We were too full from lunch so we just had caviar appetizer, cheese board, and salad for dinner. We were trying a different caviar company, Imperial Caviar, that was recommended to us from the person who sat next to Andrea at our last Ritual dinner (this person also recommended Kusakabe). The sampler order of 1.8 oz of Royal Osetra and 1.8 oz of kaluga hybrid for a very reasonable price compared to all of the usual brands. The colors between the two were fairly close…the Osetra was not a golden, egg size was quite a bit finer than the kaluga.

The golden Osetra has not a clean as some other Osetra we’ve had, but not in a bad way…some of the other ones are so clean that the flavor easily gets lost unless you are consuming it simply as a bump (see it beanies and bumps picture). This Osetra has a little bit of something in the finish…Andrea called it musty and I called it seaweed. Trisha preferred the Osetra to the kaluga, but I preferred the kaluga as I usually do since it has a bit more flavor (Andrea’s favorite is white sturgeon).

We made tater tot’s this time which worked well. Again a little bit of grated lemon peel in the crème fraiche added just a nice acidic component. I read somewhere to try banana fire a sweet and savory but…the sweetness of the banana definitely right out the saltiness of the caviar, but we didn’t taste much of the caviar otherwise, so novel and fun but not really the best to get the most of the flavor out of caviar.

In any case, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the caviar…not quite as refined as Regis Ova, but also not nearly the price.