Dishin': Rocky Mountain Oyster Sorbet at Harvest Vine

Chef Joseba Jiménez de Jiménez delivers dessert: Rocky Mountain oyster sorbet with chocolate sorbet, lemon foam, and sweet skin from pig feet. Then he steps back and waits for a reaction.

We're not surprised. After all, the preceding dishes have included elk tongue in escabeche, sauteed lamb hearts, pork snout and fried pig brains, beef tripe, and blood sausage. It's all part of Sound magazine's "Dish-Off"—this Seattlest's monthly review that pits three restaurants against each other in Iron Chef-like competition. But there's no secret ingredient here. Instead, the chefs compete in interpreting a theme song of the month, creating a multi-course menu based on the song title, or even its lyrics.

April's song is "Gizzards, Scrapple, and Tripe" by The New Duncan Imperials. This was one of the most interesting contests to date, showcasing the talents of Holly Smith of Café Juanita, Ethan Stowell of Union, and the aforementioned Jiménez de Jiménez of Harvest Vine—all nominated for James Beard Foundation Awards as Best Chef, Northwest. (Smith won in 2008, while Stowell and Jiménez de Jiménez are current nominees.)

As for the Rocky Mountain oyster sorbet, seems Jiménez de Jiménez wasn't sure we'd have the balls, if you will, to try it. Accompanying it is chocolate sorbet (might have made a fit for a previous month's theme song: Liz Phair's "White Chocolate Space Egg"), which, we wrote, "masks the ever-so-subtle, liver-like flavor of the bull testicles. Especially interesting are the specks of sweet skin from pig's feet—scraped of gelatin and dried to a crackle. If not paying attention, I might mistake them for cocoa nibs. A triumphant ending to an unforgettable, and delicious, nose-to-tail experience."

This "Dish-Off" is in the current issue of Sound, available at newsstands now (and also online). If you pick up the magazine, you can see the other dessert we enjoyed: Smith's apple and gizzard tarte tatin with candied duck gizzards, gizzard crema and salted caramel gelato.