DTaylor
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Posts posted by DTaylor
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Unfortunately, been there done that... are you also allergic to any other tropical fruits?
I don't think so; I've gotten down on rambutans, mangosteens, and papayas to no ill effect.
You might want to ask for a well lit table when making the reservation and sit in seat that has the most light. Depending on your camera and/or your photoshop skills, you may not need a flash.Thanks - I'll give that a shot. Your pictures are gorgeous, so hopefully it will work out as well for me.
BTW...if you all do tasting menu and pair wines, be prepared for a bill around $1000.00 +/-I'm as prepared as I can be
. Dropping a paycheck on a meal is going to sting no matter how I slice it, but it's for people I love, and word on the street is that it's a remarkable experience on the whole. I'm not a "fine diner" by any stretch of the imagination - I'd be more likely to spend $100 on a tandem skydive than a great meal, but that's part of my motivation for going to Manresa. I just want to check out the experience.if your friend is not noticeably pregnant (or even if she is), it might be wise to also let the restaurant know this ahead of time. often restaurants like manresa serve raw or barely cooked fish (or other ingredients) which your friend might be avoiding. if you do this ahead of time, it makes it easier (just like with allergies) for the kitchen to make substitutions. last minute stuff is definitely frowned upon by restaurant professionals (behind the scenes, of course).Thanks for the suggestion; I'll give the restaurant a call this evening. I suppose 24 hour's notice is better than none.
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Two days to go! I'm only 23, and this will be my first time at a restaurant of this caliber, and I've got a few questions so I don't make a rube of myself:
I'm going to be treating my mom, my sister, and a good (pregnant!) friend to the meal; I don't want them worrying about the price. Is there a way to handle the bill (and the ordering of the tasting menu) discreetly?
Do I need to give them any advance warning for the tasting menu?
If I'm allergic to something (see trivia footnote), is it appropriate to mention it to the waiter? I know that waitstaff often get frustrated with bogus allergies (e.g. "I'm allergic to fat, can I get the sauce on the side?"), but is it common to state things you cannot (or should not) eat when ordering a tasting menu?
Would I need a flash to take decent pictures? If so, how have people taken decent pictures in the past without disturbing other diners?
Definitely still stoked; I'll post some pictures (if I can figure out how to take them considerately) and a write-up after the experience on Thursday!
! Trivia Footnote !
As it turns out, mango contains a poison oak analog, and if you've been exposed to a lot of poison oak [i've spent about 25% of the last few years with it], mango can cause the same reaction!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...0&dopt=Citation
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After three years of eating oatmeal at breakfast, I decided to experiment a little bit; since then I've made baconmeal, eggmeal, chickenbrothmeal, cheesemeal, porkmeal, chilimeal, and the generically-named and inoffensive-tasting 'meatmeal.'
Of the above, I think eggs were the worst. I don't know if there's a nice way to combine eggs and oatmeal, but if there is, I can more or less guarantee you it will involve cooking them separately.
Cheesemeal, oddly enough, has been the best. I don't think it works well with hard cheeses like parmesan, or really soft cheeses like ricotta, but it's awesome with a good, melty, tangy cheese. Slices of heavily processed cheese product actually work out well; they impart a nice creaminess and taste vaguely of salt and cheese. A good queso blanco with some salt might work even better.
Chilimeal, or oatmeal combined with chili, is basically totally inoffensive and unspectacular; it tastes like watered-down chili.
There are a few key lessons that I've learned about savory oatmeal:
1) Oatmeal is all about texture. It may sound like an interesting idea to have pieces of meat floating around in it, but generally it doesn't turn out that well.
2) Oatmeal is going to slightly dilute the flavor of whatever you put into it.
It should be noted that all of my experiments were done with whole rolled (as opposed to steel-cut or instant) oats, which were boiled.
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Just want to say that this is an awesome thread with amazing pictures and great recipes; it really feels like it gives you a good sense of what Dutch cooking is like. Thanks!
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I've been following this thread for a little over a year now, and I finally got the cash and crew rallied for the experience. We've got reservations for Thursday, March 9th @ 6 (I figured I'd go a little early - we've got a preggo in the midst, and I didn't think she would be up for a 2 A.M. bedtime).
Anyway, I'm super stoked, and I'll definitely post some pictures and comments here when it's all said and done. Can't wait!
Manresa Restaurant, Los Gatos
in California: Dining
Posted
I'm missing pictures of the first and last courses: the black olive madelines and red pepper gumdrops & chocolate madelines and strawberry gumdrops.
Overall, the meal was mostly interesting. There were a few dishes that were less than earth-shattering, and there were a few that were out-and-out fantastic.
Citrus-medjool date cocktail
A slightly underwhelming mess of foam. Champagne was the predominant flavor, and deep down inside, it mostly reminded me of that sparkling white grape Jell-o.
Chestnut croquette...salt cod bonyols with romesco
A crispy chestnut croquette with a warm liquid foie gras center. As other people have said, this is amazing. I didn't get a chance to taste the cod.
Oyster and sea urchin gelee
I don't know if I'll ever eat another bite of food that will taste so heavily of the sea. It turns out I don't much like oysters, and I prefer sea urchin in sushi, but it was definitely an interesting and visually arresting dish.
The egg...jasmine tea gelee
The egg was every bit as delicious as advertised. Layered with sherry vinegar, cream, chives, and maple syrup, each spoonful pulled up a bit of yolk with all of the other ingredients.
The jasmine tea gelee was a light citrus salad with only a hint of jasmine. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't bad, either. I think it suffered from comparison to the egg.
