Thursday, October 20, 2016

30 x 30: Eat at a Michelin Star Restaurant

I talked about this briefly in my last post, but while we were in New York we planned to eat at Chef's Table in Brooklyn. We were not allowed to take pictures of the food, but they wouldn't have done it justice anyway. Neither will my description, but I'll try...

It was easily the best food that I've ever eaten. Easily. But it was so much more than the food. It was the entire dining experience. They have 2 staggered seatings a night- a 6 and 6:30 and a 9:30 and 10. Our reservation was for 9:30 and the website said to allow 2 1/2 hours for the dining experience so we knew it was going to be a late night. The restaurant is small. There is a single hollow square. 2 servers remained inside the entire time. Around 3 sides, there was seating for a total of 16 people. The fourth side was where they plated the food and the food was all cooked behind the fourth side so we could see everything being cooked and plated. The chef came around and introduced himself to each of us before then meal and then again periodically while we were eating to make sure that everything was satisfactory.

We had already paid for our dinner ahead of time, but the sommelier brought the drink menu for us to look over. (And by "menu," I mean book. There were so many options!) We were a little overwhelmed about which one to order, so she suggested a white burgundy to start. We shared a bottle of that and then each ordered a glass of red when the meats came. I wish I could tell you which red wine we got, but we asked the sommelier to bring us a glass of red and I have no idea what it was, but it was delicious.

There were 15 courses. Yes, 15! And everything was amazing! It was seriously all a work of art. The first course was a trout caviar. It was served on a mini puff pastry crust. Ha! That does not even begin to describe what it was. But as they were plating the food, there was someone that came behind with tweezers in case any of the caviar rolled off the pastry. Then they, of course, had to wipe the plate off afterwards. One course had flowers and I watched them hand-select each flower before delicately placing it on the plate.

I won't go through all the courses, but we ate caviar, sardine, langoustine, sea urchin, king crab, snapper, squab, beef tenderloin, pork wagu, huckleberry sorbet, caramel souffle, lemon tart, chocolate tart, milk chocolate with almond. I'm pretty sure that everything was "the best thing I've ever eaten!" My favorites were the langoustine ravioli and the beef tenderloin. If I had closed my eyes, I wouldn't have known that it was meat. It was that tender. It basically just melted in my mouth. The caramel souffle was probably my favorite dessert, although they were all incredible!

It was definitely the most expensive meal that I've ever eaten, but 100% worth it. It was, by far, the best meal I've ever had and I would totally do it all over again. If you ever get a chance to go, I definitely recommend it!

No comments:

Post a Comment