My mom and Beth and I actually had the exact same meal as pechenmew above, so refer to that for pictures. We also had the nonalcoholic pairings, which were hit and miss, but were very interesting and I'm very glad I tried it.

Here's my take:

Edible Menu: Surprisingly tasty. Brown butter menu with ramps five ways. My favorites for the ramps were the puree and the pickled ramp.

Greek Salad:
Greek Salad, again: I liked the second half more, the shot. It was just a really wonderful salty delicious shot of greek salad. I don't think I'd want more than a shot, but it was wonderful. The kalamata crisp didn't do it for me as much.

Nitro pineapple: Superb, with crispy halibut. The anti-grilled pineapple was especially good, too.


BBQ pork and baked beans (as others have already stated, delicious: my favorite of the night). The smear is the cornbread, the *noodle* is the baked bean. - This was actually my least favorite of the night, although I still enjoyed it. The collard greens were great, as was the cornbread puree. The baked bean noodle had a nice melt-in-the-mouth effect. The main problem was that the pork shoulder used was a little dry. The taste of the pork, aside from that, was great, though.


Pasta and quail (essentially the take on mac and cheese): Awesome, one of the best savory dishes of the night, and I'd eat a big bowl of it. Crunchy macaroni, rich quail, white truffle powder.

Braised duck- the "Roadkill" dish: notice the splatter of beet, the yellow dotted lines of the road, the rice crispy maggots. I liked this a lot, and wasn't at all put off by the presentation. I thought it was cute, and didn't really have any issues. Beth and my mom weren't so lucky. Taste wise, it was very good. Braised duck, a nice beet sauce, crunchy rice krispies.



Fruit & bubbles, I think this was called: cheese (the flake) and chocolate (the smear). In our case, the flake was rice paper with brown sugar on it, with carbonated fruit, an awesome parsnip, powdered walnut and a smear of l'explorateur cheese blended with white chocolate. Very, very tasty. Makes me want lots more carbonated grapes, especially.


Grapefruit (a take on gin and tonic lies within the gelatinous ball): My parents had me take the first bite of this, to determine whether or not you needed to eat it in one go. You do - the instant you push against the jelly ball, it explodes in your mouth, releasing a grapefruity gin and tonic. It made me giggle when it happened, and even knowing it was going to happen, the others at the table had the exact same reaction. It made me smile, a lot.


Popcorn Ball: Wonderful. Liquid caramel inside, with a pop rock effect, too. It was very sweet, but it warmed me up for the next course.


S'mores: Nice. The chocolate ball with graham cracker liquid inside and the bruleed marshmallow on the side of the bowl were very tasty.


Overall: I really had a great time. We went into it with an open mind, and were smiling and laughing for much of the meal. The food was wonderfully tasty, to boot. As my mom said, terrific service, a nice modern space, and just a great experience.

Non-alcoholic notes: Hopefully my mom will post a full list of the drinks, but here, from memory:

Sparkling grape juice with a liquid-nitrogen-frozen grape: A touch too sweet. I'm a big fan of frozen grapes, and this was an especially well frozen one, so that was very nice.

Pineapple with lemongrass: Exceptional. Amazing. I want to make this myself. Served very cold, with lots of ice, frothy and lemony and just amazingly delicious.

Pomegranate, lingonberry, and verjus: Nice and tart, with lots of lingonberry flavor cutting the pomegranate. I liked this a lot, but I think it was too sour for others at the table.

Tamarind-rosemary: A huge miss for my mom, who hated it. I liked it after the first few sips, but it was very, very strongly flavored of rosemary. It was served with (I think) the mac and cheese, and just didn't make any sense at all in that context. Visually unappealing, also. As you might guess.

Cilantro mojito (without any alcohol): I'm very cilantro averse, but this was great. The cilantro was there, but it wasn't overpowering, and it was a very nicely balanced drink.

Maple vanilla white tea (cold): Too sweet. It was served initially with the grapefruit, but I held it until the truffle and smores, and the flavors worked better there. But still, too sweet.. their variation of a hot toddy, I guess, and I think it would probably have benefitted from the alcohol.

Overall I enjoyed the NA pairings, but probably wouldn't do them again unless they were more closely tied to the dishes they were served with. As it stood, only a couple drinks actually made sense with the courses we were given, although they were almost all good on their own.

The price was $20 less than the equivalent wine pairing.

Ann Fisher wrote:

jcmchi wrote: I love the idea of a decondstructed liquified "pizza and caeser salad" but the pizza tasted like chef boy-ar-dee pasta from the can, and the salad just was watery green lettuce flavored.

jcmchi, when were you there? I'm fairly sure there was nothing like pizza or caesar salad on any of the menus when we were there on the 30th. I think your review would have more context if we knew when you ate there.

I ate at Moto back in the fall of 2006 I think and I seem to recall something along these lines, actually. Something comes to mind about 2 liquids in a dish - one red, one green - swirled slightly in the center... perhaps just called "Italian food"? I thought that I had photos from that meal, but couldn't seem to find them...

