#embeya

[belleshell]

Rock Shrimp Curry Noodles from @embeyarestaurant for lunch. #embeya #lunching #westloop #foodie #myfab5 #chicagoeats #foodstagram (at Embeya)

[dgtolme]

Look up!! #chicago #embeya #fridaynightshit (at Embeya)

[chicityfoodie-blog]

Emebya - Restaurant Week

Embeya has been on my dining list for a while now. I am a huge fan of Vietnamese/Asian food and reviews have been very positive for Chef Thai Dang's new spot. Restaurant week seemed like the perfect opportunity to come and sample a wide range of menu options.

Embeya is doing something a little different than most restaurants this week. There are no decisions...everyone at the table gets a portion of everything. So for 33 bucks you get 3 appetizers, 2 entrees, 2 sides, and 2 desserts. Here is the menu for the night (with a bonus dish tossed in by the chef):

Green Papaya. cilantro, crispy shallots, beef jerky. This dish was light and refreshing with a subtle sweetness from the papaya. The crispy shallots and little bits of beef jerky provided some nice contrast.

Grilled Quail. Honey. Lime. I've only had quail a few times, but I am a fan. The meat is a little sweet and not very gamy. The squeeze of lime provides a little acid to the dish that helps balance the sweetness from the honey.

Little Neck Clams a la 'Chips and Dip'. This dish was tossed in as a 'bonus' from the chef and it may have been one of the favorites of the night. There was a slight acidity to the clams as they were prepared almost like ceviche. This dish is not available on the regular menu, because of the labor intensive process to make it, so if you want to try it restaurant week is your only option.

Garlic Chicken. confit scallion. The meat was very juicy with just a slight crispness to the skin. The breast meat had more flavor than the wing or leg. The garlic flavor was subtle but still present, and the confit scallion added a nice boost of flavor.

Ribs. tamarind  garlic, hoisin. These beef ribs were cooked till tender and the meat just slid off the bone. The sauce was smokey and sweet and glazed the meat completely. Very messy, definitely a knife and fork job.

Bok Choy, candied jalapenos, sesame. Candied jalapenos ..are you kidding me?! Why aren't more chef's doing this. The balance of the sweet and spicy, the rich flavor of sesame  and the contrast of soft leafy greens with the crunchy stalks of the bok choy make this one of the most balanced dishes of night. While I am not one to typically praise vegetables  this one is worth the recognition. 

Fried Rice. Overall, the fried rice didn't add much and may as well have been filler. But since I used it to soak up extra sauce from the bok choy, it was very welcome on the plate!

Cream Puff. Matcha. Vanilla. This cream puff was overfilling with delicious green tea/vanilla custard. The pasty was fluffy and the dish wasn't too sweet. If I come back, I will probably order this for dessert again. 

Exotic Fruit. Jack Fruit. Longan. I really enjoyed this final course. I had heard of jack fruit before, but never tasted it. It had a flavor that seemed like a cross between mango and cantelope, with a texture that was half mango and half fruit roll up. I have heard in India it is the 'king of fruits', I don't know if it's my favorite ever, but it was a pleasure to try. The longan is a member of the lychee family. Once peeled these have the consistency of grapes with a subtle sweet flavor. Very fun to eat!

Restaurant week or not, I would definitely recommend this place to people. Also, they are going to start serving lunch starting in March or April  so the West Loop lunch scene just got even better!!

[zoeticthoughts]

Embeya - A Review

Two and a half months ago, I won two free tickets to a Pop-Up Dinner entitled "Master and Apprentice", to showcase some of the recipes and flavor that the "Apprentice", chef Thai Dang, was preparing for his restaurant that was going to open up, Embeya. The "Master", in this case, was chef Laurent Gras, head of L2O when it earned 3 Michelin Stars. I was wowed then not just by the creativity involved in the dishes, but by both the immaculate presentation and the simplicity of its flavors. Barring one dish that was a miss for me (banana-leaf wrapped whitefish stuffed with fish mousse, too fishy for a midwestern boy like me), everything simply blew me away. I knew that I would have to return. I knew from my first bite of Kona Kanpachi that Thai Dang was a man to watch out for; a man with a charming personality, a keen taste for the flavors of his homeland, and quite possibly the best hair I have ever seen on a chef.

I returned to Embeya tonight, and I will tell you this: chef Thai Dang has not let me down.

First, the logistics: the entrance is right on the corner of Jefferson and Randolph -- easy access from both streets. Once inside, there is unfortunately nowhere to sit and wait, but luckily my companion arrived quickly enough that it wasn't an issue. A massive bar takes up the majority of the left wall, flanked by ornate armoires girding the shelves. It's attractive and honestly just very, very large, as most of the place is; the entire restaurant is in the hollowed-out lobby of a hotel (as far as I can tell) with extra-tall ceilings and an open floor-plan, with only a smattering of tables next to the bar by the entrance, an open section in the middle with tables separated by generous aisle space, and one more open space in the back. The artistic touches are sparse, but beautiful; five iron lanterns hung from the bar space, each section was prefaced by stunning wooden screens, and far in the back was an open wall to watch the cooks at work. Because of the large space it was a bit chilly inside.

