Restaurant Chef & Sommelier meets restaurant Chic Peut-Être

It's not everyday when 2 Michelin star chefs cook in the same kitchen for their guests. But Chef & Sommelier's Sasu Laukkonen has the (great) habit to invite fellow chefs and friends to co-star in his kitchen. Last night the guest was chef Yusuke Namai from Tokyo Michelin restaurant "Chic Peut-Être" (which translates as "Chic perhaps" - Yusuke cooks japanese-french fusion food - hence the french name. And that name is a statement of the japanese mild crazyness).
Fantastic evening and night. Arrived at 8.00pm, we left at 01.00am!

The idea is that each chef makes 4 courses.

Yasuke cooked courses 1, 3, 5 and 8. Sasu did the rest.

Thunderbirds are go!

Pieces of marinated herring and anchovy, with porcinis, burried under crumbs of anchovy meringue.

Saint Veran 2012 PUR Pouilly-Fuissé, was the wine of choice for the whole evening.

Pickled red cabbages and porcini mushrooms.

The idea comes probably from the japanese pickled vegetables.

Japanese black noodles "Udon" with squid, squid ink, tomato, coriander and herb oil. Chef Yusuke did bring the wheat flour and the ink from Japan and made the noodles during the day. Udon noodles are - along the Soba noodles - the most popular in Japan. They are thick and tender, and generally used in soups. We haven't eaten noddles this good before. Honestly!

After the Udon course, we made an unusual request: to sample a few raw ingredients. Just to have an individual taste of each of the ingredients used in the various courses. From right: Udon noodles, miso paste and a green pepper corn. The pepper corn, once in the mouth was like a mini citrus nuke. An explosion of vibrant lemony flavor like we've never tasted before. Just incredible.

Sasu's take on Yasuke's Udon noodles. Sasu being Sasu, he can't do things the simple way. Instead of real noodles, these are in fact... celeriac! Shaped like noodles using a special japanese device (don't remember the name), the celeriac is pickled to point of fermentation and served with an extra mature cheese kind of carbonara sauce. Genius.

Salmon cooked at very low temperature (38º - for 15min.) and then confit in oil, served with a clam chowder sauce, miso, ginko nuts, smoked mussels, and turnip marbles. Oh la la...

"Gobbas Gård" is the name of the course, and the name of the area of provenance of the vegetables.

Here can be seen "Burgundy" potatoes crisps. Guess why the name? Along 2 others potatoes varieties, Fava beans and leaves, sunflower hearts and leaves. Organic at its best.

chefs Yusuke Namai & Sasu Laukkonen

Palete cleanser: sorbet made with thyme, rosemary and 2 different fruits (by that time, being suffed with food like mad turkeys and slightly drunk, our brains worked in slow motion and had troubles to process informations correctly).

The "plum and plum" dessert is made with "plumboshi". Plumboshi is Sasu's very own version of  "Umeboshi" (which translates as salted plums or pickled plums). With the plumboshi, a yoghurt ice cream flavored with almonds from apricots stones, and a slightly acidic finnish mirabelle plums jam below. You won't eat that everyday!

To go along the "plum and plum" dessert, a bottle of Tsuruume Suppai, a plum wine made with sake, plums & sugar. Mind blowing stuff!

Cep mushrooms mouse coffee flavored as a dessert? Really? Served with black olives, japanese caramelized rice crispies, and a coffee caramelized tuile. Talk about japanese crazyness...

left, Johan Borgar (sommelier @ C&S)