Last week was the James Beard Foundation Taste of America Dinner and Auction at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. It shared a few characteristics with the Ella Brennan Award event a few weeks prior, including a lot of the same attendees, but that was not a bad thing. The Ritz Carlton throws a mighty nice party, and it is hardly a chore to repeat it.
The format of these is that the first and last courses of the dinner are grazing style and buffet. The middle courses are sit down. We entered the room after Tom sang "Misty" with the adorable piano player, who was most accommodating.
We walked into a large display of Bellegarde bread, with butter and cheeses from Kerrygold, one of the sponsors of the event. There was also some charcuterie, and olives and pickled things, with gourmet mustards and chutneys. Also in this room was one of the hors d' oeuvres from Nicole Mills of Pêche, serving ceviche. Capital One had a fun set up in the corner for pictures in swinging chairs, and there were bars all around.
In the same side rooms that housed Chefs Phillip Lopez and Susan Spicer at the last event here, this week had Billy Jones from Blue Giant, who was serving oversized pork dumplings which were a very large mouthful of meat. We talked about his two-hour wait at the restaurant. Billy was flanked by Alex Harrell from the Elysian Bar with spiced carrots with carrot-pecan romesco sauce and chermoula. Nathan Richard had the next table where he served crawfish and goat cheese king cake with blue crab icing, Tabasco pepper jelly and crab fat sugar. Arvinder Vilkhu from Saffron had the best of this hors d' oeuvres course with fermented lentil pancakes with shrimp and crab with tomato-ginger chutney and coconut chutney.
We then moved into the main ballroom for dinner and found ourselves seated next to an old friend we hadn’t seen in a while. The walls were flanked with large screens to showcase the mission of the foundation, and in particular this event.
The first course was hogshead cheese from Thierry Connault at Ritz Carlton in a presentation that belied its humble reputation. Who knew this “pork product” could be so hip? Molded like a large cigar with a flat bottom, it was encased at one end by a sourdough olive bread chip, and burnished top and bottom with sugarcane beet mustard and mustard green schmears. offering color to offset its characteristic brownness. This was good enough to earn its fancy name Fromage de Tête. Gourmet hogshead cheese seems oxymoronic, but this was very good. Nina Compton provided the next course, a Caribbean pepper pot coup with gulf shrimp and soft herbs. The consensus of the four of us was Ho-hum, Next, Minneapolis chef Jamie Malone from Grand Cafe and Eastside served cumin and coriander encrusted Lamb with chickpeas and pickled cauliflower. We all liked this better.
Desserts were also buffet-style, featuring a banana eclair by Austin Breckenridge from Justine. Maggie Scales from Link Restaurant Group had Vanilla Bean Posset with strawberries. Ashley McMillan from Ritz Carlton had Brown Butter Sablè with Citron Mousse and Pistachio Crèmeaux, Cherry glaze and Pistachio Crumble. Megan Forman from Gracious Bakery brought cane syrup truffles, Mardi Gras petit fours, Valrhona Dulcey, and Chocolate-dipped cream puffs with chicory pecan cream.
French Market provided coffee service, and Broussard's Jimi Setchim made Cafe Brûlot. Rabbit Hole Distillery, Luc Bellaire Gold Brut and Robert Mondavi Winery served dessert beverages.
