erudity.net prattlings on via nattering nabobs

1Jun/080

Crackers: Wasabi Ahoy!

I ordered the Shrimp, Oyster and Mushroom Salad with Toasted Peanuts and Bacon with a Wasabi Mustard Sauce, but I really couldn't  taste much  other than the wasabi.  After scraping off most of the sauce, I was rewarded with more of a salad taste, but not much else.  It seemed that the components of the salad were more to showcase the wasabi mustard sauce, who in turn had little to do other than showcase the wasabi.    Also, where were the oysters?  I found the shrimp, which tasted fresh and had been grilled pretty nicely - the fresh mushrooms were laid out in a nice pattern on the plate - but after poking around the salad for a couple minutes, I could not find any oysters.  Maybe the kitchen was just busy.  I think that the oysters would have been the ingredient that would balance or at least absorb the sharp notes of the wasabi mustard sauce, but who knows.

Crackers does tapas pretty well and I admire their willingness to experiment with new dishes, but this one just didn't seem to have much going for it other than an interesting combination of ingredients.   Perhaps it would have been a bit more interesting had my palate not been overwhelmed, but in general the different parts of the salad never seemed to make a cohesive whole and ended up being a nicely arranged assortment of ingredients.  Be it planning or execution, chalk it up to a lesson learned.