LaughING @ ING, An Homaro Cantu Production

LaughING @ ING, An Homaro Cantu Production

Like many, I like a little entertainment with my dinner, even if I have to come up with my own punch lines, like ordering a Luther Burger in the cardiac ward of a local hospital. Sometimes, I kill even me.

I never laugh so hard in a restaurant as I do at the restaurants of Homaro Cantu. From the raccoon roadkill he prepared for an LTH dinner years ago, to the Cuban sandwich posing as a cigar I ate just last year, the guy cracks me up.

There’s some irony in the fact that the kings of Chicago food comedy (Achatz, Bowles, Cantu and Taus) all did time at Trotter’s, one of the least funny, most sober, no-nonsense kitchens in the city.

Tonight during a media preview at ING (Imagining New Gastronomy), we had lots of funny stuff, but few funnier or tastier plates than the very last, a platter of “waffles.”



They say if you have to explain a joke, it stops being funny, but indulge me if you will as I relate why I laughed at this one. First off, it forces us to have as the last dish of the evening what could be the first dish of the day. Second, it isn’t what it seems: that’s not butter, it’s mango sorbet; that’s not whipped cream, it’s coconut cream; that’s not syrup, it’s a stout reduction. Third, we all know frozen pancakes from the freezer sections of our mom’s refrigerator, and though this isn’t Eggo, it’s frozen, literally frozen on an anti-griddle, and so a refreshingly humorous last course.

I’m not saying you’ll spit take when having this dish, but you will at least smile. It’s clever, it’s humorous, it’s tongue-in-cheek chow and that, I believe, is a distinguishing characteristic of some of our city’s most adventurous chefs.

ING
951 Fulton Market

This was my favorite dish of the night. Really felt like the quirkiest thing on the menu. "By golly, the waffle is cold!"

Mattkrc wrote:This was my favorite dish of the night. Really felt like the quirkiest thing on the menu. "By golly, the waffle is cold!"

Right, and the mom could say, "If you don't come and eat your waffle, it's going to get warm."

can't wait to try this! how was the rest of the dinner?

dollbabytina wrote:can't wait to try this! how was the rest of the dinner?

It was full of surprises and showed heavy Asian influence. I'll try to post more soon; here's the menu, an origami box with an egg roll inside:

Here is a pretty interesting article from Chicagoist about ING, it's more about the operation than the food though...

First Look - ING (Or, Does Your Restaurant Have a Mission Control?)

I wasn't kidding in the headline - how many restaurants have you been to that have a mission control center in the basement? Between the main course and the dessert, Cantu took me on a tour of the entire facility, and one of the highlights was the computer center. The restaurant uses an automated expediting system - instead of chefs shouting and screaming "Fire" and "Ready" around the kitchen, they are eerily quiet. Each wears a small earpiece and the computer tells them exactly what to do...

his system is particularly important because ING, unlike Moto, is intended to operate on an a la carte basis. Chef Cantu admitted that serving such complicated food was much easier when everyone in the restaurant got the same 10 or 18 courses. Now, as diners order anything they want in any order, things are going to get complicated. Cantu also promised a revolution in billing and serving. Rather than ordering one dish at a time, diners will decide how long they want to eat. The restaurant, using the efficient computer system, will bring out a certain number of dishes per hour, and the bill will be calculated per hour, rather than per plate.

SSDD

The technology behind the Cantuan table is, indeed, fascinating. I provided a little background on Moto's order expediting system in Grubstreet Chicago last year and you can hear the Hal 9000 voice of the Matrix in my inaugural segment for the second season of Soundbites on WBEZ

Has anyone been for dinner yet? I'm considering taking my cook daughter when she comes to town ... are the menu items small plates or app and entree for example?

I was there for dinner...they had a 7-course fixed valentine's day menu. The menu is small plates. They do have an interesting option which, according to the restaurant, is very popular. It is a "dine by the hour" option. You tell them that you want to eat for x hours and they bring you a variety of dishes over that time period. Sounds interesting.

I very much enjoyed my time there. It isn't as whimsical as Moto and the menu is Asian.

Heading here for dinner tonight...any recent experiences and recommendations?

