Chefs Who Inspire Dinner with Justin Woodward

You may have heard that in September, Earl Ninsom of Langbaan (and also PaaDee and Hat Yai) announced a new special monthly dinner series, the Chefs Who Inspire dinner series. I recently attended the Chefs Who Inspire Dinner with Justin Woodward of Castagna. Here’s a look at my dinner experience.

Each dinner of the Chefs Who Inspire series will offer six tasting menu courses with wine pairings for $180 (gratuity not included) with a guest chef that Chef Earl admires and believes is inspiring to him and others and wants to highlight as the culinary talents that they are. Chef Earl introduced at the beginning of this dinner that he ate at one of the best restaurants in Bangkok with other chef friends – and thought to himself – Justin can do this. And he can do it better.

I have to agree that Chef Justin and Castagna is one of the huge underrated gems of Portland – the restaurant would have a waiting list and he’d be a rock star in a lot of other cities. Part of it is Portland is less into fine dining then other metropolis cities (which face it, often have more business expense accounts also) and the Portland dining scene doesn’t have enough that embrace modernist high end and Michelin star quality menu prices that are normal in San Francisco and New York. Chef Justin is also a more introverted personality who works quietly, thoughtfully, to the beat of own drum. He seems to shy away from attention, and just wants the food to speak for itself.

 

Fifteen percent of each dinner’s proceeds will be donated to a charity of that featured chef’s choice. For Chef Justin’s charity of choice he selected Store to Door PDX, a non-profit since 1989 providing low cost grocery delivery service to seniors and people with disabilities. Often the staff and volunteers who take the orders or make deliveries are the same assignment to each individual, so it also is a way to build relationships with the weekly calls and visits.

Haha poor Chef Justin, who usually is in the back of Castagna and plates just magically appear, was left open at the chefs counter with the rest of the chefs (Chef Earl along with Langbaan team Awesome of Will Harper, Kitsanaruk K, and Maya Erickson.). I think he only sputtered a quick sentence describing Store to Door to the dining room, but otherwise was his usual low key but quiet self, though he did get to take a little center stage in slicing the main course’s steak. Damn those steaks were beautiful… you’ll see them later in Course 4. I think he also has those Denver Steaks served with frites on the menu at Cafe Castagna.

Assisting in service were Jenny, Cira, and Kira. All the pairings with the food were from the mind and palate of Castagna Wine Director  Brent Braun (who was also seated at the Chef’s counter along with Monique Siu, owner of Castagna). In another table in the corner the Oregonian’s Michael Russell was also enjoying tonight’s dinner.

Snacks

Paired with Ametzoi ‘Hijos de Rubentis’ Txakolina, Basque Country, Spain NV. This was a beautiful crisp sparkling rose – I wish they  had poured more of it since it took a while to get these four snacks out and I was out by snack 3 with only one tiny sip left. It paired beautifully with the first 3 snacks though, and would probably go well with anything.

The snacks started with a raw Oyster topped with a smoked trout gel, Thai chili, lime, and crispy shallot.

We enjoyed this bright bite as we were watching the next snack, an Antelope pate with beef heart remoulade and seaweed cracker, being artfully plated which included some twig trimming.

Here’s a closeup. This was so beautiful I didn’t want to eat it… but I did want to eat it.

The next snack was a Fried chicken skin cracker with coconut cream and caviar. Loved how you could see the influence of Justin here on the food plating, but the coconut cream still gave an Asian twist to this.

Finally, our fourth snack was a Duck Sausage enveloped in Tapioca on dangerous skewers. Really these skewers were super sharp. The plating for these looked coolest on the ones for the tables with multiple people, so I took a snap on the tray stand/staging surface. Bar Seat #1 is my favorite seat and I think the best seat as long as you’re a 1 or 2 top since you are right next to this staging area! Lucky for you, you’ll experience everything visually like you’re there with me with these photos 🙂

This snack is a play on a really amazing Thai street dish called sakoo sai moo which is usually steamed and made with pork that are minced and mixed with crushed roasted nuts and if you’re lucky, served with a sprinkle of crispy fried garlic crumbles. They are usually served with cilantro and Thai birds chili pepper – I don’t know why because cilantro has too strong of a flavor and ruins the steamed ball flavor, and the Thai bird chili is whole next to it – are you supposed to bite into it?