Google Image search saves the day... not my photo, but appear to be the dish in question:



I can't say that I remember much about how it tasted though.

-Dan

Ed has summed up our meal nicely. I was really blown away by the combination of great food and crazy fun. I would be glad to live on the chicken fried quail with the mac & cheese for a week or more and the halibut was as well-done a piece of fish as I've had in Chicago. A few photos of things that have not been previously illustrated, or, I admit it, just because I think my photo is better First, an array of non-alcoholic drink pairings.


On top, the lemongrass & pineapple. Magnificent. A perfect pairing with the "nitro pineapple" course. You notice I made the mistake of tasting it before stopping for a photo. The miracle is that there was any left at that point.
Then clockwise from top left. Grape with frozen grape. Maple-vanilla tea. Tamarind and rosemary. Virgin mojito with cilantro and aloe vera juice. Several others not illustrated. Were they worth $50 per person? Who knows how you answer that. But if you're not a wine drinker, and you want to add some more interest and fun to an already amazing experience, why not? I was glad we did. And I suspect that if you asked nicely, you could get a one of them as a before-dinner drink regardless of what you were otherwise planning.

The "Fruit & Bubbles" cheese course. Those are powdered walnuts in the lower right corner. A highlight of the meal.


"Grapefruit." With vesicles.


"S'mores." Loved the liquid graham cracker in the chocolate shell.

The meal has already produced as much dinner table conversation as anything else I've done lately--though if I'm encouraging people to go I find I downplay the "roadkill" more than if I'm strictly in "you'll never believe this" mode.

I'm not certain which is the most appropriate Moto thread (we have so many), but here goes:

Moto 2009

Last Tuesday I returned to Moto, Chicago’s premier molecular restaurant (at least if one places Alinea in its own transcendent category), and I was surprised at the changes. The restaurant looks much the same, but the cuisine feels different. The changes at moto may mirror those decisions made by many successful artistic rebels. After their moment of publicized rebellion – after they have thrown down the gauntlet and after the media has chronicled that gauntlet – the rebel needs to ask, “what now?” These heroes come to realize that there is a lot to be learned from the standards of the world from which they have rebelled. Perhaps symbolically when we were given our kitchen tour we did not need to wear protective googles – there was no laser in evidence.

Strikingly, the dish from the ten-course dinner (with a few extra courses) that I remember most clearly and most fondly is (almost) a dish that could easily have been served at any restaurant committed to contemporary cuisine. The kitchen presented a pan-seared Texas quail with modulated hot (pequin) pepper and celery three ways. Granted the dish arrived with an edible paper that was reminiscent of buffalo wings – the dish was ostensibly a deconstruction of buffalo wings – but what struck me was how sweet and luscious and even traditional the quail was. My tablemates agreed. The “Chicago steak dinner” was likewise a lovely, modernist dish with a beautifully cooked bit of prime rib eye. Yes, it was a deconstruction of the composition of such a dinner, but not a destruction of it. Perhaps the least effective was the faux “breakfast” – a coconut and passion fruit egg (white and yolk) served with crab cake tater tots and blood orange ketchen. The crab was extremely tasty, but the egg (a borrowing, if I recall correctly, from WD-50) was more curious than enjoyable, given a texture that was perhaps too reminiscent of plastic.

As with this “egg” dish, some of the Moto oddities – the powders and a little nitro and a Cuban sandwich shaped as a cigar with ash, but for the most part the tastes were strong. There were no dipping dots to be seen. Moto’s problem has been that the concept has on occasion overwhelmed the taste. The edible menu (as the amuse) is a case in point. No one would demand to eat this cracker were it not for the jest on which it is based (eating the menu).

Pastry Chef Ben Roche’s desserts were, as usual, most enjoyable, but not so different in spirit from what one might be served as Jean-Georges, Per Se, or, in Chicago, at Blackbird. They were compositions of flavor points, following modern canons, rather than provocations. And they were all the better for that.

Moto 2009 reveals a greater attention to flavor, while sometimes the presentation seems to be minimalist (such as the BBQ beans and slaw. The roadkill (described on the menu as “roadkill of fowl”), a now canonical dish at moto (a result of the visit I organized when the restaurant had first opened) is based on duck (not raccoon) and is much more elaborately plated. However, while the dish is tasty, it has lost some of its authenticity as a just-in-time creation.

So moto is changing, as it should be. Chef Homero Cantu seems to be considering what he needs to do, rather than what he can do. After all, if it is only the ideas that matter, what would justify return visits? Moto remains vital and exciting, clever and tasty: but now a restaurant that doesn’t need to strain so hard to be worthy of its diners’ love.

