The Dish:
Chilled Eggplant Soup with fresh pole and shelling beans, preserved lemon, cilantro, and tomato water gelée.
The Time and Place:
August 27th, 2010, Dinner in the Lounge at Coi
The Description:
To say that I first tried this dish on the 27th at Coi is a bit of a lie. In fact, the first time I had it was August 9th at the Plum preview dinner at Il Cane Rosso - Chef Patterson had to step into the kitchen at the last minute and therefore brought a couple of his signature dishes along with him. Actually, the 27th wasn’t even the second time I ordered the dish; the second time I had it was as the third course of Coi’s tasting menu on August 24th - a course which proved to be my favorite of the night. What’s listed above is actually the third time in three weeks that I, again, succumbed to the soup’s advances. But there’s a reason for listing that date as the one that was truly revelatory. The night of the 24th was the first time that I was driven back to Coi by an overwhelming craving for the purity and freshness of the flavors contained in this dish; it was officially the night that a dish, a healthy, vegetable-centric dish at that, stripped me of all of my self-control and had me crawling back to Coi’s front door.
Hands down, I consider this dish to be one of the best dishes that I've tasted all year. Although it sounds exceptionally simple (and frankly, it is relatively simple), this chilled eggplant soup is the epitome of refined simplicity. It exemplifies a type of elegance only achieved when one takes a minimalist approach towards the quantity of ingredients used, as opposed to the false sense of sophistication communicated by overcrowding the plate with “refined” flavors. What that means in less haughty terms is that if this dish lost even just a single ingredient, it would lose an essential component and not be as successful; likewise, if one more flavor was added, the dish’s delicate balance would crumble and the purity of each individual taste would be clouded.
Chef Patterson’s ability to create such a transcendent dish begins with his intrinsic understanding of each ingredient’s fundamental flavor. With this innate knowledge, he can then identify the naturally well-matched selections. Simply stated, at the end of the day he just gets what ingredients are going to work best with one another. However, this decision does not only rest on flavor alone - the textural element each ingredient brings to the table is also considered. Crunchy pole beans are contrasted with the creamy eggplant soup; firm, yet squishy shelling beans are combined with the soft, structured texture of tomato water gelée, bridging the creamy and crunchy extremes.
Once the dish’s components have been chosen, the next step is determining how much of each should be used in order to achieve the perfect balance. It's here that, unlike many chefs, Chef Patterson understands the advantages of using ingredients sparingly. By carefully determining the right ratio of soup, to each bean varietal, to gelée, to preserved lemon, and finally, to cilantro, a perfect balance between sweet, salty, acid, and spice is achieved. Although temperature was uniform in this particular preparation, every other relationship, even the food’s consistent color scheme, was considered. This is what I mean when I speak of balance - a harmony achieved through thoughtful planning and the manipulation of each divergent element.
Okay, so you get it by now: the dish was perfectly balanced. But what makes my adoration for this dish especially shocking is that I’ve never been a big fan of eggplant. While I can certainly put up with it, it has never really appealed to my taste buds, so I was stunned to find my eyes rolling back into my head after every heavenly bite. Although Chef Patterson said that I could make the same thing at home, after disliking almost every other eggplant dish that I’ve come across, something tells me that his is special.
So what was it that made his dish so special? Despite the perfect harmony of flavor, I realized that I initially overlooked something very important. I’ve now come to believe that it was the unlisted, secret ingredient that really pushed this dish to the next level: the tomato water gelée. I know that I wrote it into the dish's description above, but that little piece isn’t actually on the real menu. While I’m sure that they’re trying to keep it a secret, I do think that it’s a crucial piece to this delicious puzzle. This component added a shadow of acidity, a slightly bitter but sweet flavor inherent in most tomatoes, as well as that extra, unique textural layer that put the finishing touches on a masterful dish. It seems silly to assert that something as straight-forward as tomato water made into a gelatin was the ultimate factor in this dish’s success, but the fact that each one of its characteristics complemented every other ingredient in that bowl leads me to believe that the gelée was, in fact, the glue that held this dish together.
Seeing as how I can barely stand the taste of even a tiny chunk of raw tomato, it makes it especially astonishing that I was more seduced by a dish comprised of two ingredients towards which I have strong aversions than any others I’ve tried this year. If that doesn’t say that Chef Patterson is doing something truly amazing, I don’t know what does.
Coi Restaurant
373 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133-4512
(415) 393-9000
http://coirestaurant.com/
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