Sunday, October 21st, 2007 was the most over-the-top indulgent day of eating in my life to date. We had an 11am lunch reservation at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry, arguably the greatest restaurant in America. We arrived a little early and had some time to enjoy the quaint and charming elegance of the property as we waited in the courtyard for the restaurant to open. From the little walkway near the restroom we could peer into a corner of the brightly lit kitchen where there was a calm, steady, almost studious level of activity as chefs silently prepped for service. I watched as one of the cooks wiped down the stainless steel lowboys beneath a counter, an activity that seemed completely unnecessary and all the more impressive because he was doing it with purpose and care, not just going through the motions as a mindless chore. It was very cool to see.

The door opened precisely at 11:00 and two hostess/managers came out to greet the waiting parties. One went to escort a couple sitting on the far bench and the other came to greet us. We walked inside, our hostess examined the guest book and casually asked “And you are the Moy party?” This caught me by surprise because she directed the question to Beth, who certainly does not look Chinese 🙂 I don’t know how they knew who we were, but it was just one in a long series of little details in which The French Laundry somehow got things just right.

We were led to the little upstairs dining room which was bright and inviting with comfortably upholstered dining chairs and elegant table settings. Each napkin was clipped with a signature wooden French Laundry clothespin, meant to be kept as souvenirs. The tiny wall mounted lights had beige lamp shades bearing markings that looked like alien hieroglyphics until I recognized them as the laundry symbols for “do not bleach”, “do not dry clean” and “iron”. You see what I mean about getting the little details right?

We started with a bottle of champagne and then the food started coming…and coming, and coming, and coming. On paper it was a 9-course tasting, but in reality it was more than that as there was also an amuse as well as an extravagant parade of extras at the very end. There were numerous highlights for me, but here were some of my favorites…

The cauliflower “panna cotta” with glazed oyster and white sturgeon caviar was a beautiful combination, particularly with the saltiness of the caviar and the remarkably deep cauliflower flavor in the panna cotta. The oyster and caviar stand on the quality of their raw ingredients, but to take a relatively mild vegetable like cauliflower and somehow intensify its flavor and imbue a custard with it? Man, that’s some great cooking.

Everyone knows I’m much more of a seared foie gras fan, but FL’s foie gras en terrine was actually almost as pleasurable. The texture was perfect; so smooth that as you spread it onto the thick, gorgeous slices of brioche, it would sink into the pores of the bread without indenting the surface of the bread at all. It was accompanied by three different kinds of salt- a sel gris, a salt from Japan and Jurassic salt from Montana. More nice details!

The lobster tail with bluefoot mushrooms, sunchokes and tarragon pudding was may not have been particularly creative, but it certainly tasted great. Although I think the lobster was poached in butter, so that’s like cheating; of course it was going to be delicious.

On the more creative side of things, The Marcho Farm veal tongue dish was the most memorable of the day. It was prepared and sliced like a mini little pastrami which in itself isn’t particularly revolutionary, but oh man, the sauce… Adorning the plate was an artfully drizzled and smeared brown sauce which turned out to be a “rye emulsion”. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the pastrami on rye reinvented. The sauce was so vivid in flavor you’d swear you were tasting a hearty rye bread. Clever and absolutely delicious.

Another dish that blew me away was the richest one of the day- a “Calotte de boeuf”. It was a single narrow rectangular block of meat, apparently having been sliced from a large flat steak so that you could see the nicely brown top and bottom edges along with the beautiful, reddish-pink but not at all bloody center. You could clearly see how well marbled the beef was and yes, it tasted every bit as luxurious as it looked. Ok, so you might say you’ve had really great beef at a million places, what makes this so special? Well, the truth is I didn’t even get the answer myself until after the meal was over. The appearance and flavor was strangely familiar. It was definitely a flat steak because the top and bottom edges were natural, not knife-cut, so you could see that the steak as god made it in the animal was only about an inch and a quarter thick. But the only flat steaks I’ve ever eaten are hanger, skirt and flank, but never with such incredible marbling and this steak certainly didn’t have the pronounced grain of those aforementioned cuts. So after the meal I asked the manager what cut of beef we had been served and her reply just floored me. She called it a “beef cap”. Have you ever had a rib eye steak (or a prime rib) and noticed how one piece of it, a crescent about an inch and a quarter wide, sort of comes away from the rest of the steak and has a slightly deeper, richer flavor, and often with visible streaks of collagen? That’s the beef cap! It was a real a-ha moment for me. Now I realized why I couldn’t recognize it, because I had never seen it presented on it’s own, and was particularly fooled because it was served as a straight, flat block whereas it’s always C-shaped when still attached to the ribeye! It instantly reminded me of the part of Bill Buford’s book Heat when he goes off to Italy to apprentice with Dario Cecchini, the most famous butcher in the world. He learned something that makes perfect sense when you think about it, but is completely counter-intuitive to probably all of us- that there is actually no global standard for how to butcher an animal. That is to say, different cultures have evolved their own ways of breaking down an animal for cooking, so the Italian name for a particular cut of steak in Tuscany may have absolutely no equivalent in any other language, not because of the language difference, but because nowhere else in the world do they butcher the animal in that fashion! Looking at the meat itself, because of the natural separation, the “beef cap” as it’s own cut makes a lot more sense than including it as part of a “rib eye” steak. Just as a porterhouse doesn’t make natural sense either since you’re basically including pieces of two different muscles. Ok, I know I’ve gone way off on a tangent here, but what can I say, I’m a geek and I find this kind of stuff really interesting.

