Back to Victoria & Albert's!

Again, it's been close to forever since I last posted. Funny enough, I come back with another wonderful Victoria & Albert experience to share. I am spoiled and lucky and (I think) still full from this experience.

This was my third trip to V&A, my first experience in The Queen's Dining Room. This room is exclusively for 10-course tasting with wine pairing (which I did not do but managed to drink too much anyway). I went on the day of my birthday and they went out of their way to make me feel special.

I love the special touch of having a purse stand on the floor by the table. I hate, however, that I forgot to bring a cute bag to go with my cute dress and had to carry my "running around the parks" bag.

A week or so before your reservation, the restaurant calls to make sure they verify the spelling of the party's names (because you get a personalized menu) and to check on dietary restrictions. I mentioned to them that we would not like caviar. I just don't like it--it's salty, the texture is off-putting--in other words, my response to it is, "Excuse me, this is gross" (which is a blog for another time). 

The first big decisions once we got there, what to drink? Lucky for us, they supplied us with a water list (when house water just won't do).

Yes, two pages of bottles of water. A note at the bottom says that the higher the ph, the sweeter the water. I chose one from England because, why not? If you are going all out, go all out. 

 Artistic picture of the very expensive water I chose from the two-page water list.

 Cocktails to start us off. Left to right: some sort of cosmopolitan, a ineapple mojito, and a classic manhattan (with Luxardo cherries). 

 The amuse bouche was Colorado bison with black garlic and a deconstructed charmoula. Basically, cilantro, garlic, and spices. It was tender and a lot more delicately flavored than most of the bison I've ever had, which I tend to find a little tough and gamey. This was not. It was delicious. My bouche is amused, let's keep going. 

 Because 10 courses is probably not enough for dinner, we also had several rounds of bread with artisan butter. This was a hand-rolled baguette with unsalted VT butter, with a well of English sea salt. Anyone who knows me knows that this is just about the perfect butter situation for me, as I really hate salt. The bread was light and flavorful, the butter rich and creamy. I couldn't comment on the salt. :-)

 This was a king salmon with cucumber and dill. There was dill in the pieces of meringue and dill in the "drops" on the plate. Fresh salmon, mmmmmm. The savory meringue was new to me as well, and I really liked it because it provided a great textural contrast. 

 Accompanying the next course was real, fresh wasabi from Japan. Us Americans think we are eating real wasabi all the time but actually we are eating horseradish with green food coloring in it. This was a little milder at the start with a fresh, hot kick once it sat on the tongue for a minute. 

 The wasabi came with this Alaskan sablefish that came with a soft sushi rice cake, a crispy sushi rice cake, a mushroom mix with sauce, and a few fava beans. This fish was so perfectly cooked and so mild, delicious, and buttery on its own, it almost felt wrong to put anything on it. The wasabi did taste good with it but I preferred it without so I could really enjoy the fish. 

 This course was a New Zealand langoustine with a cream sauce made from the poaching liquid (nage). Notice the tiny little dots of what look like fish eggs on the right. This is actually a new kind of lime grown in Florida, I think the waiter called it a finger lime. He said that when it's squeezed, these little balls come out as the pulp. It is super intensely flavored. It was very fun to try this. 

 I know it sounds crazy to say that the best part of an extravagant menu like this might be bread but, you guys.........black. truffle. brioche. With black truffle butter. Wow. This bread was light, crispy on the outside, savory in a way that I cannot explain, and every bite was loaded with black truffle flavor. It was probably one of the most over-the-top things I've ever eaten, it was like black truffles in perfect bread form. Amazing. I raved and raved about it (because also I was 2+ drinks in). 

My niece and I agree that the next course was the best dish of the night. Veal done two ways. Veal en croute, hen-of-the-woods mushroom, and seared veal, all with black truffle on top. I am trying hard to remember what the sauce was, I just remember it was buttery and the veal was cooked perfectly and again, black truffles. My favorite dish of the night and so wonderful. I also had a California cabernet with it that was perfect. 

 This course was a smoked duck with Fuji apples and celery root with prosciutto on top. I feel bad for this duck because it could never compete with two courses of black truffle. It was very good though. It was quite smokey and stronger flavored than the other meat courses because of it. The apples did a good job of mellowing that smoke out a bit.

 Then, more bread. A table-side carving of a 5lb mold of butter....

...to accompany an Austrian peasant bread. This bread was not my favorite. It was quite heavy and dense with not a lot of flavor. While eating it I wished it had a drizzle of molasses. 

 As if that wasn't enough, finally the main course. Austrailian beef with garlic potato puree, some pickled turnip slices, and bone marrow reduction. Succulent, savory, sensational. Every bite was perfect. 

