happy birthday
Last night, I took Denise out to dinner for her birthday at The Plumed Horse. We ended up having the progressive tasting menu, which was a seven course meal (including dessert). We had:
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Caviar & Ahi Tuna: Tsar Nicolai caviar, quail egg, brioche toast. This was possibly my favorite course. The salty caviar worked perfectly with the buttery tuna.
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Ahi Tuna & Foie Gras: a mosaic of foie gras torchon inlaid into seared tuna, mustard fruits. Another great course, although the mustard fruits tasted & looked more like gummy bears than anything else.
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Foie Gras & Onion Souffle: fricassee of foie gras, Armagnac prunes, pickled onion. This was decent.
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Hawaiian Walu: wild onion soubise, braised beef cheek. The walu was perfectly cooked, and the beef cheeks were amazingly tender & flavorful.
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Poached Rib Eye "Pot au Feu": mustard flan, fried parsle, bone marrow dumpling. This one was a bit odd. The ingredients were all good on their own, but really didn't come together in my opinion.
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Bone Marrow & Truffle Cheese Fondue: potato croutons, minus eight vinegar. The bone marrow was yummy, but the rest was just ok.
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Pain Perdue: Camambert cheese, candied kumquat, orange gastrique. The gastrique was really tasty, the rest was nothing special.
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The service was uneven. Our waiter bordered on obnoxious, interrupting us mid-course to ask us our opinions of the food, and constantly singing the praises of the chef. He felt like a used car salesman trying desperately to close the deal. The rest of the wait staff ranged from perfect to amatuerish. Our water glasses were never empty. The servers occasionally got confused about which way to present the dishes (and at one point put the plate down, realized it was backwards, then picked it up, and rotated it 180 degrees. Then they completely screwed up the dessert service (the final course). They brought out Denise's plate, and completely forgot mine. What was worse is that apparently the kitchen forgot to make it, so I sat there for at least 5 minutes just waiting for mine to arrive. The wait staff did apologize profusely, but the damage was done and it was obvious that someone was in over their head somewhere.
Overall, it was a nice meal, and they did a decent job, but we couldn't but help compare everything to the perfection that was the Ritz Dining Room birthday dinner from a year earlier. I'd prolly be willing to go back eventually, but certainly not as a "this was so amazing I can't wait to go again" experience.