Food porn extraordinaire...
Jan. 31st, 2007 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI forgot to take my camera to Michel Richard's Citronelle last night. Alas! I'm going to have to do my best to paint pictures with words.
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minnehaha B. was traveling through the area, and invited me to his favorite DC restaurant. He'd reserved us a table overlooking the open kitchen, so we got to watch the chefs at work. Much less rushing around than I expected, and a lot of precision work that wouldn't have looked out of place in a watchmaker's shop.
We quickly decided on the Promenade Gourmande, a nine-course tasting menu. In contrast to the last tasting menu I had with B., this time there were no choices whatsoever. One puts oneself in Michel Richard's hands. B. ordered the wine pairing that went with the tasting menu, as well. Because I was going to have a long drive home, we told the sommelier (an Internet friend of B.'s) that I wanted about a glass and a half of wine. He picked three of the wines from the wine pairing and gave me a half-pour (well... actually it was more like a 3/4 pour) of each at the appropriate time.
Amuse bouche: egg surprise, mushroom cigar, haricots verts tartar.
"Egg surprise" was what looked like a quarter of a hard-boiled egg, arranged on a spoon with a little cube of beet gelatin and a sprinkling of Rice Krispies on top. (Yes, Rice Krispies. Don't ask me why.) Looked like a quarter of an egg. It was in fact made of mozzerella cheese (the "white") and yellow tomato confit (the "yolk"). The amazing thing was that it duplicated the mouthfeel of an egg exactly. Delicious.
Haricots vert tartar were finely chopped green beans with wasabi tobiko, served in a little eggshell cup. Beautifully refreshing, with a subtle, clean taste of the sea. I could've eaten this all night.
The mushroom cigar was a crisp little spring roll packed with mushrooms. It was very tasty, but not especially exciting. I did really like the ginger soy dipping sauce.
(Ooh! Someone else's pictures of the amuse can be seen here.)
Roasted chestnut and peanut soup.
Really it was duck soup. Our bowls came to the table with a little pile of chopped duck meat and roasted nuts in the bottom, and then the server ladled a rich, thick, creamy soup on top. The soup had pureed chestnuts in it, yes, but also large quantities of duck foie gras. Absolutely amazing.
Foie gras and truffle opera cake.
My first real experience with either truffles or foie gras, and I hope that it won't be my last. It looked exactly like tiramisu, but was not. Creamy layers of celery root and foie gras, topped with a thin, dark, rich brown layer that would've been dark chocolate on a tiramisu and was, on this dish, black truffles. The flavor built in the mouth, from a subtle initial attack to a complex taste explosion upon swallowing. Whoa. On the side was a small scoop of grated celery root topped with truffle shavings.
Rockfish, vegetable pearls, leek-chardonnay sauce.
I always like rockfish more than I'm expecting to. (I think I just have, in the back of my mind, an inaccurate conviction that I don't like whitefish.) This was a small, perfect rectangle of fish, broiled brown and chewy on top and meltingly tender beneath. It was served on a pile of small, firm, brightly-colored objects that looked more like gumballs than anything else, but were in fact pearls of zucchini, rutabaga, and (I think) butternut squash. They were fun to eat.
Broiled eel burger.
All the silverware was removed from the table for this course, because, we were informed, M. Richard believes that burgers should be eaten with the fingers. And this was a hell of a burger. It was made of unagi (freshwater eel), topped with the sweet barbecue sauce that unagi is usually served with in a sushi bar, and garnished with (I think) a little pickled red cabbage. The whole thing was about the diameter of a 50-cent piece. On the side was a tiny cup of miniature potato chips, so thin that you could probably read through them. I loved everything about this course.
Squab, "minute steak," potato fried rice, citrus-ginger emulsion.
The "entree," although it wasn't any bigger than any of the other portions. I don't think I've had squab before - it was meatier than chicken in texture, but not very strongly flavored. We had a grilled breast, served as a "steak," and a tiny little leg wrapped in something like rice paper. "Potato fried rice" was shredded potatoes accompanied and seasoned as if they were fried rice. I don't know whether we had reached a particularly exciting part of the conversation, or if I was just getting full, but this course didn't leave much of an impression. Tasty, but not especially striking.