I did do this once in Thailand as a snack after touring some Thai navy ships as a kid and I sorta remember sailors laughing at me as someone tired to fetch me water as I cried. The experience has not dissuaded me from eating these snacks when I see them, but they are only good fresh because the tapioca gets hard and gummy if it’s not fresh. The ones here were super soft- the duck sausage itself was delicious, though I would have liked to have a little hint of nut maybe in the sausage too to fully embrace the sakoo reference and contrast against the softness.

First

Dungeness crab, mussel jus, leeks, blank trumpet mushroom
Paired with Peter Lavir ‘Stirn’ Riesling, Mosel, Germany, 2016. Another fantastic wine that had an unusual roundness and butteryness even while having its signature off dry, crisp slight sweetness from the riesling grape.

The rich chicken fat stock underneath offered a roundness that helped offset the saltiness from the crab and mussel jus, while the leeks I think were slightly pickled.

Second

Sweetbread, beef tendon, little gems, black lime
Paired with Eric Bordelet Granite Poire, Normandy France. Yes, a sparkling pear cider!


A Tom Yum inspired seasoning was used with the fried sweetbread, the crisp you see is the beef tendon, the little gems, also included mustard greens and tats oil. The greens were dressed perfectly with a nuoc cham vinaigrette.

Third

Duck, apple, broccolini

This was also paired with the Eric Bordelet Granite Poire, Normandy France from the last course. One fun trivia is that this is a pear cider and the pear trees are 300 years old. This is a Peking style duck with roasted broccolini (which was a pain to cut with the butter knife) and long ribbon of compressed apple (also bit of a pain to cut with the butter knife). That duck and broccolini were fantastic.

Fourth

Curry with lobster, heart of palm, young coconut
Relish of spot prawn, pickled mussels
Zabuton
Jasmine rice
Paired with Minimus #23, Willamette Valley, Oregon 2016

Typically the main course is served family style, which includes a curry dish with rice, lettuce wraps with a more acidic protein (here the raw spot prawn with pickled mussels and Thai chili), and another protein plate. Here I was wondering how this was going to go together given the protein plate was Zabuton, aka Justin’s Denver Steak and potato salad and pickled veggies in contrast with the other very Thai dishes.

Fifth

Black sesame ice cream, ash meringue, cassis, purple rice
Paired with Acha Vermouth and soda water. This was a fantastic pairing with this black sesame ice cream and ash meringue. You can see the cassis and purple rice are three little dots on the plate before the ice cream scoop, which is then surrounded by the 4 walls of crisp.
This dish was from Maya Erickson repping Langbaan.

Sorry after she carefully put up the crisps… I totally deconstructed back apart to look inside for the photo 😛 Sorry not sorry

Sixth

Coconut tart, shiso ice cream in chocolate
Paired with Acha Vermouth and soda water like the previous dessert.

This dish came from Geovanna Salas repping Castagna. I have mixed feelings about the texture of the bondage around the chocolate ice cream bar, but got to admit it’s visually stunning.

Usually the Langbaan dinner reservations are sold out a couple months ahead of time, but the featured Chefs Who Inspire dinner is announced the month before on the Langbaan Instagram with a dinner date and date the dinner reservations will be released, so may be your ticket in before even the regular Langbaan dinners. With only 26 seats available, make sure you set your alarm to get your tickets as soon as available on the announced date.

What course did you find most inspiring from this Chefs Who Inspire with Justin Woodward dinner with Langbaan PDX? Have you experienced Castagna and the the food of Chef Justin, who I think is the sweetest shyest but smartest food dork chef of Portland?