noma (Part Two)

If you're new to the party, check out part one here.

And we're back. When we left you last, Emily and I had just finished up drinking mushroom soup out of a turnip through a straw. Or was that actually a parsnip? Or another root vegetable? Tursnip? Paturnsip? Anyway, onward and upward.

It's probably appropriate here to actually post the menu and by doing so, I'll stay on task and in order. One can dream. That's the food on the left with the wine on the right.

I'll agree with Roy here, this menu might be one of the least descriptive menus ever. "Apple and Kelp" is a particular favorite.

At some point I will dig into the wines further but for now I will just mention that the approach to wine at noma dovetails with their approach to food - sustainable, unorthodox, unfiltered, biodynamic, etc. When you - as I have done - read through noma review after noma review hunting for pictures and thoughts, you'll find a huge divide on the wine.

Many reviewers found them to be - at best - inaccessible and - at worst - terrible.

Perhaps it's that we don't have very many preconceptions about the way this wine or that wine should taste. Mostly, I think that we dig trying new things. I mean, that's why we're at noma, right? Or maybe it is that we don't know very much about wine.

Cheese "Cookie" with Rocket and Stems

The "Cookie" up close

This entire series of utensil-free bites was very fast and very fun. The above is a play on those Danish butter cookies in the tin. As will be a trend here, these were nearly as amazing to look at as to each. Those are some very finely chopped herb stems piled on top of a cheese - and I cannot remember what else - cracker / cookie / crisp. A nice mix of sharp and sweet.

This very well might be my favorite of the night. Our server delivered this lovely ceramic / stoneware egg to the table. What's inside? Salty. Smoky. Delicious. Perfection.



At this point my brain may have ceased to function. With just one bite, this simultaneously smokey and briny little quail egg bursts open and everything is right with the world.

Caramelized Milk and Cod Liver 

After regaining consciousness post-quail-egg, we were treated to this cod liver and caramelized milk. The cod liver is frozen and shaved very thin and had this somehow intense and smooth at the same time flavor. This - after the quail egg warmth - was ice cold. This whole sequence might be my favorite of the night.

To note here, this is the first of these sorts of tasting menus that we've had where there isn't standard - or at least as I've come to think of standard - progression. We jumped all around with temperature, texture, flavor, etc. Fun.

Cabbage and Samphire Sandwich

The last one for today is this "sandwich" where the "bread" is cabbage leaves that have been dehydrated. Inside is a preparation of samphire, a wild sea green that looks a bit like thin asparagus. It is also known as a sea pickle. There was a very nice sweet / salty thing going on here. This one was a little hard to eat, little bits of dehydrated cabbage are probably still stuck to my sweater, but it was worth it.

Stay tuned tomorrow for part three where we'll finish up the small bites segment.