 When you finally get to coffee, they brew it in this reverse vacuum thing that is fun to watch. I will say, however, that the coffee was weaker and not as bold and flavorful as it has been in the past. I think they have switched up the coffee they use. I was disappointed, even though it was good. 

 I confess I did not eat this cheese course. I can't even remember what the cheeses were except that there were some smoked almonds and the middle was a cheese-filled pastry and the jar had cheese fondue for dipping. I wanted dessert and I was running out of room but this was a pretty plate.

 The first dessert was a chocolate mouse with chocolate "eyelashes." It was dark and rich. The little balls were crispy and added to the texture.

 On the menu, the second dessert course was an apple mouse; however, this not being my first rodeo, I knew I wanted chocolate souffle. I asked them if they would substitute for me and the waiter confirmed by asking, "So, you want TWO chocolate desserts?" Um, yah....do you know me? And it's my BIRTHDAY! They were happy to oblige of course. This also came with chocolate gellato and a godiva chocolate liqueur creme anglaise. 

In case we still needed a nibble, they bought a giant box with 5-6 different kinds of chocolates for us to sample. I got a lemon, a chocolate hazlenut, and a white chocolate raspberry. Yum. 

When it was finally time to go (I think the whole dinner took 4 hours), they gave us each roses and gave me a loaf of orange date bread as a birthday/thank you gift. This restaurant is consistently an amazing, over-the-top, luxurious experience. You forget you are in the middle of Disney World and are in a world class dining environment. I already can't wait to go again. 

Really good food at Disney World

I cannot believe I haven't posted in over a year, when I have really had so much to say! There are going to have to be some catch up posts, I believe.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a class at the Disney Institute through work. When this was announced around 9 months ago, my first thought was that this was a great opportunity for me to get back to Victoria and Albert's. Many years ago I took my friend here to celebrate her PhD (I bought dinner, she bought wine) and I remembered the food being out of this world. I found a few coworkers who wanted to go with me so I booked the dinner as soon as possible (Disney has this rule about reservations being available 180 days before the first day of your visit. Navigating DisneyWorld dining might be a future post....).

First of all, I cannot say enough about the service at V&A. They know what you want before you do, and to me, that is priceless. For example...

This is a stool. This stool is put next to ladies' seats...for their purses. Of course you don't want to leave your purse on the table or on the floor! It gets its own chair. 

Another example:

What you might not notice right away because this is so small, is that this menu is personalized. Yes, it was presented to me in a hard-cover, book-like way that you would expect in any nice restaurant but we were all told that these sheets would be given to us at the end of the night so that we could remember our meals. In fact, they called me a week or so earlier to make sure they had the spelling of all of our names correct. And would I like the wine pairing with dinner tonight? Oh, yes, of course I would. 

The first thing served to us was an off-menu amuse bouche.

This was a shrimp "sausage" in a tempura wrapper with seasonal mushrooms. It was light and the mushrooms were delicious. I am a mushroom fan. It was served with a Jacquart Mosaique Brut NV Reims. That was a delicious champagne. It was super light and extremely bubbly. 

The next course was a Colorado bison with celery and radish slaw with kumquats.

I was really worried that bison would be too gamey for me. The wine, however, really balanced it out. It was a Jules Taylor Sauvignon Blanc, 2013. I didn't like the wine by itself but once paired with the bison, both were perfect. It's amazing what a good pairing can do. I'll never learn that skill. This had a bright aioli on the plate that was also good at mellowing out the bison. This dish was super successful to me because I was skeptical but in the end it all worked. The bison ended up being tender and juicy.

The next course was Alaskan King salmon and crab, asparagus, and Bearnaise sauce.

I expected this dish to be something special and it was. This was probably one of my most favorite dishes in the history of eating, even with asparagus (which I hate), so that is saying something. The crab was so fresh and tender, the salmon was cooked only from the bottom so the texture was really interested where it was sort of raw-ish and soft on top but firm on bottom. The sauce was flavorful yet delicate. It was served with a Hanzell "Sebella" Chardonnay (2013). Maybe my 2nd favorite of the night. I gave the asparagus to someone else.

I was full, but pressed on. The next course was onion-ash crusted Berkshire pork with sauce soubise.

This had fiddleheads on it. Does anything more need be said? Fiddleheads and pork are a delightful combo, I learned here. The sauces were a little heavier on this one. It had a potato risotto underneath that was creamy and delicious as well. Another hit here, served with Ridge "Three Valleys"(2012).

Next, if there were any misses on the night at all, was the roasted duck with fennel and leeks a l'orange.

This had turnip and sweet potato with it. The restaurant was very dark, so you can't tell that, in my opinion, this duck was just 1 minute over. It was delicious, really, but I said to the waiter that, in my opinion, it was one minute over. He offered to redo it or give me something else and I said, no thanks, it's really good....but it was over. The end pieces had no pink. That's over for duck. It was super super good. The sauce was not "too" orange. It was served with a Lafond Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills (2013), which was  my favorite wine of the night by far.

