food: vegetables arranged to have IQ of 142

Back to Millennium Restaurant. Interesting to compare and contrast with an earlier visit. No single standout ingredient like the mushrooms to end all mushrooms.

Start simpleRoasted BeetsThen move to Cauliflower & Cipollini Onion Pakora
spicy coconut & cilantro chutney, cardamom scented pear-curry leaf relishyummy, creamy, delicious fusion food but you could imagine other restaurants like Tangerine getting lucky and delivering this.

Now main course, read very very carefully
Smoked Cherry Chard & French Lentil Roulade
crisp olive oil crust, black chanterelle & merlot reduction, Meyer lemon & rosemary roasted artichoke & potato gratin, fried capers, grilled endive & blood orangeAny good restaurant would be overjoyed just to come up with the artichoke and potato gratin. Greens Restaurant, fine though they are, would have put the chard and roulade (a slice of a roll) together with the fried capers and been well satisfied. But Eric Tucker's kitchen is taking your mouth places you didn't know existed. The endive is so tart and bitter it's close to a wincing bite of grapefruit. It makes you return to the other elements to experience them anew. The blood orange is another taste juxtaposed with the rest.

My date had a similar tongue overdrive.Seared Emerald Rice Cake
sauté of jerked seitan, crisp plantains, brassicas, baby erbette chard, ginger scented coconut & winter squash puree, Seville orange & habanero coulisThe moist chewy rice sits in repose at the center of a solar system of tastes and ingredients, and all the planets align. Anyone else would have focused on the habanero, but here it's just a slight harmonic. I re-read the menu over and over to make sense of all the ingredients.

It was so stimulating that I circled back for another starterGrilled Maitake Mushroom Flatbread
seared baby onions, fava greens, pine nuts, cashew garlic cream, bitter green saladUnlike the main courses this dish wasn't smarter than its eater, it was almost a pizza. But the bitter, peppery green salad brought each mouthful to life, and the touch of cashew garlic cream was soft, warm, unbelievable.

You're a vegetable, you're a vegetable
Still they hate you, you're a vegetable
You're just a buffet, you're a vegetable
They eat off of you, you're a vegetable

-- Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Michael Jackson off Thriller (25 years old)