Pat’s Pick
Noé
Noé
As nearly as I can tell, chef Robert Gadsby’s mind is moving at warp speed. His complex, multi-ingredient, Asian-inflected French cuisine took shape when he opened the first Noé restaurant, in the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, in 2003, and his globe-trotting experiments continue at the second Noé, in the Omni Houston. Some dishes are classic: Lovely, tender roasted veal sweetbreads are served with a black-truffle jus. Others venture out on a limb: A chicken-vegetable salad artfully molded into a perfect cone comes with a smoothie-like mango-mint frappé on the side. Still others pull out all the stops: Foie gras is dolled up not one but three ways, including blended into a minted-white-chocolate panna cotta for an unapologetically unorthodox combo. Occasionally, a dish simply doesn’t work (that panna cotta, for instance; I’m not sure that liver and white chocolate could ever coexist happily), but nothing Gadsby dreams up is boring. His food always engages the imagination and the senses. PATRICIA SHARPE
Photo Op
Do you suspect that your friends hit the “delete” key whenever they see that you’ve e-mailed them the usual lame, out-of-focus pictures from your vacation? You’re right—which is why you might want to sign up for the Travel and Food Photography Workshop in Mexico this March. Under the keen eyes of photographer Ignacio Urquiza and cookbook author Marilyn Tausend—who collaborated on the gorgeous México the Beautiful and Savoring Mexico cookbooks—you and up to eleven other participants will snap your way through the plazas, markets, and byways of Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s loveliest cities. Every evening, Urquiza will lead a group critique of the day’s pictures, both digital and film. Time will be allotted for sightseeing, and just for fun, workshop members can take hands-on classes in tamale- and mole-making. An added bonus: Your friends won’t groan the next time an e-mail from you pops up. For more information on the trip (March 16 to 21; $2,100), go to marilyntausend.com. PATRICIA SHARPE
My Library
