Long before petits plats were the rage from New York to Hell-A, there were chefs who were doin it. Chefs who didn’t want the constraint of meat/starch/veg. Little plates mean a chance to play. Run it for a couple of nights and get some feedback.

It’s a chance to get people to try new things. For $7 to $10 dollars a pop, you don’t have the anxiety of "what if I don’t like it?" or "I don’t know…..it sounds kinda wierd."
One of my favorite restaurants, The Palace Kitchen in Seattle, has 10 or 12 little apps each night. Because of them, I tried truffled green peaches (somewhere between an olive and a caper) and white salmon sashimi(I hate salmon cooked-unless it’s just out of the stream, it reeks).

This visit:

Yellow fin tuna, barely seared, with a hit of truffle oil(a bit salty, but liked the idea.

Snow Creek oysters with a sour berry granita(my new very favorite oysters)

Butternut squash fritters with a vinegared fennel and Cabrales slaw

  And the cherry on the cake of my day: whole trout fried in what tasted like ultra fine bacon bits and polenta, served with mashed potatoes that could not hold anymore butter or cream (read: perfect) and brussel sprouts, my bestest winter vegetable.

Whole trout, when it’s good, is one of the best fricking things you can put in your mouth. You could almost smell the fresh water (pardon me while I get all Iron Chef on you), it’s flaky but tender, and it absorbed the lemon and marjoram it was stuffed with like a champ. This is one of those simple dishes that lesser restaurants totally destroy. What I like to call a man or mouse dish.