Thursday 26 January
This was our big 21st anniversary, which means that our marriage can now legally drink in the US. We celebrated by drinking, of course responsibly, along with eating responsibly, i.e. having the five-course tasting menu at our nice local restaurant, La Poste.
We started with a festive glass of sparkle: one glass of Prosecco Il Folio, and one of a sparkling Chardonnay, Pascual Toso Brut from Argentina - the former, oddly, more brut than the latter, which was rather mild. In the meantime, we amused our gueules with a mix of chopped tomato and orange, served with pita chips.
Our first appetizer was a creamy seared scallop in bacon vinaigrette, set atop a mound of bitter greens on a rye toast, with gorgonzola foam and a sous-vide egg, just barely solidified. The flavors were vivid, and it actually would have made a wonderful breakfast.
Our second appetizer was also flavorful: wild mushroom ravioli in cream sauce, topped with mushroom slices and parmesan, and crisped sage leaves. Our nice server said this was the restaurant's most popular dish, and we can see why.
Then we seguéd to our main wine of the evening, a 2008 Domaine de la Bastide Blanche, a Mourvedre blend from Bandol in Provence. This was almost chocolatey, not very tannic, so it went with the variety of foods that were to come.
Our fish course was the night's special, pintado, a.k.a. Brazilian tigerfish, a novelty for us. It turns out to be a freshwater catfish with spots not stripes, so why isn't it called jaguarfish? It was served as succulent tranches with crisp skin, dressed with lemon and anchovy sauce on a bed of teeny tiny yukon gold potato dice and slivers of asparagus. We loved every little bit of it.
Our meat course was another special, bone-in veal strip steak all of 2" thick, with a strong (maybe too strong) reduction sauce, creamy corn, barley risotto, black trumpet and bluefoot mushrooms. The veal was excellent, but there was almost too much going on on the plate; you could have dropped either the corn or the barley, and lightened up on the reduction, and it would have been even better.
Finally, we had our choice of desserts, and we chose a shortbread tart with dark chocolate mousse, laid out with a half sphere of pastry filled with white chocolate mousse and a mandarin segment; and a cardamon and orange crème brulée. A fine finish to an excellent meal.
And the best part was, we walked the two blocks home and had a comfortable snifter of Calvados in bed. We're so glad that our anniversary is old enough to drink now.
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