Reich could build a box of this. I did my damnedest.
We talked tokaij, the other guy and I. Well, I was trying to anticipate a dessert wine with my final courses and my server brought tokai. Tokaij to accompany my compressed watermelon and port tomato jam reduction, my green zebra compote
A mirthful, Willy Wonka-esque sweet.
then a debut; Valhrona dark and milk chocolate bread pudding, toffee? quenelle, and toasted hazlenuts(I'm sure there was more to it)...it hit every note in a chord cascading into overtone, and I hate chocolate
as I stabbed the last swath of sugar from plate, my server darted forth, set down a glass of the Andrew Quady "Essencia" ...she apologized for being late...whatever, superamazingservergirl
And, really, I thought, this is just about the coolest meal I've had since leaving Chicago(L'Explorateur/IN, you are my dear departed). Are you kidding, this is up there all around a best ever.
A week's passed and then some; it's not as cold here as it was then. Then again, we could always get up and go.
Last edited by
Christopher Gordon on September 24th, 2010, 8:07 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Being gauche rocks, stun the bourgeoisie