I’ve been meaning to eat here for awhile, but since it’s more a brunch place (and we don’t often brunch), I never got around to it. They just earned their surprise Michelin star recently, so I at least thought we’d try them for our weekly dinner (they’re open Thur, Fri, Mon for dinner).
They have a 5-course Chef’s Adventure Menu (with beverage pairing) which of course we had to try and at the recommendation of the very friendly and attentive wait-person (they also received the outstanding service award from Michelin) (and also later at one point made a reference to Gates McFadden from Star Trek Next Gen, so how cool was that), we also went with two add-ons, the cucumbers and plums and their signature pancakes without boundaries.
We started with cocktails, because we’re always interested to see how good a restaurants cocktail game is. Andrea went with the Show me the Honey, a mead, oolong tea, meyer lemon drink and I went with the Drink Your Juice which was an aged sake, carrot juice, lime drink. We though mine was fantastic with a very interesting spice component.
First course consisted of a couple different vegetable bites. One was a tart in a nice crunchy crust with dill and the second was atop a bed of rice. Both were seasoned well with interesting flavors.
The second course was a blue fin tuna with a fragrant lemon verbena olive oil sauce with a bit of tomato gelee also well seasoned and delicious.
Third course was a delicious green curry with fresh tomatoes, sprouts, and lentils. Tomatoes were so sweet and fresh. This dish was so flavorful and you could taste each component distinctly.
Fourth course was the duck breast with plum sauce and a side of succotash as well as our cucumber and plum add on. We both agreed that the cucumber and plum was the best of these three dishes and the duck breast was the least interesting. The cucumber and plum and such great flavors, seasoning, texture (crispy shallots topping) whereas the duck was incredibly one note.
Before dessert, they served our pancakes as bridge to a more purely sweet dish. The pancakes were thick, but still airy and had a bit of a nice crunch on the edge. The syrup had a smoky and fatty (duck?) flavor too it and not at overly sweet at all, so it served as a nice bridge from the savory course that came before to the dessert to come. We really didn’t need to eat all the pancakes, but we couldn’t help ourselves and we ended up quite full at this point.
Finally came the dessert which was strawberry granita, a flavored whipped cream, and cocoa nibs which added a bitter and textural component.
All in all in it was a very interesting menu and nice celebration of fresh produce (made us wonder what the menu would look like in the winter). Wines were all different and interesting and well paired. Service was great. We’ll have to be back to try brunch some weekend!
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