This Lobster Pasta Salad Sounds Like a Nightmare But Tastes Like a Dream | Bon Appétit

"Restaurant menus can be a bit formulaic these days, with each dish described in a minimalist list of ingredients strung together with commas. So, I was delighted and maybe a little unnerved when I came across this freaky-sounding dish at Peoples Wine, the new wine bar/shop in New York City from Hot 10 alums Jeremiah Stone and Fábian von Hauske. “Lobster Mac: cold pasta salad with lobster.” What?! For a brief nightmarish moment, I imagined a Frankenstein of carbs, a gurgling casserole of lobster mac and cheese circa early 2000s and a slippery mound of mayo-lathered fusilli with mealy strands of lobster. Then I remembered this is Stone and von Hauske we’re talking about. I had to order it. I got one thing right: There was fusilli! The lobster mac arrived cold and in an elegant glass bowl, with billowy bonito flakes and thin strips of crispy nori waving me in. They provided the right textural contrast and sharp fishiness to balance all the velvety, creamy goodness of an umeboshi- and shichimi togarashi–powered mayo coating chubby chunks of tender, meaty lobster. I’d never thought of pasta salad as being a particularly balanced dish, but this one had it all: ocean-y umami flavor, a little hit of heat, a much needed sour note, and the right amount of mayo. I had to know how they did it." - ByElyse Inamine