Moody Tongue (dining at)

This the right place for a comment on the tasting menu dinner at the new location?

If so, I have to say I was really impressed by the meal we had there last night.

Hopefully someone that is unembarrassed about taking pictures of food follows this up with some shots of the 12-15 (depending on how you count the tastes) beautifully-plated dishes that are currently described here:

https://www.moodytongue.com/menu/dinner/

Highlights were the lamb samosa, popping with assertive lamby flavor, the Madai - a perfectly deconstructed sushi roll with bright flavors, the caviar (which actually IIRC had porky aspic cubes in it that set off the salty/sea elements), each of the main proteins - charcroute, duck and beef - were absolutely spectacular, and I really enjoyed the brown butter Genoise dessert. I didn’t think anything fell below really good on the savory portion (and a couple of our party thought dishes (XO Crab/Fois) I didn’t mention above were the best), and on the dessert side the only one that didn’t work for me was the rice lager bath an otherwise perfectly nice sherbert. This kitchen is turning out great food.

I’ve been a fan of the moody tongue beers for quite a while, but had no idea about the extent of the offerings currently available. I loved the Asian pear saison, sour peach golden, oak barrel-aged Flanders red, and the scotch ale. Thoughtfully-paired to boot, with some of the later, richer dishes (charcroute, duck in mole) going particularly nicely with the sweeter weizenbock and very sour cherry Belgian ale, respectively). I was only let down (again, relative) by the gose, which I would have preferred saltier and more sour, and the juiced lychee IPA, which lacked IPA hoppiness and much flavor at all, to my palate. Some may notice that it is a lot of beer servings, but somewhat surprisingly, I swear, none of us felt the effects in a negative way. This is in contrast to some similarly-coursed (##) wine dinners where I’ve walked way in a practical gray-out. Makes sense given ABV levels, I suppose. I also though portions were sensible - we all cleaned just about every plate and no one popped a button or anything.

This felt like good relative value for so many good dishes - $800 for 4 - though only serving your own beer helps bring prices down, I suppose. Some of the beers are only available in the dining room, I believe, so it’s added fun to get a look at some allocated stuff.

The dining room is pretty unfussy, and the staff very friendly, professional and good-humored. I also thought the stemware line-up was impressive.

Great place. And I’ll be back soon for the bar and terrific-looking a la carte menu. I was a little scared for them given the location, but the bar was bumping and the dining room was mostly full for most of our time there. I’m not sure how often they will change the tasting menu I linked above, but I could see doing it at least 2-3 times given how much I enjoyed it (kind of like the first Goosefoot menu).

Moody Tongue
2515 S. Wabash
312-600-5111
https://www.moodytongue.com/