Mesquite grilled foie gras, calamondin caramel
Aside from the chestnut croquette earlier in the meal, this was the first time I'd eaten foie gras. I went into it with a considerable amount of skepticism; I'm not big on offal or organ meats. Overall, it was positive. It was like the richest, most concentrated bacon I had ever tasted, with a smooth, almost disturbingly creamy, texture. It was almost too rich to eat on its own, and I was thankful for the pieces of apple, the light dusting of salt, and the caramel that all served to cut the richness.
Sweet onion-brioche soup with slow-cooked egg, machego
Fantastic velvety onion soup. A slow-cooked egg sat at the bottom of the bowl, waiting to be pierced, waiting to release a trickle of tasty yolk into the soup. A good trick.
Big fin squid, giant clam, and butterfish, dried sardine broth
Tasted like something I might find on an omakase menu in Japan. Very tender slices of sashimi in a light fish broth. The butterfish was smooth and velvety, but overall, the dish had a little bit too much (seemingly?) uncooked mollusc at one time for me; the squid and clam were tender, relative to others of their kind, but chewy mollusc is chewy mollusc.
Warm salad of assorted broccoli, arugula rabe
Tasty, tasty, tasty. This dish reminded me of some of the greens I've eaten in the South. The rabe had a rich, bacony flavor.
Escabeche of mackerel with grapefruit, pear vinegar
Mackerel is a tough fish to love. When I got the combination of the slightly sweet pear vinegar, the sweet and tart grapefruit, and the oily mackerel, it was tasty. When I was eating the mackerel straight, it was like eating straight mackerel, however well prepared.
As a result, even though this may have been a great preparation of mackerel, I didn't love it.
Lobster with aromatic indian spice, lentils
Lobster, on the other hand, is easy to love, and we all loved this dish. Brown(?) butter, cumin (+ friends), lentils, lobster. Impossibly rich. Looking at the sea of butter around the lentils and meat, I was skeptical that I could handle all the rich fat, but by the end, I was asking my dining companions for pieces of their bread to mop it up.
Brown butter is my new second love.
Black cod on the plancha, fennel, sellfish emulsion
The shellfish emulsion, visible as the brown foam, was like seafood distilled into its purest form. The cod had a nice bit of crispy skin on it, and a perfect flake. I'd order this again.
Abalone with braised pig trotters, avocado
More firsts. I had never eaten pigs trotters. In fact, I had them confused with pickled pigs feet, which it turns out are a totally different kettle of fish. For those not in the know, it turns out pigs trotters can have some fantastic meat on them, with the texture of incredibly-finely pulled pork. The abalone was remarkably tender, given that every other time I have encountered abalone, it has required frying or considerable pounding to make it edible. On the whole, a delicious, if extremely rich, dish.
Oddly enough, I found myself using the avocado mousse to cut the richness down a notch. If you think about how buttery and rich an avocado is, that gives you some idea of the flavors that the trotters were bringing to the party.
Milk fed poularde, poached then roasted, foraged mushrooms
The first real disappointment of the night. The mushrooms tasted like good mushrooms. The chicken tasted like decent chicken. In short, the overall effect was of chicken and mushrooms, albeit decent chicken and good mushrooms.
Beef roasted in its fat, sweetbreads roasted whole, asparagus
Another minor disappointment in the meat department. The beef was tender and beefy, but not remarkable, and not something I would think about later.
It was also my first time with sweetbreads. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to eat them, as I've got a pretty big personal aversion to BSE, but it felt like a huge waste, and I had to give them a shot.
They were pretty bland, and the texture wasn't at all offensive They definitely didn't taste like brains.
Pineapple consomme
The worst dish of the night. I would go so far as it to call it bad. Three out of four of us couldn't finish it. It tasted like simple syrup with small pineapple chunks in it. I'm not really sure what this was about. It wasn't tart enough to function as an effective palate cleanser, and it just seemed like a liquid sugar bomb. We all wished it were summer so we could put some soda water in it and sit on the patio.
Strawberry souffle, lemon cream
Delicious. The souffle was light and airy and tasted perfectly of fresh strawberries. The lemon curd and the creme chantille provided perfect cool counterpoints to the warm souffle.
Chocolate marquis, banana, coconut ice cream
Fantastic. The top layer was coconut ice cream, as good as any I've had in Thailand. The middle layer was a crispy hazelnut wafer cookie, and the bottom layer was rich, dark, chocolate.
The truth is, the food wasn't necessarily a numinous experience; I might have been just as happy with a carnitas taco and a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a drizzle of hot Nutella.
That said, there were a lot of fantastic dishes (the lobster and the egg in particular stood out), the service was great, and the atmosphere was fantastic.
My sister commented that one would have to be gourmand in order to truly enjoy the meal and get the full value out of it. To some extent, I think that sentiment was motivated by the array of slightly "weird" dishes (e.g. abalone and pigs' trotters / pineapple 'consomme' / sweetbreads), and to some extent I think it was simply motivated by the fact that it's an awful lot of food.
I'm not sure she didn't mean gourmet, but I think I would say that you need to be an epicure to truly enjoy the meal and get the full value out of it. As someone relatively unfamiliar with this kind of dining, I found that a lot of the dishes were just too sweet, rich, gummy, sea-water-y, etc., while a small few (like the egg) managed to be creative and interesting and delicious.
The format of tasting innumerable small dishes, more than the food, made the evening for me. That being said, I think it was an excellent value. Given that a ticket to see the San Jose Sharks can run you $80, I fully believe you're better off going and having this experience.
Personally, I'd love to see someone open up a restaurant that serves tasting menus for philistines who don't especially dig on brains, organs meats, or raw squid. Open with an onion ring with meyer lemon aioli, move on to the potato croquette with a liquid ketchup center, serve a mini-wagyu-burger on a freshly-baked artisanal bun with black sesame seeds, and close with a shot of a vanilla bean milkshake. No one's with me on this?