So, we kicked it off at a little place called Travail Kitchen and Amusements. It's a quaint little restaurant that's been voted Best of and even written up in Bon Appetit magazine, I believe. So, we all had really high hopes for what the evening was going to bring. On the words of a good authority, I was told to get there early, especially if we dared to go on a weekend. I could never have guessed how much weight that warning really had.
The restaurant opens at 5 p.m., so I suggested we meet there at 5:30 - which is a bit early for us normally, but since we were anticipating a wait, figured it would balance out. When you get to the restaurant you need to go back to the bar and have your name put on a waiting list ... we were the 15th name on the waiting list. While you are waiting, you can order from the bar, and also order blue cheese tots, fries or a cheese plate. We drank water. At around 7:40 - we heard our names called (and I will tell you the first names on the waiting list did not get called until around 7.)
So, after two hours of waiting, we were all quickly anticipating what we'd eat. One of my fellow clubbers and I decided to share the 10 course tasting menu for two (at only $80, it seemed a great deal). First, let me tell you, it's a lot more then 10 courses, because in between many of the courses, they bring you little amuse bouches. So, I don't even know how much food I ate, because even though they were tastings, it was a ton of food and completely worth the price!
Now, I probably won't do the meal justice, because I should have been taking notes - and there were hits and misses, but I'll try my best... To start us all of, we got a cranberry orange bombs. Our server told us it would explode in our mouths. He was right, it did explode. There was a weird gel left over in my mouth, which didn't make me thrilled, but it was a good indicator of the gastronomy tricks we'd see throughout the night. The first course was a beet salad. It had a plethora of beets on it and was good. I'm not a huge beet fan, but I am learning when prepared correctly, I can enjoy them. Our second course was an Octopus slider - surprisingly good, and I thought about not eating the bread, but I took the risk (I'm not feeling too bad today, so I suppose gluten in small doses I can maybe tolerate.) Our third course was a cold slice of beef brisket. I enjoyed this, it had some crazy horseradish foam that was really yummy. I think it was after this course, that we got our interactive amuse bouche ...
Now that we were done with our cold appetizers, it was time to move on to the warm appetizers ... we were brought a delightful mushroom soup, that was poured over chili popcorn, herb cheese and button mushrooms. It was phenomenal, perhaps one of my favorite courses. I have come to learn through my cleanse and eating out lately, that this girl is a huge fan of a good soup. Which is partly why I'm thrilled that we've declared Soup Sundays in our house (at least for the winter!) After the soup we were brought agnolotti - which was a cheesy, creamy pasta with a little Serrano on the side. It was like a warm hot ham and cheese sandwich, good, but the cheese definitely owned the dish. Next we had some scallops - which were great, but the winning piece of that dish was the blini with a salted caramel mousse (truly, truly amazing! could have asked for a whole plate of those ...) After the scallops, I think is when we got the sea bass. It had a black Bearnaise, which I admit was perhaps my list favorite taste experience of the night, and maybe my least favorite course. (Okay, so if you're tacking that is seven courses so far - and I am sure I am forgetting an amuse ...) After the sea bass, we were brought out a sun dried tomato tortellini amuse ... nothing too special, but not bad either.
Next on the menu was the rabbit dish. It was rack of rabbit and rabbit pate. I enjoyed it, it tasted like smoked sausage. The tiny rack of rabbit was a little disturbing, but it didn't stop me from nibbling on the goodness. The ninth course was the steak course ... it was a sous vide hanger steak, with more of that good horseradish foam. This might have been my second favorite course at this point in the evening. It showed some great color and the flavors mixed well.
So, we knew our last course would be dessert, so the pescatarians ordered dessert and we sat in anticipation ... well, who knew ... they serve you a warm-up to dessert. Yes, a warm-up to dessert, which was three mini dessert bites (frankly, this could have been dessert!!) I think we were all awe-struck when he said that it was merely our warm-up. (And how brilliant is that idea anyway - perhaps more restaurants should take it on.) So, there we got a piece of dark chocolate with peanut butter powder, a cherry marshmallow with caramel powder ... and a heavenly vanilla maccaroon. (Oh, and I totally forgot after the rabbit course, we were given guava granita to cleanse our palettes!)
So, then dessert arrived, it was a chocolate paradise! There was a chocolate mousse with marshmallow cream that tasted like the best cup of hot cocoa in the world. And then there was a fudgy, decadent little brownie. There was also a dehydrated chocolate chip thingy, I wasn't fond of that, but the other elements totally made up for it.
(Oh, btw, with dinner I had a delightful albarino - I had thought to go red, but I can't pass up an albarino when I see one.)
So, was the two hour wait worth it ... yes, admittedly ... it was. Just to have that experience. I don't know if I've ever eaten that much food for such a great price and my company was great, so I can't complain. (D did text me at 10:30 though wondering where I was since it was so late and I'd left at 5!)
The one lessen we did learn was the meaning of travail (we looked it up while we were eating ... and found out it wasn't a positive meaning ... and very fitting of how we felt about waiting.) But lesson learned, I probably won't go on the weekend ... or if I do, we'll get there at 4:30 and wait outside ...or put our names on the list and know we can walk away for two hours.
Dammit - I hate it when trendy proves right.
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