One Off Hospitality Subscription Supper Club

This seems to be something new. You subscribe to a package that gives you 4 dinners for 2 or 4 on Fridays (skipping Thanksgiving week). You can pick them up at various locations. Since we live in the Northern burbs, the Northbrook location worked for us (some are sold out). The four meals provide a dinner from Avec, Big Star, Publican and then a Paul Kahan Market Dinner.
More info: https://www.oneoffathome.com/northbrook-supper-series

It's a commitment, no doubt, but the menus were too enticing, and the pickup location too convenient, for me to not sign up.

Wow, sounds great, I'm in.

Week 1: Avec
Menu and cooking/reheating (bacon wrapped dates were raw)


What's in the box:



Plated salad, bread, and tagine with couscous and sesame yogurt


Bacon-wrapped, chorizo-stuffed dates in piquillo pepper sauce (in a hand-forged copper pan we picked up in Athens)


Verdict: great meal, plenty of food for two. I'd have liked a little more salad, but on the other hand, the piece of lamb in the tagine was massive, perfectly tender. The dessert was described as an oat pie, it was more of a whoopie pie made from two big oatmeal cookies. Not a disappointment, just not described accurately.

Thanks for the pics, Joel. We subscribed to the 4-week plan (now that it's started, they're also offering 3-week plans) and also had this on Friday night. As you said, a fine meal. It was one of only a few instances during the pandemic when I didn't cook dinner two nights in a row. And after the really busy week I had, it was extremely well timed.

Also, I have to say that after the brutally executed meal pick-up we got from another restaurant earlier in the week, it was a pleasure to pull up during our designated 15-minute window and have our order placed in the car and checked almost instantly. We were driving back home with dinner no more than 2 minutes after we arrived. Total professionals.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:... it was a pleasure to pull up during our designated 15-minute window and have our order placed in the car and checked almost instantly. We were driving back home with dinner no more than 2 minutes after we arrived. Total professionals.

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The only thing that would have helped would be a note "hey, we'll be at the east end of the construction site". Coming from the west, we pulled in at the other end and they weren't visible, we wandered around for a bit.

JoelF wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:... it was a pleasure to pull up during our designated 15-minute window and have our order placed in the car and checked almost instantly. We were driving back home with dinner no more than 2 minutes after we arrived. Total professionals.

The only thing that would have helped would be a note "hey, we'll be at the east end of the construction site". Coming from the west, we pulled in at the other end and they weren't visible, we wandered around for a bit.

Yeah, it's just a trailer in a parking lot but when we got there (from the east), the Big Star van was parked there, so we figured that must be the right place.

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We signed up for the three week session since we did the avec / All Clad dinner on November 12.

I just signed up for the 3 week version at Northbrook. An email from One Off got my attention since they are now offering a slightly different version for pick up in Wilmette, plus it comes with a "free" $25 gift card to Backyard BBQ (site of the pick up). But the meal kit is conveniently $25 more than the kit for pick up in Northbrook...coincidence?

Regardless, I liked the sound of the Northbrook package a bit more anyway so pulled the trigger on it (today is the last day to order for the Northbrook pick up, by the way) and am looking forward to Friday!

DClose wrote:pick up in Wilmette, plus it comes with a "free" $25 gift card to Backyard BBQ (site of the pick up).

I adore Backyard BBQ in Wilmette, its the best BBQ grill, smoker, accessory, everything you need in the general area and beyond.

That said, a $25 gift card for there is simply an invitation to spend $500 or more.

Re oatmeal cream pie: sounds like they were channeling the snack pie, made famous by Little Debbie and others. E.g. as seen here.

Bok Choy Jr wrote:Re oatmeal cream pie: sounds like they were channeling the snack pie, made famous by Little Debbie and others. E.g. as seen here.

Yes, similar architecture. Very well made. I detected quite a bit of orange zest flavor in the cream filling, which didn't really work for me. My family loved them, though.

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Week 2 is Big Star Tacos
Very good, but not as impressed as the Avec meal, mainly considering the cost. I could have gotten similar from Monica's for under $30 (well, they don't make horchata rice krispie treats), but I won't compare it to the $5 Street Taco kit at Costco.

