Kitchensurfing dinner

We went to the Kitchensurfing offices/townhouse in Gowanus for dinner to celebrate the closing of their Series A round.  Those dinners are to celebrate the company moving forward and meet all the people who are involved.  What was really great about this dinner is that everyone involved knows each other fairly well which not only makes for a fun dinner but is exciting that a crew that knows each other personally is involved.

Our dinner was prepared and served to us by Chef Robert Compagnon.  He is an excellent chef.  His bio gives you all the info you need to know. 

After studying Japanese at Columbia University, and spending a year
cutting fish and working in a ramen shop in Japan, I decided cooking was
for me. I moved to Paris after a year of cooking at Ouest on the UWS.
In France I worked in both traditional (Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy),
and innovative kitchens like Rino, Spring and Chateaubriand. Five years
later, I'm back in NY, working at Brushstroke in Tribeca, brushing up on
traditional Japanese Kaiseki cuisine.

The meal was built around lamb after all spring is here (well sorta).  Two pieces of lamb topped with fish roe and tempura lamb brains.  The combo of the lamb with the roe totally worked.  The lamb brains although for many that sounds ghastly but it was absolutely delicious.  It had the same texture as a foie gras and the tempura was airy and crisp. 

Tongue raviolis served in a fish dashi broth with grilled scallions.  The ravioli was light yet packed with a wallop of flavors. 

This was insane.  Mushrooms sauteed in brown butter mixed with crispy deep fried parlsey with a lightly poached egg center stage.  Mix it all up (make it messy) and dig in.  The combination of the flavors and the textures were brilliant.

This was a little more dense.  A smoky eggplant mixture where the eggplant had been mashed with rosemary and lemons.  Over the top was pan fried octopus and crispy burdock root.  Octopus is one of my faves.

A saddle of lamb stuffed with watercress that was sliced for each plate sitting on top of a sweet potato puree and little bites of root veggies.  He had wrapped the lamb with fat in order to char and roast throughly.  A little lamb jus poured over the top. Excellent.

This was incredible.  Lamb belly chasyu served in a bowl of white miso soy ramen.  Chasyu is a mixture of a meat (this time lamb) tied up with string and either boiled or baked with a mixture of spices.  The taste of the chasyu was rich and buttery.  The soup was rich and intense with soba noodles sitting on the bottom.  Amazing.

I am sorry that I can not remember the name of his sous chef who made the desserts because she was also extremely talented.  She made two desserts.  The first was a poached lemon earl grey granita with evaporated milk.  Super creative. 

This was a mixture of three things.  A dense layered cake with chocolate ganache.  Just the right amount.  Then she sprinkled this with crispy honeycombs.  On the side was a thyme flavored ice cream that was out of this world.  Each of the flavors mixed together were a total omg. 

The event was great and just showed all of us the brilliance of Kitchensurfing.  These two people came into the Kitchensurfing home to make a sublime meal where we all sat around the kitchen table talking, drinking and having fun.  We were able to enjoy a restaurant quality meal in our own home and hear from the chef about what we were eating and how it was prepared.  An incredible experience that I highly recommend trying.  A game changer.