Omnivore - The future mayor cooks like crazy

A visit to Lunacy Black Market

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I’ve continued to guide friends on Friday nights to restaurants that are more interesting and less expensive than the Longhorn where I joined them a couple of months ago.

This week we went to Lunacy Black Market downtown on Mitchell Street. The friend who drove us there, Bobby, was fearful for his new, zillion-dollar Mercedes. I assured him street parking in front of the restaurant would most likely be available and that, in any case, the area is no riskier than the dark parking lots of many restaurants. (A friend’s car window was broken in the Roxx parking lot last week.)

Luna himself managed to convince the city to stop enforcing parking meters on the street after 6 p.m. He plans to run for mayor in the next election — yes, really — and in the meantime is tormenting city officials by attending public meetings.

None of my friends had ever eaten Luna’s cooking before and they were pretty amazed, as people usually are. There were only four of us this Friday and we asked Luna to send out his own choice of the small plates that comprise the menu and anything he wanted to experiment with.

I couldn’t keep track of all of that we ate, but everything was stamped with Luna’s playful, intense flavors. There were no foams, no deconstructed dishes and no liquid nitrogen. Luna’s cooking is at heart almost rustic but just a bit kinky — like tender pork ribs flavored with mint, potato slices layered with shrimp and collards, mysteriously dressed green and purple cabbage with dots of gorgonzola.

My friends were as entertained by Luna himself as by the food. The next mayoral election should be quite entertaining, if not shocking. His tales of corrupt and byzantine activities at city hall are pretty shocking.