Ideas in Food Dinner at Aldea on July 15th: or Things That Make You Go Mmm

On Sunday, Jon and Dom and I went to Aldea

for a joint dinner with the chef of Aldea 

and Aki and Alex from IDEAS IN FOOD.

We sat downstairs, which was a lot better

than the times we sat upstairs for these collaborative dinners.

(Mainly, upstairs gets really hot.)

We also got all the passed hors d'oeuvre,

multiple times,

which was awesome.

My favorite hors d'oeuvre was the uni piece.

The bread was soooooooooo soft.

And I love chives.

I don't know why,

but I'd eat mostly anything with chives on it.

I'm not a fan of the texture of oysters,

so I gave my extras to the guys.

There was also a pina colada-type macaron appetizer,

but I forgot to take a photo of it.

The gazpacho was similar to 

the IDEAS IN FOOD/studiokitchen collaboration dinner in May 2011.

This time my tongue didn't freeze to my spoon!

It tasted incredibly fresh.

The oysters at the bottom were a nice touch

even though I don't really enjoy them.

To me they added a kind of mushroom-y, but summery, element

that only an oyster could.

This was Jon's favorite dish.

The scallop was delicious and the potatoes were too.

This was Dom's favorite dish.

The wine that came with this course was crisp and tasty.

I forgot to take photos of the other courses,

but they were really good.

A little more tame than the dinner we went to at Aki/Alex's house

--I LOVED his take on a Manhattan clam chowder--

but still delicious and inventive and perfectly portioned.

The wine pairings were a little aggressive though.

The pours were huge.

The people next to us were complaining about

how full they were.

(It's because you drank like two bottles of wine, dumbasses.)

And we've had dinner at the studiokitchen dinner

with these guys before

so let me just confirm that after having a five hour dinner with them

the first time,

I knew that they were dumbasses.

One of the dumbasses' wine glasses somehow broke in his hand.

I have no idea how it happened,

but I'm glad he didn't splatter on me!

The dessert was wonderful as always.

I LOVED the ice cream in this dish.

Toasted marshmallow ice cream.

Mmm. I can just imagine the taste of it now.

Dom was mystified that it was like a brownie,

but not made of chocolate.

Both Jon and Dom felt that dessert had to be classified as a favorite

on its own because it was just so different from the other dishes.

THE END HAS NO END

is written on the white board.

Don't you love the smiling dude?