You'd think to the victors of the first Momofuku cloning here would go the spoils, but all I hear is Yogisms: for all the insane flocking of folks high-profile new restaurants tend to get during their opening months--and Maude's is quoting three hour waits and weekends booked out for months--this place was empty at 7:30 on Saturday. You have to wonder if this place was born of inspiration--or just the hope Aviary will open on time.

At least it was quiet, right? Loved the instrumental Dr. Dre, even. The stoner pan-Asian touches are getting tired--pork belly sliders again? Really? Here, more canape than slider.--but the ramen is pretty darn good, with a nice mix of toothsome mien and fried noodle slivers, and a broth with discernible fat and sweetness. The other dishes we had were pleasant but unmemorable; the inverted waffle was novel and, indeed, humorous--and the vaguely labna-ish flavor won us over.

Still, you can't help but feeling the spirit and legacy of the place is Otom all over again.

A few friends and I went last night and had very mixed opinions.

The flavors generally worked and some dishes were fantastic. But the pacing of the meal was lousy (about 3 hours for about 15 dishes served in 4 waves).

Despite the much-lauded command center, two waves of dishes were served while people at our table were in the restroom. (Some of these dishes suffered because they cooled off significantly while we waited for people to return to the table.)

The tables are comfortable but the place is loud...I had a tough time hearing what the server was saying.

Highlights of the meal were the tako taco, poke, lo mein and cod.

Ate here with friends on Thursday evening. I think they liked it more than we did. We had 2 or 3 dishes each, and thought that maybe 2.5 dishes per person would be enough, if one of those dishes was one of the noodle soups.

The most interesting dish to me was the fresh oysters, with some sort of foie gras on it (seared?) and uni on top. I am not an uni fan and I liked it. They served it with a glass of smoke and poured beer into the smoked glass. Fun! Though I liked the beer better with the pork buns than the oyster dish. It wasn't a big slab of foie, just enough to make its slightly funky presence known.

The miss of the evening was the okonomiyaki - too much going on in the mushy pancake, and the sauce was much too salty. The salmon was tasty.

It was, as noted upthread, pretty empty. Only 2 or 3 tables occupied other than ours. We closed the place at 10:30 or 11. While we took a while to make our choices, once we had it took a very long time for our first course of food to come out. And they did the dinner roulette thing, where they put your dish in front of me, then try to give me someone else's dish. There were only 4 of us at the table, and while maybe you could get the guys mixed up (both had similar hair color and glasses) the other woman at the table had long straight brown hair and no glasses and a turquoise top, and I had glasses, curly blonde/white hair and a grey top.

Our friends live near there, and loved OTOM, and want to love ING. I'm not sure I did, though if I lived walking distance I might try to go more often. I feel like it's doing kind of the same thing as Takashi, with a little more gimmick and a little less French influence, but not really executing.

I am afraid that the review at The Reader - http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/wh ... id=3553699 - is still pretty much correct. They didn't have their microbrews, and didn't mention the tip added until we said "oh hey, the tip is already there." And my Udon noodles weren't great - falling apart outsides and too-firm insides. The servers did seem really nice, and happy to talk about what they were doing and how it all worked.

Looking through my pictures, it appears that I never wrote up our experience.
We did one hour and their pairing.

Starter cocktail

amuse-bouche


I wish I could comment on how this tasted. Truth be told, I had trouble with the pipette and actually started choking...not my proudest moment.

tamagoyaki omelet tobiko / seaweed salad

konbu popped kale / shimeji mushrooms / kimchi / 63° egg

japanese barbeque shortrib / purple yam / sesame cornbread

waffle boston cream doughnut / chocolate / banana


Restaurant was pretty hit or miss. I thoroughly enjoyed the shortrib, and I liked our dessert (though looking at other photos, it seems as though our dish was smaller). Our Konbu plate tasted like plastic, and the tamagoyaki left a bad taste in our mouths.

The pairings, however, were fantastic.


edit: Forgot to mention that our waiter was fantastic. Posed for photos, really helpful and attentive. Not sure I quite understand the earpieces however; whenever he went through the dishes, he had to remove his earpiece because of all the chatter.

Not finding a thread for this (and I used the recommended Google/LTH method, Ing site:lthforum.com).