The queso fundido, pastor and pollo mole Veracruzano were all very good, but the salsas were a little dull - more chile, more garlic, or more lime or vinegar would have helped. The tortillas were a little gummy, I've had better.

But the horchata RTKs were wonderful. Not too sweet, great texture, good creamy cinnamon flavor.

Menu / Reheating Instructions


Chips, Salsas, Condiments and RKTs - Middle row is onions, cilantro, queso fresco, grilled pineapple


The Warm Stuff - Clockwise from top Queso Fundido, Tortillas, Al Pastor, Pollo de Mole Veracruzano

Week 3 was a big hit. Since it was my birthday weekend, we splurged on the $30 upgrade for charcuterie and cheese, and a loaf of oatmeal porridge bread.

I forgot pix of the bread, it was a big round loaf with oat flakes on top, a great sour, nice crisp crust and open crumb.

Menu/reheat instructions:


Potatoes, Carrots and Chicken to reheat:


Dessert and condiments (creamy herb dressing and pecans for the carrots)


Little gem salad with buttermilk dressing, radish, fennel and breadcrumbs. I still think they're a little stingy on salads, but we had plenty to eat overall.


Charcuterie/Cheese As Delivered. The bread looks commercial, but it's a very tasty loaf. It did benefit from a brief toasting.



Assembled Charcuterie/Cheese Platter:
This was a very generous set of stuff. The yellow pickle is a gherkin-flavored cauliflower (disappointing SueF, who isn't a fan of brassicas). There was no info card for the meats and cheeses; the rilletes was outclassed by the other two meats (but still tasty) -- nice ham/prosciutto, and very porky pate (or is that their headcheese?). The cheeses I could not identify other than one being a blue. Even the strawberry jam was top-notch.


Basically at this point, we could have stopped eating, but wait, there's more!

Carrots, dressed:
I hadn't realized how nicely pecans go with carrots, that's going in my flavor arsenal.


Chicken, potatoes, jus, and summer sausage:
It was a half chicken, decent sized (on view is the breast quarter), but we were both pretty full and most of this went into other meals in different form. When the menu said "summer sausage" I was expecting shavings crisped up or stuffed under the skin, I didn't expect two slabs of about 3-4oz each. Great flavor, nice grilling.


One more pickup to go!

This looks super good!

As both a baker myself, and a PQM obsessive (when I miss time my own, or am feeling lazy) I can tell you that the bread is the PQM Sourdough Pullman Loaf. Not as good as the boule, but still solid.

I often make those carrots myself. and they are an obscene amount of work, though often one of my favorite dishes.

Thanks for the pics!

Joel-

We did the same meal on Saturday night. I was pleasantly surprised by the carrots. I'm not a huge cooked carrot fan, but these had a nice flavor with the spicing and were complemented by the creamy herb dressing. I don't like pecans so I left those off. The potatoes were a miss for us in this meal. Some of them weren't cooked through, which made for an unpleasant bite. They were much better diced up in a hash the next day with leftover carrots and some onion and garlic.

I'm looking forward to the final meal.

The last night was very good - perhaps not as much À la recherche du temps perdu as the Avec meal, but great start to finish.

Out of the Box Everything they sent us. It seemed like fewer packages for a change, but there were little tubs in a couple of the containers.


Butternut Squash Romesco and Root Veg Salad

The romesco was very smoky, outstanding. Squash purees make great hummos-like dips, the one in Ottolenghi's Jerusalem with lots of tahini is one of my favorites. The pita is light and puffy, I'm thinking it's a least part whole wheat.

The salad was very tasty, but the only root veg appeared to be sweet potato. A smoked yogurt went down first, then the salad, then an herb-packed vinaigrette.

Main Course - Pork Shoulder, Garlic Sausage, Greens

Absolutely delicious. I still don't know why I love greens so much, my family never made them, but these were perfect: tender, broth-y, succulent. The sausage was very much in the kielbasa zone, nice fine-grained garlicky goodness. The pork itself was a wee bit overcooked, but really good.

Dessert - Basque Cheesecake with Caramelized Quince

Great finish: wonderful texture to the mini cheesecakes, and the tartness of the fruit (which included cranberries) was a nice foil to the rich cheesecake. (note, pairsforlife's version is better)

Several new suburban series for January were announced by email earlier today . . .

