Food Porn - Per Se
Oct. 21st, 2007 03:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jbsegalThis is not the full details version... Ok, it's not the full-of-squee version... it is all the food. :)
On the 14th, with many millions of thanks to Kimberly, I (and 9 others) went to Thomas Keller's New York outpost, per se for my birthday.
Oh. My. Gods. Everything (except the salad course) was utterly amazing. I've been trying to respond to the challenge placed before me that night of writing this up without resorting to... shit... was it superlatives? I think so. So far, I've not managed it.
I went in with the express desire - as I've had since my trip to Germany in '99 (See this entry for that write-up.) and even more since my 1st declaration of "Thomas Keller Is My Master Now", following my 4-times-in-2-days Bouchon-fest in Jan. '06 - to eat anything that was put in front of me, no matter what I think I think of it.
I was not sorry.
There was nothing that was not good. The salad course, as I said, was not amazing. It was good, but that's it. Everything else? Wow.
So, for the just-the-facts version, see Johanna's photos with (mostly) my text. The diacritics follow the letter they modify, and are like that because I was just writing in a text editor, rather than composing with html elements. The typos are almost certainly mine.
I have no memory of what the wine was, as I had only about a 1/4 pour of the white, and barely a sip of the red. However the one other thing worth mentioning is that they make their own tonic water! That, combined with some amazing brand of Gin made the best Tonic and Gin (as they put it) that I've ever had. corwin wanted it to have more gin, but I was fine with it as was.
The whole thing took about 4.5 hours, and ended with a tour of the kitchen which, as you might be able to tell from the photos, or maybe not, was SPOTLESS, while they were full in the middle of service. My gods.
Give me enough money and I'd go back there in a heartbeat. Of course, my next real quest is to actually make it to The French Laundry, and maybe a number of the other (numerous) well-respected Bay-and-Napa-area establishments.
I hope to have more on this to say later.
For now... wow.
Thank you again, Kimberly, for making this happen. :)
On the 14th, with many millions of thanks to Kimberly, I (and 9 others) went to Thomas Keller's New York outpost, per se for my birthday.
Oh. My. Gods. Everything (except the salad course) was utterly amazing. I've been trying to respond to the challenge placed before me that night of writing this up without resorting to... shit... was it superlatives? I think so. So far, I've not managed it.
I went in with the express desire - as I've had since my trip to Germany in '99 (See this entry for that write-up.) and even more since my 1st declaration of "Thomas Keller Is My Master Now", following my 4-times-in-2-days Bouchon-fest in Jan. '06 - to eat anything that was put in front of me, no matter what I think I think of it.
I was not sorry.
There was nothing that was not good. The salad course, as I said, was not amazing. It was good, but that's it. Everything else? Wow.
So, for the just-the-facts version, see Johanna's photos with (mostly) my text. The diacritics follow the letter they modify, and are like that because I was just writing in a text editor, rather than composing with html elements. The typos are almost certainly mine.
I have no memory of what the wine was, as I had only about a 1/4 pour of the white, and barely a sip of the red. However the one other thing worth mentioning is that they make their own tonic water! That, combined with some amazing brand of Gin made the best Tonic and Gin (as they put it) that I've ever had. corwin wanted it to have more gin, but I was fine with it as was.
The whole thing took about 4.5 hours, and ended with a tour of the kitchen which, as you might be able to tell from the photos, or maybe not, was SPOTLESS, while they were full in the middle of service. My gods.
Give me enough money and I'd go back there in a heartbeat. Of course, my next real quest is to actually make it to The French Laundry, and maybe a number of the other (numerous) well-respected Bay-and-Napa-area establishments.
I hope to have more on this to say later.
For now... wow.
Thank you again, Kimberly, for making this happen. :)
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 09:04 am (UTC)Who are all those nice people who went with you? I only recognize a couple of them.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 09:28 am (UTC)And yeah: holy god the kitchen. My jaw drops again just thinking about it. Also: the 57-degree-farenheit chocolate-making room.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 11:17 am (UTC)lovely pictures so I could drool more effectively. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 03:15 pm (UTC)yum!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 10:13 pm (UTC)See you soon ...
no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 02:38 am (UTC)Did the oysters and pearls have tapioca in it? That's supposed to be part of the pun. :)
I'm glad he kept the salmon cornets in New York. It's the signature amuse at The French Laundry. I don't think he'll ever be able to take it off the menu.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-24 04:02 pm (UTC)