I've been lucky to experience a couple really chi-chi places in the past little while, and this one tries really hard to be of that calibre. Sorbets, foams, jelly balls, the whole works. I actually think it was overkill.
The quality of the photos is horrible (sorry - as the night went on, my point and shoot digital just couldn't handle it), but I have to include them, just becuase they tried (too?!?) hard on the presentation.
Everyone at the table got the 9 course tester menu. At the end of the meal, I would say that I was happy with the meal that I got, but tired with and not OVERLY impressed with the variety of dishes (ie. it wasn't one of the top meals that I've had). One other person wished they'd just ordered a big steak off the carte (problem being that I don't think that was possible - it's a "small portion" kind of place). Another, a chef himself...I don't know. Hard to read. Got some ideas, but kept talking about how all this Spanish el buko (spelling?) thing was too mainstream now. The last...maybe not too impressed? And left a little hungry? It's hard to say.
Anyway, here are the photos and a brief description:
I actually thought that this was the amuse bouche. I figured with the type of place that it seemed to be trying to be, they would definitely have an amuse bouche, but no. This was our first course.In the big spoon, a veal pate. In the little dish, mushroom, a spinach jello thing and a hazelnut. In the shotglass, a melon drink. It was pretty good.
They kept coming around with bread. We had 5 varieties to choose from.
The second course. Bring on the foams. Lavender theme. A mass of foie gras. Bring on the sorbets. Snow pea flavour. That lavender chunk on the bottom is merangue in texture. And the little "caviar" balls were lavender flavoured. Lavender's nice for baths and pot pourri, but I'm not into eating it.
Course three. Linear. I guess he was going for linear. Starting from the left, there's a frog's leg (must have been a tiny frog). So now I can say I've eaten frog's legs. It tasted like fish. The consistency was fishesque. Underneath, a firm mousse of, I forget. A green vegetable. Underneath, more unrecognizable veggies. Moving along the line, a crunchy thing covered with a veal thing (I think). Then, a sorbet (I was tired of eating cold things for dinner already. If I was eating in the baking sun, maybe it would be refreshing, but the AC was on, so it wasn't necessary to have all this sorbet.) and finally, two globs. Now quite caviar textured, more juice filled. Kind of neat.
Course four. Something a little bit more interesting, at least so, I thought because of the big tail sticking up. Real rosemary on top of a rosemary sorbet, on top of a something that I completely forget, on top of foam with a shrimp on the side. I guess they're gearing up for the hot dishes.
On the left, an artichoke (I don't like them), and underneath, apparently it's another similar vegetable, chopped up into little pieces. In the spoon, something that I remember no liking at all. On the right, fish, in the shape of a slice of tart. It was really really tasty.
The final hot course. The top left, well, foam. I forget what was underneath. A piece of lamb (which I'm getting used to eating...I'm getting used to eating rabbit as well) and a rice paper type thing covering an Asian-ish chopped veggie (chop suey-esque) bite.
The first dessert course. I was hoping that a huge dessert cart would follw the end of the meal, but unfortunately there was none. Oh, I should mention that before this, there was a chesse barrel and we all shared bits of every type of cheese. I still don't like the stinky cheese, but I realised that if I start off with a Guyere or something not so foreign, my mouth gets used to the cheese and then I can handle trying other things a little bit easier. There was a cheese that was wrapped in grape leaves, and you could actually taste the grapes in it!Anyway, the desert. The top left were crispy things, placed in a holder of sorts. Flavours were. I don't remember...strawberry, and the other one, I don't quite remember. It was a vegetable. There was a sorbet (of course) - lime maybe? And strawberry compote. In the shotglass was a souffle. They'd syringed in strawberry juice into it. Seriously. A straight up, stick a needle in your arm syringe. It was pretty wild. That was a first for me.
The second dessert. The grand finale. Look. It's a needle. A needle that squirted out stuff that was lit on fire!
So here's the dessert itself, after the fire went out. Mango slices, with a cookie crumble thing in the middle. Of course sorbet on top. The mango and brumble was good. Everything else was disappointing, and although I'm not really a food connoseur, but I would like to say that I know good dessert. The dinner this night wasn't too good.
The petit fours at the end of a nice meal. Again, not the BEST meal, but an experience all the same. It was neat to see what the chef tried to do.As you might be able to make out, the plate is etched with the naem of the chef, Jean-Louis Drevet.
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