{"id":8582,"date":"2012-12-16T21:33:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T02:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=8582"},"modified":"2012-12-16T21:36:35","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T02:36:35","slug":"faith-is-good-but-knowledge-is-better-a-few-word-on-nexts-kyoto-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/16\/faith-is-good-but-knowledge-is-better-a-few-word-on-nexts-kyoto-menu\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith is good \u2026 but knowledge is better: A few words on Next’s Kyoto menu"},"content":{"rendered":"

So three weekends back (yeah, it’s taken me awhile to find the time to get to this), I did one of the craziest, most extravagant things I’ve ever done. I flew to Chicago. For a meal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Oh, I’ve gone to extremes for high-end dining before, such as my meals at Astrid y Gaston<\/a> in Lima, Momofuku Shoto<\/a> in Toronto, and Alinea<\/a> in Chicago, among others. But all of those meals were a side dish to a pre-existing trip\u2014our visit to Machu Picchu, and my attendance at the World Fantasy and World Science Fiction conventions, respectively.<\/p>\n

But this was a trip with the meal as its primary focus. My Sicilian dinner<\/a> at the ever-changing Next restaurant impressed me so that I wanted to take part in its follow-up offering, Kyoto, and so booked tickets<\/a> back in September the moment they became available.<\/p>\n

Even as I did it, it felt wrong somehow. Fly to another city … for a meal? How decadent!<\/p>\n

And yet …<\/p>\n

If I had a chance to see Nijinsky dance one more time, or Olivier act again, I’d fly across a continent and feel no shame, but when it comes to food, there’s somehow a twinge of guilt, of … should I really be doing this?<\/p>\n

The answer is, when it comes to chefs operating at this level of art on a menu which will be offered for a limited period only to vanish and never return …<\/p>\n

Yes. Yes, I should.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And to make the night even more special, I decided to honor the occasion and arrive in the proper garb, and so rented a hakama, as I did while attending the Worldcon in Yokohama<\/a>. The owner of Kotobuki<\/a> in Seattle had kindly put together a video showing how to don the clothing, but since it took two Japanese women 45 minutes to dress me back in 2007, and I feared I’d muck it all up and didn’t want to put pressure on Irene, I reached out to members of the Fujima Ryu<\/a> classical Japanese dance troupe of Chicago for help. That’s me with them above after they worked their magic.<\/p>\n

And after all that, I wish I had something useful to say about the meal … other than that it blew me away, I honestly have no yardstick against which to gauge the magnitude of the effort.<\/p>\n

What I mean by this is that during Sicily, I recognized that Next was in the business of serving the Platonic ideal of whatever cuisine they choose to serve, so that when you tasted each item, you immediately thought, yes<\/em>. This is the way this meal should be prepared, and all those other times I tasted it were but shadows.<\/p>\n

Only … what if you’re unfamiliar with the cuisine in question? What can you say to yourself then?<\/p>\n

As it turns out, not much. So I had to take it on trust that the level of artistry I’d encountered during the Sicily run of Next had also been present during Kyoto.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, I loved nibbling on the forest of shrimp heads (through which you can see me and Irene above), and the barracuda which was brought on a grill to our table (below) was some of the best fish I’ve ever eaten.<\/p>\n

But even though I’ve actually visited Kyoto, can I compare the courses served during our lengthy meal to what they should be in their most divine form? I cannot. I can only report that I enjoyed every moment of the experience, from the food to the interactions with the servers to watching the action of the chefs from our kitchen table.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Had I known the cuisine better, I’m sure my appreciation could have been so much greater. But you know something? Even so, it was more than enough for me to be happy.<\/p>\n

I left dedicated to the idea that in 2013, I would be back<\/a>. And maybe next time, with the coming menus, I’ll be better able to report back with the specifics of how Next nailed it. Because this time around, I can only take it on trust.<\/p>\n

And while faith is good … knowledge is better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So three weekends back (yeah, it’s taken me awhile to find the time to get to this), I did one of the craziest, most extravagant things I’ve ever done. I flew to Chicago. For a meal. Oh, I’ve gone to extremes for high-end dining before, such as my meals at Astrid y Gaston in Lima, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[261,49,235,236],"class_list":["post-8582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dave-beran","tag-food","tag-grant-achatz","tag-next-restaurant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}