I awakened early to watch the CNN Sunday morning news program and the Everton v. Chelsea PL match. When I turned on the TV around 6:30it Chelsea was up 2 to 0, so I watched the news for a while. When I changed the channel back to soccer the score was Chelsea 4 to Everton 0. So went back to bed and slept until almost 9:00. The big match was Man City v. Man United at 10:30, so I watched the news programs talk about coronavirus until then. It was a great match except Man City was unable to generate much offense and Man United scored an early goal that proved to be the game winner.
At 9:00 I diced about 4 oz. of red onion and Suzette fetched the scallops, salmon, diced avocado, and fresh baby arugula from our compost pile and I fetched the last oz. or two of goat cheese and she made a wonderful omelet that she garnished with fresh avocado slices . I drank a cup of camomile tea and Suzette made her weekly Bloody Mary.
At 12:00 we left for Santa Fe due to the time change. When we arrived we first drove to Stephen’s Consignment and the to Trader Joe’s where we bought a package of Black Forest ham, a package of semi soft Alpine cheese and a package of sliced goat cheese, a box of Fig and olive crackers and a box of Multigrain crackers. We drove to the Gruet Tasting room in the St. Francis Hotel on Gallisteo and set up our food at a corner table. Nauf helped us. She checked my allocation history and discovered that I had yet to pick up my last two allocations, which was a case of 12 bottles. We began tasting the daily tasting of five wines plus about five or six additional wines at 3:00. We had just selected our allocation when Marty and Yoyo arrived at 4:00 ( 4 Chardonnay Sauvage, 4 Brut, 2 of the newly released Laurent Special Cuvée, and 2 Extended Tirage champagnes. This was the first time we had taken snacks to a Gruet to eat with the wine and I loved it. We shall take food often in the future, because it turns the tasting from a sterile affair into a feast of flavors. We talked and tasted a few wines from 4:00 until 5:00 when we decided to go home.
The crowd at Gruet
Our snack platter
The restaurant was more crowded than usual. We were seated at my favorite corner table by the open kitchen. We were handed the regular menu and the special Restaurant menu when we were seated
and served water.
Looking toward the front of the restaurant
Marty and YoYo ordered Pork Medallions and Suzette and I ordered the Verlasso Salmon because Billy had suggested cooking it when we went to Taos at the end of January for the Winter Wine Festival.
I was not thrilled that the restaurant was running out of things, such as the mozzarella crepe that I wanted to try and the apple brandy sauce for the Pork Medallions, so when Suzette ordered the Mussels as an appetizer, I ordered the salad with romaine lettuce dressed with a sharply vinegary red wine vinegar dressing because it had pork cheek lardons, which I had never tasted before to stay on the lighter fresher track. Yoyo only ordered the Pork Medallions as an entrée so she shared the mussels Marty ordered.
As it turned out the appetizer of ten or so mussels steamed in a Carta Blanca sauce was the best dish of the meal. They were large and tender and the slightly sweet creamy sauce full of carrot, onion, and celery strips was terrific. My salad was just okay, but the vinegary dressing turned out to be an effective palate cleanser and a burst of freshness of the chilled lettuce.
Suzette decided to try the white three half glass wine flight for $15.00. She gave me the French Bordeaux because it was mostly Chardonnay. We shared the Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc and she drank the Chenin Blanc with dinner. We got Marty to order a three half glass wine flight, also for $15.00 that included two Pinot noirs and a Cabernet Sauvignon. He drank the two pinots and loved them and he and Suzette drank the cab with dessert because cab goes exceedingly well with chocolate. I ordered decaf coffee when I saw the plate with six small chocolate desserts. A small flat meringue cookie filled with chocolate cream and topped with a pistachio, a ball of baked dense chocolate cake flavored with orange and a flourless torte on a thin chocolate crust.
The entrees turned out to be less interesting. The Verlasso salmon tasted like any other farm raised salmon. The most interesting part of the dish was the preserved lemon compote garnishing the grilled salmon. I liked the grilled shishito chilis, which were mild in spiciness, and cippolini onions with the fish. The fishers grilled to medium rare by removing it from the grill when I requested it rare while they were cooking it. The salmon was served on a bed of potatoes gratin that was baked to perfection, even though it was seasoned with a bit more black pepper than I like.
I researched Verlasso salmon and found out that it is the first farm raised salmon to be deemed sustainable because the producer mixes a feed created by DuPont that incorporates converted yeasts made from corn and soybeans into the traditional fish feed. This reduces the volume of fish used to feed the salmon from 3.5 to 4.5 lb. of fish (mostly omega 3 rich sardines and mackerel) to produce 1 lb. of salmon down to 1.34 lb. of fish, so it is like any other farm raised salmon but for the fact that it is raised sustainably.
Marty seemed to like his Pork Medallions and cleaned his plate. Yoyo ate half of her entree as did Suzette. Our waitress, who was excellent, boxed all the leftovers for us.
I would say it was a good, but not excellent meal, probably due to the fact that the kitchen was slammed by the large crowd of Restaurant Week diners.
We drove home at 9:00 and a did a side by side tasting of XO cognac Otard, the Chateau de Laubade Bas Armagnac in a fancy decanter and the Berenroy XO Calvados .
Here is a short description of the Laubade Armagnac:
Bas Armagnac, Gascony, France- The XO is a blend of very fine, subtle and elegant spirits, the youngest being 12 years old (some go to 25 years old). The resulting Bas Armagnac is rounded and deep. This offering is presented in an elegant, heart-shaped crystal decanter.
What a nice finish to a nice day of food and wine.
I love the fact that Marty and YoYo seem to be bubbling over with the experiences they are having.
Bon Appetit
No comments:
Post a Comment