Moto's edible menu (Grand Tasting Menu version)

Passion fruit and coconut egg with crab tater tots and blood orange ketchup

Saffron Scallop with Lemon oil power, Orange and Shiso syrup

Deconstructed French onion soup: Gruyere and onion cracker

House made pequin (chili) quail with trio of celery

Smoked beef brisket, frozen cole slaw, and BBQ beans

Roadkill of fowl: duck, red and yellow beets, crunchy red rice

Chicago Steak Dinner

Pina Colada forms for dessert

Pumpkin pie forms for dessert


Moto
945 West Fulton Market Street (West Loop)
Chicago
312-491-0058
http://www.motorestaurant.com/

Great review. I have to get back there some time. More interestingly, I'd love to hear Heather22's take on what's going on there.

nr706 wrote:More interestingly, I'd love to hear Heather22's take on what's going on there.

My understanding is that all who work at moto are required to sign non-disclosure agreements, so she's probably not at liberty to share very much.

=R=

GAF wrote:Last Tuesday I returned to Moto

I appreciate your review as well. I've always thought of Moto as a place I needed to visit just once, for a singular experience, but your thoughts on the way Moto is evolving are interesting. I'll consider a second visit.

Hi,

I was at Moto for one of those "Chef for a Day" opportunities. You do sign a multi-page non-disclosure form. I would have loved to written a post, but I have to be honorable to what I signed off. I know of one other poster who also participated, she cannot say anything, either.

I very much value the experience. I'm glad I took him up on his offer at the Beet Dinner, which was made to everyone in the room.

Regards,

me too. i am overdue. Moto has been a favorite of mine for many years and every dinner we have there is better than the last.

Sorry folks, all this Moto love has really got me perplexed. We dined there on Feb 14 for the first time, and I was completely underwhelmed. So much focus on flash, that the place forgets that it is your taste buds that need to experience the food. Had the crab cake and fake egg with passion fruit thing. Good concept, but the egg had little flavor - but looked cool!- and the crab cake was nothing special. Other dishes we equally mundane, albeit in cool presentations.

As for service, I'd say it was completely amateurish. We ordered the paired wines which were fine, but came intermitently and for the first few courses were not clearly paired with any specific dish. We received one course twice after the wait between courses became rather lengthy, and when we pointed out that the course was a repeat, we were told that the chef wanted us to have it again because we had said it was so good. We never said any such thing.

You want molecular coolness with great taste? Alinea blows this place away before Anschatz gets out of bed in the morning. Moto is not even in the top 10 in Chicago in my view.

i caught this in the reader today and thought some of you may be interested. i did the "chef for day" at Moto last year, had the best time, and signed the agreement not to speak about it. this reporter must not have signed it, don't know, but it gives you a good idea what its like
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/s ... ts/090305/

dollbabytina wrote:i caught this in the reader today and thought some of you may be interested. i did the "chef for day" at Moto last year, had the best time, and signed the agreement not to speak about it. this reporter must not have signed it, don't know, but it gives you a good idea what its like
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/s ... ts/090305/

The person who commented on Sula's cool article has a nice writeup of a meal at Moto. It's a pretty positive review, but it reinforces the reasons I expect never to return to Moto. Pureed Caesar Salad. Yuck. Powdered sesame oil. Yuck. And some non-yucky things that just seem out of place.

Kennyz wrote:[
The person who commented on Sula's cool article has a nice writeup of a meal at Moto. It's a pretty positive review, but it reinforces the reasons I expect never to return to Moto. Pureed Caesar Salad. Yuck. Powdered sesame oil. Yuck. And some non-yucky things that just seem out of place.

I'm that person.

The pureed caeser salad was far better than it sounds. Really. Think of it as more as a soup heavy with greens. The powdered sesame oil was a bit odd, though. I'll give you that. In my review, I mentioned that I had texture/dryness issues with that dish. The powder was a big part of that.

kitchenhacker wrote:

Kennyz wrote:[
The person who commented on Sula's cool article has a nice writeup of a meal at Moto. It's a pretty positive review, but it reinforces the reasons I expect never to return to Moto. Pureed Caesar Salad. Yuck. Powdered sesame oil. Yuck. And some non-yucky things that just seem out of place.

I'm that person.

The pureed caeser salad was far better than it sounds. Really. Think of it as more as a soup heavy with greens. The powdered sesame oil was a bit odd, though. I'll give you that. In my review, I mentioned that I had texture/dryness issues with that dish. The powder was a big part of that.

Welcome to LTHForum. I hope you stay awhile, as I really enjoyed reading your review. I realize now that my "Yuck" comment may have sounded like I was paraphrasing something you wrote, which was not my intent. I have actually had Moto's pureed caesar served as a test tube shooter, and I found it just short of revolting.

Kennyz wrote:Welcome to LTHForum. I hope you stay awhile, as I really enjoyed reading your review. I realize now that my "Yuck" comment may have sounded like I was paraphrasing something you wrote, which was not my intent. I have actually had Moto's pureed caesar served as a test tube shooter, and I found it just short of revolting.

No problem.

To be fair, I think it would probably be pretty weird as a test tube shooter.