When I arrived at 7pm, it was hectic -- there was a party of 80 that had consumed the whole back of the lounge like a leviathan, and the noise was bordering on cacophonous. We were seated in the central area far away, and although it was genuinely loud, we were still able to converse at a regular level without any impediment. A server came to us quickly and asked us for our cocktail orders; I had the Our Thai, and my companion the Jackfruit Cultivar. Both of them were sumptuous, flavorful and bold. My drink was strong, as I like it, but at $12 a glass, I feel the amount served was somewhat shameful -- 4, maybe 5 ounces for me thanks to two large ice cubes, 6 ounces for the lady.

After we were served our cocktails we split a first course, something I remembered from that excellent Pop-up Dinner -- the Papaya Salad. I know that it's something you can typically get at any Thai restaurant, but dang, the best I'd had it was Thai Dang's, and I wanted it again. He had tweaked the recipe, and it was brilliant; it's cool and crisp, but there's serious heat in there, complemented by the fried shallots and culantro, anchored by earthy bits of beef jerky. It's both light and heavy, cool and hot. It was devoured nearly instantaneously.

Our waiter came back right as we completed our meal, and we ordered the main course: first, two more cocktails, the Lynchpin and the Death of Reposado, the former recommended to me by a friend who also happens to be a waitress at Embeya; second, the young bamboo and the fried rice for two; and third, the garlic chicken and the ribs, on recommendation by The Chicagoist's review.

This is where things started to get weird. While we were waiting, people on both sides were served chicken and ribs. Which didn't make me nervous until we were accidentally almost served summer rolls by a waiter who only realized his mistake after hearing our confused "Oh!"s. And then we were almost served another plate of green papaya salad by a more astute waiter who realized his mistake. And then we waited, and I began to wonder if someone had gotten the wrong food; after what felt like an eternity our own waiter returned, apologized for the fact that a different member of wait staff had absconded with our drinks and they were being remade as he spoke (further worrying me), but ensured us that our food would be out soon.

Luckily, it was.

The two drinks were, as expected, also good, but I will be honest: the Lynchpin kind of baffled me at first. It's a combination of gin, vermouth, basil, and smoked heirloom water -- not exactly a common drink ingredient. It came in a salt-rimmed martini glass and it was very, very tomato-y, but also sweet and smoky. The sommelier, Griffin, explained that the head of spirits, Danielle Pizzutillo, smokes the tomatoes over cherry wood. It was perhaps the most complex and flavorful drink I ever had, and with each sip it became more and more addicting. I highly recommend it.

Now is probably a good time to confess: the real reason I followed Embeya so passionately from Pop-up to opening is because of one single dish, and not even a unique one at that. It is the reason that the words 'Thai Dang' and 'simplicity' are so entwined in my mind, and it is the reason that I can say with confidence that he is a great chef, and that is the fried rice. The fried rice is perfect. It is almost completely unadorned. It is just rice... fried. I would eat twenty bowls of it a day if I could.

And yet... and yet! It was not served with a spoon. Just a bowl, clunked down artlessly on our table, with only our forks and chopsticks. And although it is just the right level of sticky, it is also fluffy, so fluffy it falls apart. A spoon, a spoon, my kingdom for a spoon... admittedly, it did not stop me from shoveling it onto my plate directly and consuming it faster than a cheetah on cocaine.

The sake-enriched bamboo and mushrooms, too, deserves honorary mention for the high quality of the ingredients and the preparation. I have never had bamboo so tender, and not in little shoots either -- these are thick, huge chunks of bamboo, and they have just the right amount of give to be easy to eat but not squishy, and not stringy either, the mushroom complementing the bamboo by giving the whole dish a powerful savoriness.

The ribs were interesting, coated in a sticky messy tamarind ginger barbecue sauce; the meat fell easily off the bone, although I felt very self-conscious trying to decide whether to use my hands while in a waistcoat in a very nice restaurant or try to use a fork and butter knife to peel the succulent pork away (postscript: I did the latter, and still made a mess of everything in sight).

The garlic chicken was a revelation. Perhaps not the best I've had -- I say that goes to the chicken in the Chicken and Waffles at Longman and Eagle -- but the best chinese-style crispy chicken I've had, with no bones to futz around with, an incredibly crisp skin that hid just the right amount of juicy, flavorful fat, and  intensely garlicky and moist meat.

We left Embeya that night with our bellies stuffed, our wallets lighter, and our hearts lifted. I had, through the chance encounter of a silly haiku, had a memorable night eating chef Thai Dang's food and learning about his and Attila's history and what they planned to do, and today, I got to see that plan come to fruition. It was not without its flaws, of course, but it is the first week for a very busy restaurant and everyone was contending with a beast of a party in the back, plus a very busy front. I'm willing to cut them some slack.

After having this food, I feel like I know the people there better. It was flavorful in a way that spoke of places, and nothing felt mild -- from the savoriness of the bamboo to the palate cleansing culantro in the papaya all the way through to the heavy garlic scallion confit on the chicken, every aspect of the food seems designed to punch you in the tastebuds in the best way possible. I can't wait to get punched again, and see Thai Dang succeed and succeed some more. That man is going places. And he's going to do it looking like a rock star.

[zoeticthoughts]

I almost never eat fish. Today I had fresh oysters, cooked scallop, kona kanpachi, squid, dover sole, and "fish mousse"

my stomach is really not happy with me right now. but holy cow what an awesome meal.

photo album: https://plus.google.com/photos/101746197666917569232/albums/5764198611577344945

[zoeticthoughts]