Monday, January 12, 2009

French Laundry, Part Two

Okay folks, I'm back. I hope my pictures don't give me so much trouble this time....

Also, I want to apologize in advance for not remembering exactly what everything is - I tried to take a picture of the menu before we started, but the waiter came back suddenly and I got embarrassed. So, this is from the best of my memory.

We started off with a Cauliflower panna cotta topped with caviar. They brought out awesome pearly spoons for us to eat it with.


It was so cool! The taste was pure cauliflower, but the texture was all smooth and yogurt-y. The caviar had nice salty bite to it. I liked it a lot.

Next came Mushroom velouté with apples and greens.


They did the fancy restaurant thing of bringing out the garnishes and then pouring the soup over it in front of you. I love that. The soup was great! The apples were a nice contrast to the mushroom flavor.

With our soup, we got some amazing fresh baked bread. It was baked with butter inside of it and salt on top - see the salt flecks?


Apparently it has a really short shelf life - you have to eat it within a few hours out of the oven or it gets really stale. It comes with butter, even though there's butter inside.


One is salted, and the other is not (obviously, I guess). They were so good and creamy. To quote Amy from Little Women, "Isn't butter divinity?" It sure is.

Two fish courses came next - we got a choice of Frog's Legs or Cobia. I got the frog's legs because Zack got to have the veal tongue (more on that later). Here's my frog's legs with grapefruit salad.


They were awesome. I mean, deep fried frog's legs? Who wouldn't want that (besides vegetarians and hardcore Kermit enthusiasts)? But I maintain that they would be wrong. The salad was a nice light accompaniment to it as well. Mmmmm, maybe I should get some grapefruit.

The cobia was a good choice as well.


It was a "meaty game fish" or so the waiter said, and the cranberries were a nice touch on top.

The final fish course was a smoked lobster tail with saffron foam and artichoke hearts.


It seemed very Spanish influenced to me, what with the saffron and all. The textures all played off of each other well.

On to the meat next! Until then....

2 comments:

Meredith said...

I think you are the first person ever to quote Little Women in a French Laundry post. Way to be literary.

I continue to be incredibly jealous of every morsel. That bread looks amazing. Also, can I please have frogs legs and caviar for lunch?

David Borgen said...

yuck...glad i saved my money...