604 Foodtography

What, isn’t this blog 604 Foodtography, not 360 Foodtography (area code for Tulalip/Seattle)? Well, yes, but when the invitations in my inbox have a menu that includes stuff like Dungeness Crab Pot Pie, Wagyu New York Strip, Braised Oxtail, Applewood Smoked Pork Belly..it’s very hard to ignore. Now all I had to do was find a way to get down to Tulalip from Vancouver. The sweet offer of free food & wine in exchange for a ride was enough incentive for Jay, border crossing be damned.

Now I’ve been to Tulalip a bunch of times, but never to the Resort/Casino, only for the Premium Outlet.  The resort / hotel side was pretty grand and very Pacific Northwestern with all the decorations.  Tulalip Resort Executive Chef Perry Mascitti introduced his team of chefs, each responsible for a different menu item that would be featured at Taste of Tulalip coming up in November 11-12th.

An amuse bouche, three different smoked salmon, Coho, Sockeye and King, all locally sourced.

The big focus of this Taste of Tulalip would be the opening dinner, a 6 course dinner paired with wines. Sommelier Tommy Thompson picked out 3 wines and a champagne for us to go along with our samples tonight. Cristal upon entry? Why thank you.

The first wine, a 2008 Burgundy from Domaine Leflaive Batard Montrachet. I held onto this as long as I could, and it seems like everyone else had the same thoughts about this; stellar.

For this tweet up/media tasting, they decided to buck the traditional “bring out a plate of each item for everyone” and instead had the chefs come out to cook, rotating from each table. Lucky me, I picked the right side of the room where we were to start off with...Wagyu Beef!! I’ve never had Kobe, and Wagyu is the next best thing available on this side of the world.

Japanese and American grade beef on the amount of marbling, or fat, in the meat. In Japan, their BMS (Base Marbling Standard) goes from 1-12, and this particular cut we were having was a 6, pretty high for Wagyu. In America, their grading system is a little more simple, Select, Choice and Prime.

Simply seasoned with salt, pepper and porcini powder (though I doubt ANYONE would be able to pick that up if we hadn’t been told), Chef Brent Clarkson and his Sous Chef Brandon Joseph prepared our plates.

Gawwww, simply by itself it melted, almost no chewing required. Is this what it feels like to be rich, to eat food so fatty and indulgent you don’t even have to chew? The touch of almond butter and bleu cheese brought a whole different texture and taste to it.

The Dungeness Crab Pot Pie was done in an inside out fashion. All the little vegetables such as corn, zucchini, carrots were prep’d in small ball forms. Imagine that, the labour of love of having to scoop out balls of zucchini. Jay and I both shared the same thought, that the presentation really took away from it, as it didn’t allow each ingredient to stand out due to the shape and lack of ease of extracting it from the shot glass. I treated it like a dip with the crab and pastry, while taking scoops of the bisque and veg’s.

Deep frying some gouda cheese wrapped in a phyllo pastry. Now I want all my cheeses to be deep fried.

Braised Oxtail with an orange demi glace and candied oranges. Overall this was very sweet, almost no savouriness detected at all. Almost dessert like, aside from the fact that it’s fatty oxtail!

Chef John Pontecelli answering Jay’s question about the sushi and hand cone that was just brought out.

Sorry to say, but this was mediocre compared to the three dishes we had just gone through. Now I’m probably biased because here in Vancouver, we have sushi that many would consider second to Japan itself.

ZD ‘Abacus’ Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa California. I’m no red wine drinker nor really a fan, but this was very, very accepted by my tastebuds. If you want me to explain..I can’t, sorry.

The surprise of the night was Chef Nikol Nakamura putting on a bit of a show. Why the safety goggles?

To make liquid Nitrogen ice cream! This brought back fond memories of Science World and various science classes in highschool.

As a refresher in science, Jay told me that because liquid Nitrogen is so cold, it freezes the ice cream mixture so quickly that crystals don’t have a chance to form, resulting in a very soft and smooth ice cream. True indeed, as I had only taken a couple pictures of the ice cream before it started to trickle down. Soft, creamy and full of pistachio flavour indeed.

Malted Chocolate Milk Balls which tasted kind of like a mix between Maltesers and Sea Foam… serious craving for some of that sea foam candy right about now.

Worth the drive? Yes. It’s just a shame it took place on a Wednesday night as we missed out on free nights stay at the resort, having to come back for school on Thursday morning.. apparently the shower had three heads and the rooms themselves spacious and beautiful. Maybe next time, right Tulalip Resort?