Selection of imported cheese.
Four small slices of cheese (two of which were blue) and a little cup of an extremely runny, smelly cheese to be eaten with acocainedemitasse spoon. I have no idea what we ate, except that it was all very good. Hopefully B. will weigh in with expert commentary.
Raspberry vacherin.
I spaced out a bit when the server was describing this course, and for some reason I was expecting it to be ice cream. So my first reaction, when I tasted it, was "is this astronaut ice cream?" Now, in retrospect, I understand that it was a raspberry meringue shell with a little bit of ice cream inside it, served in a puddle of raspberry sauce that would have leftminnaleigh enslaved for life. But I'm still sticking to my first impression: it tasted like really, really, really good raspberry astronaut ice cream.
Chocolate three ways.
Three tiny portions of chocolate dessert: a mouthful of impossibly rich chocolate ice cream, a little custard tart that was sort of cheesecake-esque, topped with tiny balls of dark chocolate, and an absolutely phenomenal two bites of chocolate mousse cake, topped with a chocolate tuile. The custard tart thingy was the only thing we ate all evening that I didn't like.
With the chocolate dessert, they brought a tray of petits fours. The only thing I wasn't allergic to was a chocolate-covered grape, which was surprisingly good. Fortunately, I was perfectly happy to stop eating at that point.
I have no idea what we drank all night, except to say that my three half-glasses of wine (champagne, a white, and a red) were all excellent. The white was sweeter than anything I normally drink (B., was it the Riesling?) but it worked beautifully with the food. At the end of the evening, with the "chocolate three ways," the sommelier brought out an Italian wine that he said was made with quinine, herbs, spices, flowers, and a half a dozen other odd things. It's the strangest-smelling wine I've ever encountered, and it tasted like someone had been doing a voudou ritual on a hospital ward. That was distinctly odd. Possibly my palate is not mature enough for a wine like that, for which I am deeply thankful.
minnehaha B. was traveling through the area, and invited me to his favorite DC restaurant. He'd reserved us a table overlooking the open kitchen, so we got to watch the chefs at work. Much less rushing around than I expected, and a lot of precision work that wouldn't have looked out of place in a watchmaker's shop.We quickly decided on the Promenade Gourmande, a nine-course tasting menu. In contrast to the last tasting menu I had with B., this time there were no choices whatsoever. One puts oneself in Michel Richard's hands. B. ordered the wine pairing that went with the tasting menu, as well. Because I was going to have a long drive home, we told the sommelier (an Internet friend of B.'s) that I wanted about a glass and a half of wine. He picked three of the wines from the wine pairing and gave me a half-pour (well... actually it was more like a 3/4 pour) of each at the appropriate time.
Amuse bouche: egg surprise, mushroom cigar, haricots verts tartar.
"Egg surprise" was what looked like a quarter of a hard-boiled egg, arranged on a spoon with a little cube of beet gelatin and a sprinkling of Rice Krispies on top. (Yes, Rice Krispies. Don't ask me why.) Looked like a quarter of an egg. It was in fact made of mozzerella cheese (the "white") and yellow tomato confit (the "yolk"). The amazing thing was that it duplicated the mouthfeel of an egg exactly. Delicious.
Haricots vert tartar were finely chopped green beans with wasabi tobiko, served in a little eggshell cup. Beautifully refreshing, with a subtle, clean taste of the sea. I could've eaten this all night.
The mushroom cigar was a crisp little spring roll packed with mushrooms. It was very tasty, but not especially exciting. I did really like the ginger soy dipping sauce.
(Ooh! Someone else's pictures of the amuse can be seen here.)
Roasted chestnut and peanut soup.
Really it was duck soup. Our bowls came to the table with a little pile of chopped duck meat and roasted nuts in the bottom, and then the server ladled a rich, thick, creamy soup on top. The soup had pureed chestnuts in it, yes, but also large quantities of duck foie gras. Absolutely amazing.
Foie gras and truffle opera cake.
