| rev:text
| - Ok, this place is over-the-top. Service-wise, it's one of the best experiences that I've ever had. For the cost of dinner, the service better be good and they delivered on that front. We sat down, and were greeted with "gifts from the chef" consisting of some delicious nibbles including foie gras. What kind of place gives you foie gras just for being seated? Before dinner I ordered my usual martini, 2 parts Hendrick's, 1 part vermouth, dirty, with blue cheese olives. Our waiter said, "we don't have blue cheese olives, but I'll be happy to prepare some for you if you don't mind." I said, "Sure!"
My crazy foodie friend and I ordered the 14 course Prestige tasting menu, and shared the 12 glass Prestige wine pairing. With the all the freebies, and multi-course dessert cart, it was around 20 items that we tasted. That's a lot of food!
Hits:
*Raw oyster with lemon and seaweed granite - simply sublime.
*Octopus in cold steam with octopus croquetas and black garlic - dramatic presentation, tastes as good as it looks.
*Red mullet - Rich fish and tasty preparation.
*Napoleon of foie gras and unagi = unctuous umami-bomb.
*Pluma de Bellota Iberico (roast pork tenderloin) - oink oink!
*Bread service - There are several delicious house-made breads that are offered, impressively presented on a cart, with a huge chunk of butter imported from France, and shaved tableside. Bravo!
Misses:
*Artichoke and black truffle soup - did not live up to the hype.
*Veal cheek timballe - Beautiful presentation, not very flavorful.
*Salmon iceberg - This one is a head scratcher. Chef comes to table, presents to us some beautiful cuts New Zealand salmon. We try some, sashimi style, unadorned, as a baseline. Then, he "cooks" a couple pieces on an anti-griddle, freezing the salmon to produce a frozen crust, then places it it a bowl and pours hot broth over the top. We are to eat the cold salmon and hot broth to create a temperature juxtaposition in our mouths. Well, the concept sounds cool, but in the end it's a lot of tepid stuff. Honestly, the unadorned salmon was perfectly delicious, and superior to the frozen salmon.
The wine tasting was generous and fun. It's a lot of wine! Part-way through the meal, I lost my internet connection and Vivino stopped working so I couldn't obtain independent wine information :(
For dessert, a cart is pulled up to the table with several desserts and we are allowed to choose as many as we want. The desserts were ok, but I'm not a dessert-guy.
We got a tour of the kitchen and were impressed by the order, cleanliness and esprit-de-corps of the operation.
This is an expensive meal, one of the most expensive that I have ever had. The Prestige tasting menu is $385 per person and the wine tasting was $375. You do the math! So we receive the itemized bill - 2 Prestige tasting menus, 1 Prestige wine pairing, 2 coffees, 1 martini, 1 gin and tonic, 1 Evian water. $1300. Hold on, wait a minute! There's a $2 charge for blue cheese olives. WTF! You're charging me $2 for blue cheese olives?!?! That's highway robbery!
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