I went to Next Restaurant the night before I went to Alinea, and that was absolutely the correct order. Had it been the reverse, I undoubtedly would have been heavily disappointed. About a month before my Chicago trip on Memorial Day Weekend, I saw that Next Restaurant’s menu for May was Chinese Modern. How could I resist? After a year and a half of traveling to Hong Kong on a monthly basis and not having the chance to try Bo Innovation, which experiments with Chinese cuisine-inspired molecular gastronomy, I thought this might be the closest experience I would have in the near future.

The ticketing process for Next is a bit irksome, as it doesn’t seem to be predictable. On their website, they don’t announce when they will release tables for the next month. It kind of just happens spontaneously, and you have to check back every so often to see if new tables are available. I was fortunate enough to find tickets for the Saturday night that I had been targeting. There were only late night reservations available (around 10pm), but coming from Los Angeles it wasn’t an issue.

Overall judgment: 3 of 5 stars

It was fine. But “fine” is probably not how you want to describe a $600-plus dinner. The reason Next Restaurant did not warrant four stars is because it was so inconsistent. There were moments of brilliance and moments where I wondered which chef was tasting the food that was coming out of the kitchen and whether or not he liked his food four times as salty as I like my food. In any case, here is the lowdown on my Next experience:

Pressed okra. There was a stalk of okra in the middle of our table, presumably masquerading as a centerpiece. Our server came over to cut the okra and squeeze its juices into our bowls. This was Next’s interpretation of the ubiquitous hot and sour soup that is found on every American-Chinese restaurant menu. It was quite flavorful, with hints of spice.

In case you were wondering, Next Restaurant changes its table tops and interior decorations to accommodate each new menu. That is why the background of each dish that is pictured is obnoxiously red — you know, because anything Chinese has to be bright and red as a general rule. In fact, the red of the table tops was so shiny that it was distracting.

Bamboo shoot and lily bulb. This light appetizer was refreshing, and I enjoyed the mix of flavor.

Scallop dumpling with watercress and white fungus, congee as a hot foam with pork floss, pork dumpling with jujube and cuttlefish.This was the dim sum course. Dim sum is one of my favorite Chinese meals — I had high expectations, as I thought dim sum would be difficult to mess up. Sadly, I would much rather go to one of those cheap, enormous restaurants in Chinatown with a C-sanitation rating for dim sum than Next Restaurant. The scallop dumpling was incredibly salty. I regretted eating it. The pork dumpling was equally salty. It did nothing for me. The congee, however, was delicious and one of those moments of brilliance. They somehow managed to capture the flavor and texture of congee in the hot foam. I wish I could have had a big bowl of the congee by itself.

Monkfish with white asparagus in a roasted spine broth. This was one of my favorite dishes of the night. The monkfish was light and a perfect pairing to the white asparagus. The roasted spine broth was salty and spicy, and it was tasty enough that I was still trying to spoon mouthfuls of the soup despite my uncooperative spoon, which was too clumsy to collect the last few drops of soup.

Crab with green chili paste and fresh coconut.The coldness of the ice contrasted well with the green, curry-like salad dressing.

Skate chops in the style of Muslim lamb. Look at all of those spices. This was my favorite of the Muslim-style bites in our next course. I was born in the middle of nowhere in Western China, where much of the food is inspired by Muslim-style cooking. (In fact, the region that I was born in has a sizable population of Hui people, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group in China.) Thus, I have a very clear idea about how I want my Muslim-style food to taste. While the skate was tender and well-prepared, the spices were a bit too intense for me (too much cumin and peppercorn).

There were a couple of other dishes in the Muslim-style course: tingly squab with tarragon and sumac and tiger salad with cold skin noodles and seitan. The squab was fun to bite into, but the flavoring was once again very overwhelming, as the crispy skin of the squab was coated with spices. The tiger salad was nice, albeit a bit boring.

Shrimp in a duck yolk “sand”. I wasn’t a fan of this dish. Again, I was still slightly traumatized from my live shrimp experience at Kiyokawa (the shrimp’s head was flailing and its eyes were twitching uncontrollably even though I had already eaten the rest of its body), so I passed the shrimp head to the boyfriend. I didn’t like the grainy texture of the “sand”.

Beef and broccoli in liquid and solid state. The beef and broccoli in solid state left something to be desired, but the liquid state was wonderful. The broccoli was pretty flavorless and had an unpleasantly crunchy texture. The beef was interesting — imagine biting into candied beef jerky. However, it was the beef and broccoli in liquid state that stole the show. It was exactly the type of soup you would want to drink on a cold winter day, served at the perfect temperature to warm you up.

Duck in layers. The duck breast was a standout dish — the meat was so tender and juicy that I felt bad I was only able to stomach a couple of pieces by this point in the meal.

Duck yolk.

“Pulling threads” with sweetbreads, taro root, and banana. This dish was Next’s take on sweet and sour chicken. It was so sticky that it was a challenge to transport the food from the plate into our mouths. It was fine, but I was ready to move on to the next course after a couple of syrupy bites.

Frozen rice soup with legumes and whipped vinegar. Our server made us try to guess what this dish was. I guessed that it was a salad. Apparently that was way off, because she chuckled and left us. My mantra when it comes to high-end restaurants has always been: serve me great food, and I will eat whatever you bring to me. Just don’t make me try to guess what you’re bringing me — that requires too much effort. My reaction to this dish was, “Eh.”

Dragon’s beard candy with a pressing of honey. I don’t love dragon’s beard candy, so this was a disappointment. The dish was too sweet for my tastes, although the boyfriend seemed to enjoy it despite his self-proclaimed dislike of sweets and desserts.

Giant fortune cookie. I had watched the preview video for the Chinese Modern menu, so I knew this was coming. Our menus were curled up inside the giant fortune cookie. We didn’t eat much of it. (Does anyone actually eat fortune cookies? The roommates and I have a huge, ever-growing stash of fortune cookies in our kitchen cabinet from endless nights of Chinese takeout.)

At this point, I realized that there was an error on our menu. Instead of “monkfish”, our menu read “black cod” for our fourth course. Our server was quite perturbed with this mistake, and he apologized repeatedly and printed out a new, accurate menu. Surprise, surprise…we were the only table that noticed the error.

Overall, my meal at Next Restaurant was an interesting experience, but I will probably try out other restaurants in Chicago the next time I visit. The lack of consistency and excessive use of salt made for an uneven meal where I was constantly wondering if I would enjoy the next course.

Next Restaurant, 953 W. Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607