Alinea: More Complete Account, Part 8

With what does one follow rhubarb? Why, strawberries, of course!

This next course was frozen strawberry puree, with a little line of wasabi on it. And again, the finger-food bite was served with a pin. The serving "plate" was interesting, because it was frozen. The little slot on the bottom was used to slide a pastry spatula under it and pick it up to place it in front of us (and then to remove it from the table when we were done). The wasabi wasn't very noticeable, but we also didn't savor this course like we might have.

The strawberry was the beginning of three quick courses for us. I think we sort of taking a break from the intense tasting we'd been doing up 'til then -- and probably that's what the chef intended.

The next course was a sweet tuna jerky. You can see white and black sesame seeds on it, and I think the stringy things were candied orange peel. We ate it with our fingers.

The third quick course was a green almond served in a square gelée of some sort. Green almonds are slightly sweet and their texture is less crunchy than ripe almonds.

The point of this course was that it titillated all the regions of our taste buds -- sweet, sour, salt, and hot. It had little bits of what looked like citric acid, cayenne pepper, sugar, and salt on the corners of the cube. When you ate it, your whole tongue experienced it. Fun.

The serving utensil was also fun. It had a little square of sticky-something (rubber?) on the glass block, so the spoon could hang over the edge without falling off. Fun to look at, as well as to eat.