The French Laundry 2001 - 2005

[mikeczyz]

I think Keller's absence ruined the meal.

I don't understand. Him not being there ruined the meal for you?

mike

[mikeczyz]

to select the wine, and the sommelier appeared to be fine with that. 

there were two types of butter, one of which was from Vermont

who's handling the sommelier duties? i had heard that stuckey was leaving. have they found a replacement?

regarding the vermont butter, was it from Animal Farms in Orwell, Vermont?

mike

[klinger75]

to select the wine, and the sommelier appeared to be fine with that. 

there were two types of butter, one of which was from Vermont

who's handling the sommelier duties? i had heard that stuckey was leaving. have they found a replacement?

regarding the vermont butter, was it from Animal Farms in Orwell, Vermont?

mike

mike, they traditionally use the animal farm butter as well as another butter(dont remember). when i was there this fall. In regards to bobby stucky, i know he is leaving to pursue his own business. I do not believe a replacement has officially been found, but you can be sure it will be the tops.

Edited February 3, 2003 by klinger75 (log)

[IrishCream]

I think Keller's absence ruined the meal.

I don't understand. Him not being there ruined the meal for you?

mike

I think Stone was sarcastically referring to a discussion from months ago when several posters expressed resentment at finding themselves eating in fine restaurants when the chef was not present. Not that I can speak for Stone, of course.

[southern girl]

Mike- Bobby is opening his own restaurant sometime this month...in St. Helena on Main St...it will be called Market. His partners are Doug Keane (formerly of Jardiniere and Gary Danko) and Nick Peyton. I will find out on Sunday if they have hired a replacement for Bobby...as I will be dining at FL with another MS...and I am sure there will be much discussion of the subject(s) at hand.

[Really Nice!]

On theft, Stone was intent to taking the wooden "clothes pin" that holds the napkin. I asked the dining room team member whether we could take them, and she noted that was welcomed. The restaurant sees the clothes pin as almost its business card. (As members know, the clothes pin is the restaurant's logo of sorts).

We glanced in the kitchen after eating, during the break between lunch and dinner. I was surprised both by how clean and orderly the kitchen looked, and by how many cooks were in there, all happy and clean.

When TK was up here in Seattle promoting his FL cookbook, I pulled out a FL clothespin from my jacket and asked him to autograph it. He laughed, but I don't know if it's because someone presented him with property stolen from his restaurant, or that someone would actually ask him to autograph a clothspin.

Probably a bit of both, but what the heck, it a valuable clothspin now.

--

Did you notice the carpeting on the floor, or how bright the kitchen is?

[cabrales]

The carpets were not appealing, I remember. Also, the little "cloth" pattern above the fireplace on the ground floor's main dining room looked dated. This restaurant is not visually beautiful for such dining room.

Other miscellaneous observations:

-- An 18% service charge is added to all invoices. The invoices are nice, resembling an old-style laundry receipt with a little tear-off section and a piece of thin string attached. For other meals, I noticed adjacent diners complaining about the charge. I considered the service excellent, and more than deserving of the 18% and provided more.

-- The restaurant's by-the-glass sparkling wine selection is currently (?): (1) Shramsberg (sic) -- is this from Champagne, (2) Billecart-Salmon, and (3) Laurent Perrier "Grand Siecle". I had the opportunity to sample all three, including during the two hours I sat at the bar area on Saturday night, waiting to see if a cancellation would materialize. The reception person provided an "unrequieted love" analogy. At least I received a gougere and a small, but very flavorful, cup of cauliflower soup for my efforts. Afterwards, I had a quick snack at Bouchon (oysters; boudin noir).

Edited February 3, 2003 by cabrales (log)

[Stone]

The carpets were not appealing, I remember. Also, the little "cloth" pattern above the fireplace on the ground floor's main dining room looked dated. This restaurant is not visually beautiful for such dining room. 

I liked it. I thought it looked like an old inn that a weary traveler might happen upon whilst trying to get out of the rain and devour some butter. Clean, sparse and unpretentious.

[southern girl]

Scramsberg is actually a CA sparkling wine

[Dave the Cook]

Please discuss 'confit' of navel orange in more detail.

[Stone]

Please discuss 'confit' of navel orange in more detail.

Two sections of a small, clemintine like orange. Overlaid atop the pork belly. That's about it as I remember.

[cabrales]

It was quite sweet too. It was somewhere between the color of clementines and ruby grapefruit segments, but closer to the former color. It might have been a take on the classical pairing of apples and pork, but with an updated twist of citrus mingled in with the sweetness of the fruit.

[lizziee]

Cabrales,

I don't understand your comment,"Note I do not own Keller's book, and my dish descriptions might not benefit from information in the book."

For example re the orange confit, Thomas describes exactly how to make it in his cookbook. It is made with simple syrup and white wine vinegar which has been brought to the boil and then poured over the orange segments and cooled to room temperature. He calls it confit "because the syrup stabilizes the oranges."

[cabrales]

lizziee -- I meant: I do not own Keller's book. I don't know what recipes are included. I might buy it shortly.

