$240 Paper Meals in Chicago?

[audiobottle]

From here (nytimes.com article, I think you have to register for free)

HOMARO CANTU’S maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy.

But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.

The rest of the article goes on about all his new inventions he wants to do with food, like making it levitate, making it disappear, reappear, making everything in the restaurant edible, etc. I think this guy is genius! I would love to go into a restaurant and eat the house down. Too bad it’s a bit out of my price range. I do like his idea of the soup in a spoon though.

[Bippy_the_Beardless]

It sounds like he has interesting (if maybe a bit crazy) ideas. Cooking by laser would certainly be interesting, I can immagine searing on intricate patterns.

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

[Homer] So I said to him, ‘How can it be a House of Pancakes if I can’t eat the walls?’ [/Homer]

[audiobottle]

So any Chicago dopers been to this place? It doesn’t sound too filling, although it does say that not all the 20 courses are made out of paper.

[singular1]

@audiobottle

I do like his idea of the soup in a spoon though.

Do you mean eating the menu in the soup? I can’t find any mention of soup in a spoon…

[audiobottle]

I think on the second page he talks about a spoon that would have the food inside the handle, and would heat it up and squirt it out onto the spoon part to eat.