My Ratatouille

It has been awhile since I have been able to blog about my culinary experience because to tell the truth I have not had that many culinary experiences lately due to timing and circumstances. Here though was a great moment.

I yearn for movie like moments in life. I want to experience the feel of a high school championship like in Hoosier where a whole town comes together. I wish I could be as passionate as Rhett was to Scarlet. Feel the wind in my hair and the freedom that comes with it like in Breaking Away. One movie moment that I have been searching for has been the great epiphany in Ratatouille when Ego takes a bite of the title dish and is transported to his mother’s kitchen. It is an incredible moment that I bet every chef would love to give to his diner. Well at Nana’s in Dallas this Saturday I had that moment and it was surreal. It was also a pleasure to share it with my wife as we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary.

The dish was Slow Roasted Berkshire Pork Belly. When I first came to the United States in 1975 there was no Vietnamese Community. The food that came closest to home was good Chinese food and one of my favorite dishes was Heo Quay or BBQ pork. The skin is crispy and with the fat layered with meat was mouth watering good. To this day it is also one of my kid’s favorite dishes. Anthony C. Bombaci the chef at Nana has given the epiphany that I yearned for. It was the same dish that I remember from childhood and it was transformed to sublime perfection. The skin was so crispy and tasted perfect, the meat and fat was perfect. It was done with a subtle sauce and there were bananas, though I have no idea how they were cooked, paired perfectly with the pork. When the dish came out my wife and I looked at each other and were shocked that such a simple everyday dish would be on the tasting menu of a fine dining restaurant but after a bite we could not stop raving. It made me SO happy there is no other way to describe it. The rest of the tasting menu was very good. I am new to fine dining though I have read and tried some great recipes this was the first time we got to go some place that offered that type of food. It was a wonderful evening with one amazing moment. Thanks so much to Nana and their incredible staff that made all this possible.