I think that because I complained about my duck, the chef sent this out special for us. Just a few hunks of Waygu beef with oxtail reduction...

with potato gratin. This was the most delicious beef I've ever had in my entire life. No question. It was so tender I could cut it with a fork. And the oxtail reduction? Well, I had oxtail braised a few months ago and it became a favorite. This reduction is so unctuous and savory, it is so rich and meaty, I'm still thinking about it. This beef was something you had to pay extra for on the Prix Fixe menu so I am really glad I complained about the duck.

Do you think there was any room left in my stomach? Oh, there was bread...

There was vacuum-brewed coffee...

The steam goes up into the top carafe to mix with the grounds, and when the heat is shut off, the water plunges back down into the bottom pot as coffee, while the grounds stay up top. Perfect coffee for the rest of the meal.

The next course was a roasted white chocolate gelato with asian pear.

This was exactly as described. No secrets or mysteries, a nice palate cleanser. It was served with a Cascinetta Vietti Moscato D'Asti (2014), which I did not drink. Ewww, Moscato. It was nasty.

One would think we were done but no, not quite. Next I was served a Hawaiian Kona chocolate souffle with Godiva chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream. Wow.

I have to admit I only had 3 or 4 bites of this because I was so full. I also tried my friend's chocolate timbale.

Doesn't it look like a chocolate sea urchin? It had a really rich ganache in the middle. It was wonderful.

After all this, they brought us a tray of fruit chocolates and jellies and a creme brulee tart.

I didn't even attempt to eat these--I asked them to box them up so I could take them. I ate them for breakfast the next morning. I mostly remember the caramel in the middle, and picking the sea salt off.

If you have never done a wine pairing dinner, do it. Don't eat the whole day before but do it. Also I want to mention that I ate a huge part of my friend's veal cheek that was part of one of her courses and that was so so so good. Now that I have typed all this out and looked at all the pictures, I'm full (and happy) all over again. I can't wait to go back to this restaurant. 

Eventide Oyster Co.

I have seen Eventide Oyster Co. on several lists of "must trys" in Portland. People rave about the food, the atmosphere, the quality. I shall be raving myself, but in a very different way.

To be completely honest with you, I'm not sure what anyone actually likes about this restaurant unless they have had an entirely different experience than I had with my friend today at lunch. I will give them this--we walked right into seats for lunch (now I know why but what I don't understand was why there were people actually waiting for tables when we left). I will say there was a lot of money put into how the restaurant looks. The poured concrete bars are lovely. The fresh oysters on ice that greet you when you walk in give the impression that you are walking into a place where oysters rule.

The waitstaff sends in orders via smartphone, which I think is a cool idea but why don't they just give us ipads to order things ourselves? Based on the waitress we (allegedly) had, the ipad would have had more personality and cared more about our being there.

I tried to order two kinds of oysters, they were out of one of them. I ordered sriracha ice, they didn't have any. These things were both on the menu and the waitress didn't tell us they weren't available. We ended up ordering 3-4 small plates. I'd like to put the word small in quotes but they were indeed small. Aside from the oysters, no plate we ordered had more than 3 bites to it, yet they were quite expensive.

The razor clam dish was the most disappointing. It was supposed to be grilled razor clams with carrots and mole. When the dish came, there were a few deep fried clams on top. These deep fried clams were overcooked so the batter tasted burned, the clams rubbery. This resulted in the rest of the dish being absolutely flavorless. My friend and I agreed that it takes true culinary talent to make carrot puree and mole sauce have absolutely zero flavor.

My friend had the oyster bun and she said the jalapeno and pickles gave it some flavor (and some oyster shell for unintentional crunch). We had a squid and noodle dish that was pretty bland.

The best dish was the oysters on the half shell. Untouched by the kitchen, need I say more.

This was a super, super expensive lunch. Nearly $80 for two people and we were still hungry when we left.

My friend's comment was (and I think this sums it up), "No wonder the music is so loud, they don't want you to hear other people talking about how bad the food is."

David's Opus Ten

As has become our tradition, my best friend and I took each other out to dinner for Christmas. We decided to try David's Opus Ten, which is a tiny tasting room inside David's restaurant on Monument Square in Portland. We've been to David's restaurant several times and have always loved it....the food is always very well prepared and they have great cocktails. I also like the service there--it is usually friendly and just the right amount of attentive for me. 

Because we went on a weekend night, there was a nice course tasting menu (on the weeknights it is seven courses). I decided to also have the wine pairing. It was a LOT of food and a LOT of alcohol and completely worth it (except dessert).

My vegetarian friend was slightly off put (I imagine) by this tableside presentation. 

