experiment #29 - Cobaya Baltzley at the Broken Shaker

Wow. It's always an adventure when we work with out of town chefs, this time particularly so. We'll spare you the details of missed flights, M.I.A. crews, Greyhound buses and shopping lists, and cut right to the important stuff: a great, really fun meal put together by Chef Brandon Baltzley. Brandon until recently was the mastermind behind the nomadic Crux dinner series, and is currently working on a new project - a restaurant and farm in rural Illinois, about an hour outside of Chicago.

For us - and in about 36 hours time total - he put together a 9+ course dinner for 40 people in the wonderfully relaxing courtyard of the Broken Shaker in the newly redone Freehand Miami hotel/hostel (f/k/a the Indian Creek Hotel).

Here's the menu for the night, with a couple add-ons noted, as well as the cocktails served up by the Broken Shaker crew:

Crispy Beet Snack

Butternut Squash Snack

Broken Shaker "Juice"

Crab, Grapefruit, Vanilla, Potato

Tequila "MSG" Cocktail

Pretzel, Gruyere, Beer

Grilled Raw Fish

Chicken Liver, Celery, White Chocolate, Black Birch

Cocoa Puff Old Fashioned

Duck Testicle, Biscuit, Mustard

Lamb Sweetbreads, Popcorn, Sunchoke, Kombucha

Rooibos, Gingerbread, Radish

Tobacco, Bourbon, Banana, Pineapple

Chocolate, Chicory, Hibiscus, Cardamom

A thorough recap will be forthcoming is now up at Food For Thought, but in the meantime, you can see all my pictures in this Flickr set.

Huge thanks to Brandon Baltzley for making this happen despite the gods of travel seeming to conspire against us; to Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog for his invaluable assistance, without whom this would have been impossible to pull off; to Steve Santana for always being willing to lend an extra hand; to Brandon's mom, who rolled in late Sunday night to help out; to Elad Zvi and Gabe Orta of Broken Shaker for being such gracious hosts and making such delicious cocktails; to all the folks at the Freehand for their kind hospitality; and, as always, most of all, to the guinea pigs whose support makes these events possible.

experiment #28 - Cobaya Hinckley at The Hoxton

Another experiment successfully concluded. This time around we joined Chef Matt Hinckley (who some of you may know as a former sous chef at Michael's Genuine) at The Hoxton, the first of three new venues to open in the Axis building in Brickell, where he served us up a variety of tasty critters in a variety of tasty ways: alligator, rabbit, duck, and lots of pig. You can see all of my pictures in this Cobaya Hinckley flickr set; and here's a recap at Food For Thought (if you attended and have one yourself, send the link). In the meantime, here's the menu:

SNACKS

Rabbit Liver Toast rabbit liver pate. tangerine jam. tarragon. house baguette.

Duck Egg Quiche 45-day duck confit. beemster xo. chives.

Fried Alligator salsa negra. lime.

Bacon Old Fashioned bulleit bourbon with bacon. orange peel. maple sugar.

AT THE TABLE

Home Baked Breads homebrew bread. alaskan sourdough. roasted garlic bulb. evoo.

Charcuterie pork rillon. rabbit terrine. duck ham. tasso. lardo. 15-day ham. venison biltong. homebrew mustard. pickled stuff. prune mostarda. jerk boiled peanuts.

Cigar City Maduro Brown Ale

Local Bitter Greens endive. purple cress. dandelion greens. herbs. pickled chilis. crispy pork belly. apple cider vinaigrette.

Holy Mackerel Special Golden Ale

Cider-Braised Turnips crabapple wood smoked hog jowl. leeks. juniper berry aioli.

Innis & Gunn Rum Cask Aged Ale

Three Little Pigs grilled pork chop. crispy pig head. andouille. grilled cabbage. apple butter.

Shipyard Brewing Co. Monkey Fist IPA

DESSERT

Pig Fat Cookes & "Ten Fidy" Imperial Stout Ice Cream tangerine segments. buddha hand candy. zests.

Oscar Blues Brewery "Ten Fidy" Imperial Stout

Big thanks to Chef Hinckley and his kitchen crew at The Hoxton for a fun meal, to all the FOH staff who took such good care of us all night, and of course, most of all, to all of the guinea pigs whose ongoing support makes these kind of events possible.