Homer Cantu's take on Asian fare was reviewed intriguingly in the Tribune a week or two ago. Has anyone been? Considering taking visiting family there in a month, and would love to get some LTH opinions before booking.

Edited to add: Well, so much for the Google/LTH method. Obviously, a thread did exist. I just replicated the same search, and see David's Feb. 13 thread at the top of the results, but I could swear it wasn't there when I searched this morning. FWIW.

Hi. I've been several times to iNG and have really, really enjoyed it. I think the noodles are terrific, as well as the okonomiyaki appetizer and the duck, which they used to serve with their version of Filipino longanisa. I think the plating is very playful and whimsical (the oyster dish and the waffle come to mind).

We jumped on that Blackboard Eats thing for ING and will be doing the dinner where you eat the Miracle berries and then the food. Will see how it goes....

We had a wonderful meal at ING Restaurant last week.

The place has a casual vibe. We went dressed well (after work) but probably would have been comfortable dressed in jeans.

Our waiter and the service generally was relaxed but able. Again, it went with the overall vibe of the place. It almost seemed like we had dropped by a friend's house.

As others have noted, the meal started with the menu which included the soup in a dropper. In was innovative and interesting. It has a nice layering of flavors.

We then went with the tasting menu (I honestly don't know how the menu worked. I just know what we were served. I know they have an hourly thing going on, but I still don't get the concept).

The next course was the interesting cocktail mentioned (and photographed) above. We usually start a meal with a glass of champagne. This was an interesting change.

We next had the tamagoyaki omelet, which is also pictured in the review above. We really enjoyed the dish. The seaweed and sesame along would have been enough for a good part of the meal.

The next course was "Oyster, Uni, foie gras, smoke, beer." Unfortunately, I include this dish under the "Worst thing you've eaten lately" thread. This dish simply was painful. The smoke overwhelmed the dish. My wife and I both just wanted the dish removed from table (we were were polite of course and didn't actually ask that it be removed. Still, were glad when it was).

That was followed by a few dishes that was as good as that one was bad. The first was baozi buns, pork, mushrooms, scallions, and black vinegar. Wow. The buns were wonderful and the mushrooms and scallions worked perflectly.

That was followed by la mien, pork belly, oxtail, boc choy, and dark soy egg. Another wonderful dish. The pork belly was perfect and the "soy egg" was interesting and tasty.

The next dish was soba noodles, dashi broth, wasabi, scallion and shallot. Again, very good.

The main course was cod, shiso, scallop, edamame, and white soy fume. Another wow dish. For some reason, I've avoided cod. This dish showed, when well prepared, how tasty cod could be.

The desserts seems like stuff we would get next door at Moto. The one that stood out was "breakfast" which consisted of lychee, coconut, bacon cookie, and sour cherry. The dish looked like eggs and bacon. The taste was exceptional.

The wines were interesting and well paired.

The overall impression is that this place is going to be on our regular rotation. We glad we had the opportunity to have the meal and look forward to returning.

If you're not following Chef Cantu on Facebook right at this moment, you might want to. Hilariously, he seems to have tracked the guy who stole his laptop, and is now monitoring his key and other strokes. Apparently, he has not yet alerted law enforcement, lest he diminish entertainment value of this escapade. This is some kind of phenomenon.

I can't see the post on his FB page...Missing the fun...

Crazy C: the link to Cantu's Facebook laptop saga is here, on the "Other Culinary Chat" forum. Have fun. The pictures are priceless.

CrazyC wrote:I can't see the post on his FB page...Missing the fun...

I shared on my page.

Just felt pang of concern about Cantu's safety...

Chef Cantu posted a video of his current menu, and I found it a lot of fun to watch and listen to.

iNG video

I particularly appreciated his take on the tired "death by chocolate" theme!

