The Best Restaurant Dishes BA Staff Ate in November

/ Bon Appetit, November 2022

The Best Restaurant Dishes BA Staff Ate in November by Jarrett Melendez, Epicurious Associate Editor

Botanist, a restaurant that celebrates the food of the Pacific Northwest, recently collaborated with Hanky Panky, a cocktail bar in Mexico City, to create a menu in honor of Dia de los Muertos. Executive chef Hector Laguna created a stunning six-course tasting menu celebrating the foods he grew up with in Mexico, paired with six cocktails. One stand-out dish was a plate of sunchokes and chargrilled octopus topped with a blend of leche de tigre, cilantro, and a mix of fresh greens and edible flowers. On its own the dish was beautifully composed: tender, juicy chunks of briny octopus tamed by a punch of citrus from the leche de tigre and complemented by the earthy sunchokes. When paired with Manos en la Tierra, a cocktail of aged Cuban rum, sherry, hojicha (roasted green tea), charred lemon, and black cardamom, the combination was a revelation. I have to go back—and I will any time I’m in Vancouver.