I had a cup of coffee hot chocolate for breakfast while Suzette drank her coffee and we made an 8:15 reservation at Joseph’s Culinary Pub for its Santa Fe Restaurant week prices fixe dinner for $45.00.
Then she left to take a group of her clients on the Slow Food tour of the Valencia Flour Mill that has been in operation since 1914 and I worked.
When Suzette returned around 1:00 we heated the PPI Bouillabaisse and I added shrimp and mussels and we had a bowl of soup for our late lunch.
I noticed that the Men’s Curling final was being re-broadcast so I watched a bit of it and made Suzette watch the brilliant 8th end when the U.S. men scored five points to win the game. Then at around 2:30 we drove to Santa Fe. We first went to Stephen’s Consignment. Then at around 4:00we drove to Owing’s Gallery and admired the ridiculous prices on the art work, hoping ours might sell for such a high price some day. We then drove to Gerald Peters Gallery and enjoyed the contemporary shows he has hung. I talked to the attendant about several Chuck Close prints (a large “Phil” for $60,000 and a larger “Sienna” for $70,000) I saw and found out that Tiffany Editions was the publisher and that they also published the print of Obama I bought in 2012 for $5,000. Interesting.
We then drove up Canyon Road and stopped at Ernesto Mayans’ Gallery to check his prices on Arthur Haddock works and talk to him about selling one of mine I no longer want, but he was busy, so we just said hello.
We drove by Zaplin Lambert Gallery a couple of minutes before 5:00 but it was closed (Richard must be on Winter hours and closed early).
So I steered the mini toward the St. Francis Hotel on Don Gaspar at Waters Street. We parked and walked into The Gruet Tasting room, which used to be the board room meeting room off the lobby, but it was full so we waited a few minutes by the fire in the lobby of the hotel.
When we returned to Gruet and sat at a table, it was a few minutes after 5:00. The assistant manager recognized us and asked us if we were picking up our allotment and I said “Yes. She then asked us if we wanted to taste some wine and I said, “Yes”. Then she said “Shall we start with a glass of Sauvage?” And I said, “Yes.” Affirmation can be a strongly beneficial thing.
We tried the NV Sauvage (which is ,100% Chardonnay), then the Savage Rose (which is 100% Pinot Noir), then she poured the recently released 2014 Vintage Blanc de Noir that had a very perky zesty aspect, not unlike Gruet’s Brut but with much more Pinot fruitiness, then we tasted the 2012 Vintage Blanc de Blanc that has been my favorite because it has such a mellow vanilla flavor but it tasted flat and a bit old compared to the fresh 2014. We finished up a few minutes after 6:00 with a taste of Gruet’s new sweet champagne named Doux, which has a very peachy flavor. As we tasted we kept changing our minds about what to take as our five bottle allotment, but finally settled on 3 bottles of Sauvage Rose and one bottle each of the 2012 Blanc de Blanc and the 2014 Blanc de Noir.
We then drove to Site Santa Fe for the Friedrich Heinrich Kern Evolution of Silence Tour concert. We were directed through the museum to the Marlene Nathan Meyerson Auditorium. We talked to a lady who knew Marty and Marlene and said Marlene died in August.
The music was wonderful, a combination of acoustic piano, electric synthesizer, drum machine, and a glass harmonica. Kern lightly ran his fingers around the open top edges of vertically stacked open glass tubes nested in a wooden stand of different lengths to initiate sounds.
The vibration of the glass tubes being activated by the tension of the fingers set off vibrations in the neighboring glass tubes that created a harmonic effect; thus a glass harmonica.
The music was very peaceful with silences of a few microseconds between many notes that had a settling effect.
At 8:00 the concert ended and we drove the few blocks to Joseph’s Culinary Pub for our 8:15 dinner reservation. This year he was offering a three course fixe price meal for $45.00.
There was a rather extensive menu of starters and entrées with a pretty long list of desserts including the famous Cloud Cake.
Here are photos of the menus.
We both selected a salad of arugula, Frisée, and lettuce with food slices of smoked trout and a dill vinaigrette. It appeared to me that there was also a swirl of basil infused oil on the side of the rectangular plate on which the salad was served. We liked the salad and I loved the fresh warm dinner rolls served with an herbed whipped butter.
Many of the entrees contained chili. For example there was a ½ duck confit with a Thai slaw that the waiter waived me off of. I selected the lasagna with rabbit Bolognese sauce. Suzette chose the grilled Mahi Mahi served on a bed of creamed turnips and braised Brussels Sprouts and other vegetables.
I ordered an English Aspall Apple cider for $7.00 and Suzette ordered a glass of Albariño white wine for $14.00.
Suzette said her vegetables were rather tough and an odd assortment. I had the feeling that Joseph’s restaurant menu and presentation were geared to serving a volume of people and that the quality and care spent with each dish I had experienced in prior years had gone down a bit due to the effort to serve a higher volume of people. That is not to say that the creativity is not there. My lasagna was among the best I have ever eaten. Delicious and a wonderful rabbit bologna sauce.
But he no longer needs to introduce his food skills. Joseph’s skills are so well recognized that the number of people seeking a good meal at a good price has driven him to generate a menu that makes money by serving that greater number of people a reasonable dinner for the money rather than an exceptional meal.
Dessert still shown. Suzette ordered a chocolate cake in chocolate sauce and I ordered a chocolate Marquis with Crème anglais sauce and berries.
We both ordered decaf coffees that were served in a French press.
The total bill for the meal was $150.00, so not cheap. I think it did not live up to either of our expectations, perhaps due to all of the restaurant food we ate in Mexico, which made us tired of eating out so much.
Then we drove home and fell into bed.
Bon Appetit
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