One Off Suburban Supper Clubs, January 2021

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We are doing the January supper club series with the Wrigleyville pick-up on Saturdays. Week One was avec.



First course: Charred eggplant baba ghanouj with olive tapenade and hearth baked pita. Mr. X is not a baba ghanouj fan but declared this one of the best he's had. I'm a fan of olives, but not so much sun-dried tomatoes, which were also in the tapenade. There was plenty of tapenade for snacks over the next few days. I need to remember to ask of we can order more pita next time.



Second course: Tabbouleh salad with roasted cauliflower, fresno chili, green olive and farro. This was delicious. The fresno chili had quite the kick.



Third course: Rotisserie chicken tagine with braised chickpeas, golden raisins and couscous. The chicken itself was good, but I would have liked a bit more sauce. The chickpeas were a little dry.




Fourth course: Citrus soaked rum cake. One of the best desserts we've had from this overall series.

I'm a bit behind on documenting our meals.

The second week of this round was Supper Club by PQM.



First course: Poached shrimp with gem lettuce, horseradish and sauce bagnarotte. This was a great salad.



Second course: Charred cauliflower with kale pesto. The instructions said to add the kale pesto after reheating, but the pesto was already added. The pesto didn't add too much to the dish for our palates. It was better the second day when I let it heat longer. More caramelization helped.



Third course: Braised sweet & sour brisket with cheddar grits. (first image is the container of brisket and grits. second is my weak plating.) This dish was nicely prepared. It didn't have a ton of flavor though.





Fourth course:Chocolate pudding. We enjoyed this pudding that appeared to have chocolate cake chunks in it.



We got a couple of meals out of all of this food. That has been a nice perk. One less menu to plan.

The final week in this series was Big Star. We opted to save the tacos for the next night since there was so much food. My documentation is weakest on this one. No photos of the plated salad or tacos.





First course: Caesar Cardini Salad. Another nice salad. We wished they would have packaged the croutons separately as they were soggy.

Second course: Nacho kit. We added the avocado. I liked this more than I expected. The cheese sauce was tasty. We held back some of the chips to allow for a better topping to chip ratio. That was a good call.



Third course: Pollo & Chorizo de Res tacos. They were tasty.

Fourth course: Tres leches cake. Oddly, this seemed a little dry to me in some places. The pineapple was a nice addition.



We've enjoyed doing these for the convenience and variety. We're opting out of the next series to focus on some more local to us options.

Did anyone else find it odd that the February subscriptions include pork shoulder for two of the three meals? We were ready to try it, and have nothing against pork shoulder, but we're looking for a little bit more variety over the course of three meals.

chgoeditor wrote:Did anyone else find it odd that the February subscriptions include pork shoulder for two of the three meals? We were ready to try it, and have nothing against pork shoulder, but we're looking for a little bit more variety over the course of three meals.

Keep in mind that the different pick-up locations have different menus, so you may prefer one of the suburban locations if it’s not too inconvenient for you.

I will say that the braised pork shoulder and squid from Avec was our favorite entree of the January offerings. The salads have also been very enjoyable. Oddly, desserts have been pretty underwhelming —you’d think that would be something easy to get right. Our tres leches was also dry and the “fruit compote” was a few pieces of pineapple. Just give me a slice of tart or something.

cilantro wrote:

chgoeditor wrote:Did anyone else find it odd that the February subscriptions include pork shoulder for two of the three meals? We were ready to try it, and have nothing against pork shoulder, but we're looking for a little bit more variety over the course of three meals.

Keep in mind that the different pick-up locations have different menus, so you may prefer one of the suburban locations if it’s not too inconvenient for you.

I will say that the braised pork shoulder and squid from Avec was our favorite entree of the January offerings. The salads have also been very enjoyable. Oddly, desserts have been pretty underwhelming —you’d think that would be something easy to get right. Our tres leches was also dry and the “fruit compote” was a few pieces of pineapple. Just give me a slice of tart or something.

