Tonight’s dinner was at Le Fantastique, a new restaurant that opened up a few months ago, with French and Japanese influences. They boast a McIntosh audio system and a turntable to play vinyl which of course interested me. We had an early reservation (which we always prefer) and we were in fact the first diners in the restaurant. The music was great, but at the start of the evening, I’m sure they were playing a pre-recorded playlist with faux vinyl crackle, pop sounds added and when they actually started playing the real vinyl later in the evening, it sounded far better (and did not have all of the fake pops and clicks which is what decent vinyl playback sounds like….).

Raw menu was all crudos…we tried them all…favorites were the buri, tombo, and brook trout. For the caviar, we went with the traditional presentation with the Osetra (from California Caviar Co.). The Madelines were made with duck fat (a bit sweeter than there usual carriers we use ourselves) and a brown butter crème fraiche. For the bread, we went with the lobster Thermidor which was made with a very light airy Gruyère and chunks of lobster. we were starting to get full already so for mains we went with just the little gems salad and the celeriac brûlée (nice preparation). We were far too full to try either the chicken breast or the wagyu courses at this point. For dessert, we went with the s’mores feuille (basically deconstructed elevated s’mores) and one other dessert (don’t recall the details, but was well balanced with all of the components). Wines were decent and we only imbibed French of which they had a decent selection.