Last night's dinner was great. Service was excellent, food was amazing, we had a really good time sharing wines with the Danza family.
The dining room was not even half full. People, go to this place!
The tasting menu was 8 courses (the chef decides that day what to offer, how many courses, etc). Some of the items were from the regular menu, some were variations, some were complete one-offs. I have an issue eating wild mushrooms, but the waiter checked that it would be no problem with the kitchen and we proceeded.
roasted sweet potato bisque
creme fraiche mousseline
seared oregon salmon
french forest mushroom risotto - lobster cream
braised beef shortrib and sea scallop
mashed potatoes - horseradish
cassoulet
duck - amish hen - ham - sausage - braised heirloom beans
arugala salad
lemon - white truffle oil - pecorino
goat bucheron
roasted anjou pear
espresso granite
anisette - soft cream
belgium dark chocolate fondant cake
chocolate sorbet - chocolate ganache - cocoa nibs
My favorite was the short ribs - they marinate and cook overnight, making very tender and succulent meat infused with flavor. The contrast with the scallop was quite nice (and I don't like scallops very much). I also really liked the sorbet on the fondant cake. There was so much food that by the time we got to the shortrib I could only eat 1/2 of it. I had only a taste of the cassoulet (which had a duck leg, a palm-sized chunk of hen, and more meat below that) - we took that home, along with most of the cheese course, and we even skipped the espresso course (I would have been up all night)
and took about 1/3 of the fondant cakes home as well.
That would be my only complaint - it was a very heavy meal with huge servings. No doubt others might be fine with that much food (didn't look like Danza's nephew's were complaining)
but it was definitely too much for me. But boy, was it good!
The kitchen accidentally sent out the salad instead of the cassoulet, but recovered nicely. When we skipped the espresso granite, apparently the chef joked that he had been trying to help us out earlier by skipping the cassoulet course. He sent us a glass of Tokay with the cheese as an apology - totally unnecessary, but we appreciated the gesture very much.
We brought Tarlant Rose champagne, 2001 Chateau Mongravey (Margaux) and Alvear Solera 1927 Pedro Ximenez.
Leek
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