Edited February 3, 2003 by cabrales (log)

[Dave the Cook]

Thomas describes exactly how to make it in his cookbook. It is made with simple syrup and white wine vinegar which has been brought to the boil and then poured over the orange segments and cooled to room temperature. He calls it confit "because the syrup stabilizes the oranges."

Thanks for the additional info. And thanks, Lizziee for the recipe excerpt.

I was not aware that oranges were unstable.

Edited February 3, 2003 by Dave the Cook (log)

[Rail Paul]

Thomas describes exactly how to make it in his cookbook. It is made with simple syrup and white wine vinegar which has been brought to the boil and then poured over the orange segments and cooled to room temperature. He calls it confit "because the syrup stabilizes the oranges."

Thanks for the additional info. And thanks, Lizziee for the recipe excerpt.

I was not aware that oranges were unstable.

Dave -

I might even try that with dinner

Paul

Edited February 3, 2003 by Rail Paul (log)

[Stone]

I don't know the answer, but I believe the oranges were in their sections -- not chopped or otherwise cut. (But I pretty much just popped them into my mouth to get them out of the way.) I'd expect that in this form the membrane would hold in the juice.

[lizziee]

Dave,

I was quoting exactly what Thomas wrote.

Cabrales,

You should definitely buy the cookbook. The salmon cornets, oysters and pearls, peas and carrots, the sea bass with saffron -vanilla sauce, the caesar salad are all in the cookbook.

[cabrales]

I don't know the answer, but I believe the oranges were in their sections -- not chopped or otherwise cut.

Stone -- I agree. The sections suggested small navel oranges.

[Stone]

The salmon cornets, oysters and pearls, peas and carrots, the sea bass with saffron -vanilla sauce, the caesar salad are all in the cookbook.

I thought this was the case. Odd that the MD told us the menu changes daily. And that he explained what Keller was trying to do in creating the salmon cornets (or did Cabby tell me that). I got the impression that the kitchen was constantly inventing and we would be eating new creations. I didn't realize that I could buy a book and make all this at home.

[cabrales]

Further thoughts --

-- What makes Keller's cuisine not as distinguished as certain three star cuisines in France is the relative sense of balance. Keller gets that better than any other chef in the US (except for Michael Anthony and Dan Barber, in my subjective assessment).

-- Another aspect that distinguishes Keller's cuisine from that of, say, Boulud (although not necessarily that of Ripert) is that it is evidently aspirational, with all respect to Boulud. It embodies efforts at improvement and stretching. Some risk-taking too.

-- I had watched the FN Bourdain episode on FL right before the weekend. Bourdain visited the restaurant with Ripert and two other chefs. This has happened to me before. I saw the Bourdain episode on Arzak a few weeks before going there. Each of the four diners received a different dish for every course in a very lengthy meal. In the episode, Keller reiterates that a cuisine cannot be perfect and that it represents a process of trying to achieve perfection.

Stone: The $135 tasting menu did change noticeably from meal to meal. However, there are probably enough well-developed dishes in the restaurant's repertoire for even the changing dishes to be based on tested recipes.

Edited February 3, 2003 by cabrales (log)

[Dave the Cook]

Dave,

I was quoting exactly what Thomas wrote.

Lizziee, I never doubted that you were, and I was sincere in my thanks. I just don't get it -- seems unnecessary. Everything else here makes sense to me.

Based on this report and your previous posts, I'm going to blow a Border's gift certificate on the cookbook.

[cabrales]

I forgot to mention the menu overutilizes quotation marks. They are used not only for dish names that have a humor element or that describe a product presentation that is not in its commonly understood form (e.g., "Caesar Salad"). They are also used for non-English-language words, like "jus", "panna cotta", "foie gras", "brioche", "confit", "chiboust" and "farce a gratin". Foie gras shouldn't be in quotations.

[MartyL]

Thanks, Stone and Cabrales for a terrific report that brings back fond memories of my own one meal at FL a couple of years ago.

I forgot to mention the menu overutilizes quotation marks.

I agree that foreign words should not be in quotations, but I also enjoyed the menu's refreshing humor. I'm surprised no one has remarked on his including "navel" oranges on top of the pork "belly."

The wine glass pictured above in guajolote's post looks like the Riedel Sommelier series Burgundy glass, which sells for about $55 per stem. It's usually recommended for red burgundy and not white, so I found it a little surprising that they poured the white Chassagne in it, although I suppose if they thought it needed aeration that would make sense.

I tried that glass once at a Bonnes-Mares tasting and to my taste it was so big that it obscured the aromas of the wine. It's awful purdy though.

[Stone]

I agree that foreign words should not be in quotations, but I also enjoyed the menu's refreshing humor.  I'm surprised no one has remarked on his including "navel" oranges on top of the pork "belly."

Ha! I completely missed that.

I was going to comment about the travesty of their serving white wine in a red wine (Burgundy) glass, and how that too ruined my meal, but I assumed they knew what they were doing.