I had not surmised the menus varied by pickup locale until the posts here, which has left me coveting a few swaps but also generally happy with what we landed. The highlights for me have been the add-ons: potent bottled cocktails, huge weekly ciabatta loaves, "breads and spreads" on the Publican weeks, sliced smoked turkey by the quarter-pound. We did not find the Big Star week particularly value-added vs. our usual / "before-time" a la carte orders, though I agree the nachos were distinctively good. Pickup in River Forest in the covered garage has been really smooth. It's all been a bit crouton / toasted bread / panzanella / bruschetta / bread / focaccia / ribollita - heavy but when the baking is that admirable I can cope. I agree it's been a lot of pork shoulder and I really should have read the menus ahead of time so I didn't cook pork on adjacent days.

I do actually like the dessert strategy of soaked bars of cake, which keep well and remind me (positively) of a good buffet at a few all-inclusive resorts. My body is ready for the signature Publican salted chocolate chip cookies some week, tho.

Kid verdicts: delicious chicken strips, boring spaghetti and meatballs (went unfinished), and we didn't order the mac. The chicken strips were virtually as much work as making from scratch and not worth $11 though for shake-and-bake they turned out crisp and well seasoned. Mine have been happiest with half of the ciabatta loaf and butter plus the smoked turkey or a side of guac, which is what we're doing next month, along with reducing from the meal for 4 to the meal for 2.

I do really like the whole family meal / subscription concept and hope it sticks around after we settle into whatever new normal is coming.

We've enjoyed participating in a few of these series. It's a nice way to mix it up, take a night off from cooking, help keep people employed and support local business. I also like that the pick-ups help me stay connected to some aspect of our restaurant culture. And there's something emotionally uplifting about the process, too.

Our upcoming February subscription doesn't fully double up on any of the proteins. Yes, two meals include chicken but one's a tagine and the other is one of two taco fillings.

I thought a couple of the meals in our last series were a little skimpy on portions (still not sure how 3 meatballs is supposed to be a main course portion for 2 people) but I've never really looked at this as a straight value proposition. There are a bunch of benefits that go beyond the amount of food we receive. So, I focus on those aspects and come away feeling good about the entire endeavor.

Another thing I've come to appreciate is that I can purchase add-ons, especially because PQB's sensational breads are available. Between these and Middlebrow's loaves (with an occasional Hewn thrown in there), we've never consistently enjoyed better bread.

I honestly don't know if I'd continue to participate once things get back to 'normal.' I guess that'll depend on what 'normal' actually looks like. But for the foreseeable future, this is a nice service to have available.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:Our upcoming February subscription doesn't fully double up on any of the proteins. Yes, two meals include chicken but one's a tagine and the other is one of two taco fillings.

I'm confident that we won't sense too much overlap between the tagine-style rotisserie chicken we had in tonight's Week 1 dinner and the taco filling that's slated for Week 3. But what did strike me as odd was that all three of the non-dessert items tonight were heavy on olives. They were atop the baba ganouj in the form of a tapenade, included whole/pitted in the tabouleh-style cauliflower salad, and were applied heavily in the tagine-style chicken. I get that they're a key component of the cuisine that's being emulated here but I didn't think this was great menu planning. If I walked into a restaurant (remember when), I'd certainly try to mix it up more than that, so I was disappointed to have it chosen for me here. Based on our previous One Off Supper Club experiences, I expected something a bit more varied and thoughtful.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:But what did strike me as odd was that all three of the non-dessert items tonight were heavy on olives. They were atop the baba ganouj in the form of a tapenade, included whole/pitted in the tabouleh-style cauliflower salad, and were applied heavily in the tagine-style chicken.

If not for the cauliflower, SueF would call that many olives a perfect meal.

JoelF wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:But what did strike me as odd was that all three of the non-dessert items tonight were heavy on olives. They were atop the baba ganouj in the form of a tapenade, included whole/pitted in the tabouleh-style cauliflower salad, and were applied heavily in the tagine-style chicken.

If not for the cauliflower, SueF would call that many olives a perfect meal.

Haha. Well, I really like olives, too but this was a bit much.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:

JoelF wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:But what did strike me as odd was that all three of the non-dessert items tonight were heavy on olives. They were atop the baba ganouj in the form of a tapenade, included whole/pitted in the tabouleh-style cauliflower salad, and were applied heavily in the tagine-style chicken.

If not for the cauliflower, SueF would call that many olives a perfect meal.

Haha. Well, I really like olives, too but this was a bit much.

Ronnie-

I had a similar reaction as you. I love olives but there were a lot in that Moroccan menu.