Here's a new iNG Video featuring a dish and a drink named for classic rock songs:

http://youtu.be/m8jgSJUlORA

iNG has become one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago and is such an amazing value; for $80 you receive a whimsical six course tasting menu (featuring high end cuisine with a molecular gastronomy twist); beverage pairings are included (mixture of cocktails, craft beers and wines). The menu completely changes every six to eight weeks to a different theme; currently the menu is themed after 1980s hair bands and the next menu will have a Scorsese theme. The servers at iNG are outstanding; extremely friendly and attentive, yet very laid back and personable. The atmosphere at iNG is fun and casual, yet the cuisine is superior to many fine dining establishments. Adding to the experience is the utilization of Miracle Berries; for some courses you consume part of the dish, ingest a Miracle Berry (usually in powder form) and the Miracle Berry temporarily cancels out your sour taste buds and makes sour taste sweet. Some of the cocktails are really cool as well and rival the Aviary in creativity and presentation (i.e. a smoke infused Manhattan served in a dome filled with smoke causing the whiskey to have a marked but pleasant smokey aftertaste). Another cool aspect of iNG is that they share an indoor vertical garden with sister restaurant Moto and many of the greens are grown in house. My wife and I have become hooked on iNG; we look forward to each visit and have an absolutely blast every time. Such amazing food and experience - it is like dinner and a show rolled into one. Here are some photos from our meal tonight:

Course #1: Blue Oyster Cult - This course features some extremely tasty oysters with oyster leafs served atop what looked like an old record. You were instructed to consume one oyster, take the Miracle Berry powder and ingest the second. It was served accompanied by a Bloody Mary with chorizo infused vodka:


Course #2: Deep Purple Poutine - Excellent short ribs, aged cheddar and purple potatoes with an incredible tasty garlic sauce, paired with a Scottish Ale.


Course #3: Seek & Destroy - Tapas style course with cippolini onion rings, bacon wrapped dates and jalapeno popper. Tasted and smelled incredible! Paired with a sherry.


Bonus Course we received as regulars - "After the concert" appearing like items ones might find leftover at a concert such as ticket stubs and ashes, made to taste like nachos. The ticket stubs were edible! Very fun, whimsical yet delicious dish:


Course #4: War Pigs - Pork belly with mac & cheese powder paired with red wine:


Course #5: Photograph featuring mochi and vanilla ice cream (really nice, strong vanilla flavor and aroma). Paired with a stout.


Bonus Course of Beer Float:


Course #6: Doughnut Soup paired with a coffee flavored cocktail with port and creme de cocoa.


This was such an outstanding dinner tonight. After dinner we had a cocktail at the bar (they have an awesome cocktail list with several crafted cocktails mostly in the $10 to $12 range, many featuring Miracle Berry flavor tripping component). We had the Smoking in the Boys Room that is like a Manhattan, but infuses with smoke:


Tonight was Chef Nate Park's last night at iNG; he will be opening a new restaurant next month called Baume and Brix in the River North neighborhood (along with some former iNG and Moto chefs) that sounds like it will be exceptional as well. We had a nice chat with him after our meal about iNG as well as his future endeavor. Chef owner Homaro Cantu will be taking over in the kitchen come Tuesday, so even though iNG will be losing Nate Park there should not be any drop in quality. With Chef Cantu in the kitchen, Trevor Rose-Hamblin running the front of the house (Trevor is one of Chicago's best general managers) and an outstanding team of servers iNG is one of Chicago's gems. We already have reservations to come back in a few weeks for the Scorsese menu and anybody who appreciates upscale, creative food in a laid back fun atmosphere should give iNG a try. If you dined here several months back, they have really upped their game and with the menu and theme completely changing every several weeks this is a place you can come again and again and consistently be wowed.

Very impressive. I have to say that I've stayed away from ING because I just found the concept confusing when they opened - choose how long you'd like to dine and that determines the price, or something like that. Sounds like they've abandoned that concept? In any event, your meal sounds fantastic, so creative and something I think I'd enjoy . . . I'll have to give ING a try one of these days.

Yes, they completely did away with the concept of dining-by-the-hour. For about a year now they have had a six course tasting menu for $80 that includes a beverage pairing for each course and Miracle Berry flavor tripping typically on two to three of the courses. Every six to eight weeks they change the menu 100% and come up with a different theme. While our first couple of meals there were quite good, the last three menus have truly been outstanding and they really have elevated their experience to the point that they have become one of my favorite restaurants.

Interesting....

Did you guys hear about this?

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2012/ ... 1481237582

How many weeks/months will the Scorcese menu run? The trailer is wonderful but then I always love the whole spirit of Cantu!