The amuse bouche was a few slices of imported Serrano ham, some aged Roquefort cheese, some warmed cured olives, and some flatbread that was cranberry and pistachio (I think). It was served with either a Madeira wine or a modified Manhattan that had apple brandy and a tea infusion (which I chose). 

I didn't like the olives (big surprise, too salty) but everything else was delicious. The cheese was maybe a touch too aged, it lost a little of its tang but it was quite delicious. The ham, cheese, and Manhattan went together extremely well.

The first actual course was a mushroom gratin with a Madeira cream shooter. The wine was Lustau, Fino Sherry, Solera Reserva.

Mushrooms are usually the very definition of umami. This was no exception. This dish was buttery and earthy and flavorful. The puff pastry was still crunchy and had Parmesan cheese in it. The shooter had a rich creamy texture with a foamy top. It was buttery and creamy and so, so savory. The wine was a beautiful pairing. 

Next was a scallop with fig, apricot, and bacon paired with Trimbach Riesling, Alsace. 

Typically I do not like Rieslings but even I have to admit this was a nice pairing. The wine cut the buttery, rich texture of the scallop and the fattiness of the bacon. The fig reduction was sweet and flavorful; the apricot puree was light, fresh, and acidic. This was, again, a beautiful, balanced, flavorful treat. Maybe my favorite of the night?

After the scallop, we had a butter poached lobster with vanilla bean buerre monte, caramelized onion, apple and potato hash, with a Tablas Creek Patelin de Tablas Blanc.

I believe I have had butter poached lobster with vanilla before somewhere but I cannot remember exactly where. This was a small claw and a piece of lobster tail. It's hard to screw up lobster but David's did it justice--it wasn't too overdone. It was delicate and flavorful and maybe 30 seconds overcooked and just on the tough side a tiny bit but I think that is really splitting hairs. It was lovely. 

The next dish was a quail egg ravioli with butternut squash, brussel sprouts, pistachio, and a brown butter nage that was poured over tableside with a Newton Claret.

I heard the cook talking about this dish and he said they poach the quail egg for about 30 seconds before they put it into the ravioli, then they undercook the ravioli just a bit, so that when the brown butter is poured over the dish at the table, everything is cooked perfectly and the warm egg yolk finishes the sauce when you cut into it. This was brilliant and just exactly what they intended. I particularly liked the brussel sprout leaves in the bottom of the dish. They were a little smokey and that added a lot of depth here.

After that we had a pomegranate and basil sorbet. At the table they poured some house-made pear infused vodka over it. It was lovely and delicious but I cannot figure out how to get the photo to rotate correctly on Blogger. :-)

The next course was a half quail with a foie gras medallion on foie gras butter toast with a grilled pear gastrique. It was served with clos du bois de Menge, Gigondas. 

I admit that I feel very guilty about how much I love foie gras. It's just so rich and delicious and savory and yummy....and with pear gastrique? Even better. The quail was cooked perfectly as well.

The next course for me was a carved lamb rack, braised leg, with white bean puree, kale, and oven roasted tomato served with Napa Cellars Syrah.

When I was a kid, I didn't like lamb. It was too meaty and tough and rubbery. I realize now that it was just not cooked perfectly. This lamb was cooked absolutely perfectly. You can see that it was juicy and just pink all the way through, the white bean puree was flavorful. I even liked the kale and I normally do not like kale. 

The last official course was an apple tart tatin with cheddar, As walnuts, and bourbon ice cream.

As delicious and perfect as the entire meal was, this was as bad. This was really bad. I love dessert. I live for it. This was really terrible. There was more cheddar than apple. The tatin crust was too thin and tasteless. The ice cream was so salty that it was inedible--not just for me but also for my friend who loves the salty sweet combo. Neither of us had more than one bite of this (and I spit mine out). It was served with a calvados that was too strong to drink alone--I don't know how it would have gone with the dessert.

After this we were given a plate with mint chocolate chip truffles, caramel nut bark, and a rose petal biscuit.

I obviously forgot to take a picture before we began eating all of this but these were all very good. I was particularly happy with the biscuit because it was very mild but very buttery and crunch. I had Coffee by Design coffee with this and that was delicious. 

Dinner and the service were really fantastic until the very end. Though our coats were taken at the beginning of the meal, we found them hanging over a stair railing on our way out instead of brought to us. Dessert was a huge disappointment after how fantastic everything else was. You could tell that a lot of love and care were put into each course but unfortunately, dessert seemed like a thrown together afterthought.

I'm not sure if I will ever have to try the Opus Ten experience again because it seems like the menu doesn't change all that much from season to season; however, I do love David's and I'll definitely be meeting up with my friend again for dinner and drinks--we'll probably just go somewhere else for dessert.