{"id":962,"date":"2013-09-24T21:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=962"},"modified":"2013-09-24T21:59:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T01:59:00","slug":"minibar-by-jose-andres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=962","title":{"rendered":"minibar by Jose Andres"},"content":{"rendered":"

We visited minibar by Jose Andres with some friends this past Saturday night.\u00a0 It was the first time we had been to the new space, which is spare and minimalist with high ceilings and lightly painted wood.\u00a0 (It’s located at 855 E Street, NW, Washington, DC.)<\/p>\n

The food definitely catered to the \u201cfoodie\u201d crowd and was innovative, fussy, and delicious.\u00a0 Here are the evening\u2019s dishes:<\/p>\n

We started out with a series of amuse-bouches (I would say a series of appetizers, but the entire dinner is made up of appetizer-sized dishes).\u00a0 The introductory dishes were pineapple short bread,<\/p>\n

\"pineapple<\/a>
pineapple shortbread<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

pizza margarita (the crust is made out of potatoes),<\/p>\n

\"pizza<\/a>
pizza margarita<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

a parmesan canele,<\/p>\n

\"parmesan<\/a>
parmesan canele<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

pressed flowers (they were edible), and<\/p>\n

\"pressed<\/a>
pressed flowers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

almond tart with blue cheese, which was good, even though I don\u2019t like blue cheese and which was served on rocks that had been bathed in liquid nitrogen (to prolong the life of the almond shell).<\/p>\n

\"almond<\/a>
almond tart with blue cheese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the cutest dishes we were served was the rubber ducky (the inside was filled with foie gras ice cream):<\/p>\n

\"rubber<\/a>
rubber ducky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the most interesting dishes was the beef tendon churro (once was enough for me):<\/p>\n

\"beef<\/a>
beef tendon churro<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Waldorf salad was an extremely creative rendition of a traditional Waldorf salad:<\/p>\n

\""waldorf<\/a>
“waldorf salad”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The late night chicken shawarma was amazing and even more amazing was the side of yogurt accompanying the shawarma<\/p>\n

\"chicken<\/a>
chicken shawarma<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Vietnamese pig ear was excellent\u2014spicy and full of texture:<\/p>\n

\"Vietnamese<\/a>
Vietnamese pig ear<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Iberico sea urchin would be good, I suppose, if you like sea urchin.\u00a0 The texture wasn\u2019t my cup of tea, but the flavors were excellent.<\/p>\n

\"sea<\/a>
sea urchin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shabu shabu included coconut shrimp ravioli in an extremely flavorful broth:<\/p>\n

\""shabu<\/a>
“shabu shabu”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most straightforward dish (and quite delicious!) was the beech mushroom papillot with truffles:<\/p>\n

\"beech<\/a>
beech mushrooms with truffles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The smoked oysters with escabeche was a myriad of flavors and textures:<\/p>\n

\"smoked<\/a>
smoked oysters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The fabes con almejas (white beans and clams) were clams with essence of white beans.\u00a0 The dish was delicious!<\/p>\n

\"white<\/a>
white beans & clams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The espardenyes (sea cucumber) with bone marrow proved to be a surprise.\u00a0 I loathe sea cucumber, but the chef had prepared it in such a way that the texture no longer resembled the gelatinous, slug-like creature that it is (unlike Chinese restaurants).\u00a0 It was actually quite tasty, and, combined with the bone marrow, was amazing.<\/p>\n

\"sea<\/a>
sea cucumber & bone marrow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next up was a squab liver mousse bite:<\/p>\n

\"squab<\/a>
squab liver mousse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To prepare us for the roast squab with oysters and seaweed.<\/p>\n

\"roast<\/a>
roast squab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You have to like goat cheese to like the bonne bouche cheese puff, but I\u2019m told it was quite yummy for those who do like goat cheese.<\/p>\n

\"goat<\/a>
goat cheese puff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bloody beets and yogurt course were beets with a little hisbiscus juice covered with frozen yogurt snow.\u00a0 Yum!\u00a0 (And I\u2019m not that fond of beets.)<\/p>\n

\"beets<\/a>
beets with yogurt snow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mango floating island was refreshing and palate-cleansing.<\/p>\n

\"mango<\/a>
mango floating island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And the assortment of desserts included a raspberry bon bon, Thai pocky stick, lemon-mallow (lemon marshmallow covered in white chocolate), a bluberry coolant, a boozy bear (a gummy bear filled with muscat), and doughnuts, made with Krispy Kreme doughnut ice cream, reformed to look like a Krispy Kreme doughnut and covered with chocolate and sprinkles.\u00a0 (No photo of the doughnuts, unfortunately, as we had to eat them quickly before they melted.)<\/p>\n

\"assorted<\/a>
assorted desserts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were impressed by the skill of the chefs, and the meal was delicious and innovative.\u00a0 But it definitely isn\u2019t for the steak-and-potatoes type of diner.\u00a0 Still, if you are an adventurous eater or are looking for new food experiences, it\u2019s definitely a worthwhile visit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Disclaimer:\u00a0 we are investors in ThinkFood Group, the parent company of minibar.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We visited minibar by Jose Andres with some friends this past Saturday night.\u00a0 It was the first time we had been to the new space, which is spare and minimalist with high ceilings and lightly painted wood.\u00a0 (It’s located at 855 E Street, NW, Washington, DC.) The food definitely catered to the \u201cfoodie\u201d crowd and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[82,25],"tags":[104,331],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun","category-restaurants","tag-minibar","tag-restaurants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p23QXm-fw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}