My first real experience with either truffles or foie gras, and I hope that it won't be my last. It looked exactly like tiramisu, but was not. Creamy layers of celery root and foie gras, topped with a thin, dark, rich brown layer that would've been dark chocolate on a tiramisu and was, on this dish, black truffles. The flavor built in the mouth, from a subtle initial attack to a complex taste explosion upon swallowing. Whoa. On the side was a small scoop of grated celery root topped with truffle shavings.
Rockfish, vegetable pearls, leek-chardonnay sauce.
I always like rockfish more than I'm expecting to. (I think I just have, in the back of my mind, an inaccurate conviction that I don't like whitefish.) This was a small, perfect rectangle of fish, broiled brown and chewy on top and meltingly tender beneath. It was served on a pile of small, firm, brightly-colored objects that looked more like gumballs than anything else, but were in fact pearls of zucchini, rutabaga, and (I think) butternut squash. They were fun to eat.
Broiled eel burger.
All the silverware was removed from the table for this course, because, we were informed, M. Richard believes that burgers should be eaten with the fingers. And this was a hell of a burger. It was made of unagi (freshwater eel), topped with the sweet barbecue sauce that unagi is usually served with in a sushi bar, and garnished with (I think) a little pickled red cabbage. The whole thing was about the diameter of a 50-cent piece. On the side was a tiny cup of miniature potato chips, so thin that you could probably read through them. I loved everything about this course.
Squab, "minute steak," potato fried rice, citrus-ginger emulsion.
The "entree," although it wasn't any bigger than any of the other portions. I don't think I've had squab before - it was meatier than chicken in texture, but not very strongly flavored. We had a grilled breast, served as a "steak," and a tiny little leg wrapped in something like rice paper. "Potato fried rice" was shredded potatoes accompanied and seasoned as if they were fried rice. I don't know whether we had reached a particularly exciting part of the conversation, or if I was just getting full, but this course didn't leave much of an impression. Tasty, but not especially striking.
Selection of imported cheese.
Four small slices of cheese (two of which were blue) and a little cup of an extremely runny, smelly cheese to be eaten with a
Raspberry vacherin.
I spaced out a bit when the server was describing this course, and for some reason I was expecting it to be ice cream. So my first reaction, when I tasted it, was "is this astronaut ice cream?" Now, in retrospect, I understand that it was a raspberry meringue shell with a little bit of ice cream inside it, served in a puddle of raspberry sauce that would have left
minnaleigh enslaved for life. But I'm still sticking to my first impression: it tasted like really, really, really good raspberry astronaut ice cream.Chocolate three ways.
Three tiny portions of chocolate dessert: a mouthful of impossibly rich chocolate ice cream, a little custard tart that was sort of cheesecake-esque, topped with tiny balls of dark chocolate, and an absolutely phenomenal two bites of chocolate mousse cake, topped with a chocolate tuile. The custard tart thingy was the only thing we ate all evening that I didn't like.
With the chocolate dessert, they brought a tray of petits fours. The only thing I wasn't allergic to was a chocolate-covered grape, which was surprisingly good. Fortunately, I was perfectly happy to stop eating at that point.
I have no idea what we drank all night, except to say that my three half-glasses of wine (champagne, a white, and a red) were all excellent. The white was sweeter than anything I normally drink (B., was it the Riesling?) but it worked beautifully with the food. At the end of the evening, with the "chocolate three ways," the sommelier brought out an Italian wine that he said was made with quinine, herbs, spices, flowers, and a half a dozen other odd things. It's the strangest-smelling wine I've ever encountered, and it tasted like someone had been doing a voudou ritual on a hospital ward. That was distinctly odd. Possibly my palate is not mature enough for a wine like that, for which I am deeply thankful.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 03:23 pm (UTC)Sweetbreads are the other organ meat that I never would have ordered before I started eating tasting menus and not having a choice, and which I now know that I really enjoy. I also had a fabulous beef tongue dish from WD-50 too.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 03:58 pm (UTC)Tongue
Date: 2007-02-01 06:53 pm (UTC)But yes, it helps not to think about it too much.
B