Anyway, it was an extraordinary meal from top to bottom, and it was capped off by a ridiculously decadent onslaught of mignardise. The chocolate covered macadamias were my favorite and even though they came in a small silver dish, the supply seemed to be endless as they were so addictive and I couldn’t stop munching on them. I should point out that the service was absolutely flawless in my opinion. The dishes were spaced out perfectly. Lunch spanned about four hours and we never felt rushed nor was there ever a gap long enough for us to notice that it had been a while since our last dish. When someone stepped away from the table, their napkins were replaced with new ones. Our water and wine glasses were always refilled promptly, and most importantly, the service never once felt pretentious. To end the meal, our lovely waitress Shannon brought over a big tray with row after row of hand made chocolates. “Have as many as you’d like” she offered, and we each tried to sample them all even though we were all stuffed. Well maybe some of us were more stuffed than others…

After lunch we had a quick peek into the gorgeous kitchen (pictured above) before leaving the restaurant. Then we took a leisurely little stroll through the adorably quaint downtown stretch of Yountville before getting back on the road. We had just finished eating around 3pm, but I had designs on eating at Restaurant Gary Danko before leaving town, and the only way we were going to do that is if we managed to get to a seat at the bar right when they open at 5pm. Well, the weekend had pretty much gone perfectly so far and this was no exception- we pulled up to GD’s valet parking right at 4:57!

We took our seats at the bar and I opened by getting a bottle of Billecart-Salmon rosé champagne. Glorious stuff. I looked over the menu and decided I would have four courses. I knew my compadres were all still way too stuffed from lunch to even want to think about food, but they gamely joined the gluttony and ordered a dish each. We were all started with an amuse of thai soup. Coconut broth based, it was bright and pretty authentic Thai in flavor. A nice little start.

My first dish was the glazed oysters with Osetra caviar and lettuce cream. What a magnificent dish. Small oceany-sweet oysters, delicious caviar and that mild cream sauce all came together in a wonderful way. Paired with the champagne, I really was a happy man. But things only got better as my next dish was the seared foie gras with caramelized onions, seckel pear and huckleberry sauce. This was the type of dish that first made me fall in love with foie gras. A perfect sear on the outside, heavenly slick richness within and a nice sweet and acidic sauce to contrast that richness. I should point out though, that the affable bartender who was serving us made a gaff at this juncture. As he was preparing for my foie gras to arrive he asked if I would like to pair it with a sweeter wine. When he said Hungarian, I finished his sentence and said “Tokaji?” because we had just had that pairing with our foie gras en terrine at French Laundry a few hours ago. But then he said “5 Puttonyos” which was a different tokaji than what we had at lunch but one I was familiar with from my last meal at Veritas. What he ended up bringing for me was in fact not the 5 Puttonyos, but the same Kiralyudvar I had just had at French Laundry. Not that I was disappointed, since they are both fantastic wines. But I called him on it and he tried covering his mistake by saying Putunyos refers to the level of sweetness (which is true), but I knew he was operating from what he remembered from their wine list which I saw him go to the back to review before returning to offer his fabricated explanation. You can clearly see on the wine list that the only thing listed as 5 Puttonyos is the Aszú I had at Veritas, and it turns out that the Kiralyudvar is actually 6 Puttonyos. Anyway, I let him off the hook since I didn’t have the wine list in front of me and he was a nice enough guy so I had no desire to press the issue.

Next up, the seared sea scallops. It was accompanied by butternut squash puree, tiny little roasted florets of cauliflower, crushed pistachios and cooked sour cherries. I know it sounds like a busy dish but it worked. It was magnificent. And I have to say, the roasted cauliflower here (roasted until browned), and the cauliflower panna cotta from FL have totally re-awakened me to the beauty and possibility of that humble product.

For my fourth course I had the squab, Moroccan spiced and stuffed with couscous. This dish missed the mark. The squab meat itself was fine, but the skin was chewy in certain parts and I couldn’t even get through it with my knife. The couscous was a little bland as well.

Since I had indulged myself all weekend, I figured this was no time to stop. I had been eyeing the impressive looking cheese cart the whole time, so I went ahead and ordered the cheese course. A waiter wheeled the cheese cart over to me and I selected three varieties of bleu cheese and a hard cheese called Three Sisters. It was the perfect way to end my meal because I certainly didn’t crave any more sweets after the mignardise-palooza at French Laundry.

So that concluded my incredible day of gustatory delights. Lunch at The French Laundry and dinner at Gary Danko. Even with as much dining experience as I’ve had, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed back-to-back same day meals of that caliber ever before. That, plus all the great wine we had made this one of the most obscenely indulgent weekends I have ever, and perhaps will ever, experience in my lifetime. Big thanks to Mat and Beth for all the wine and doing all the driving, and to Sonia for making the trip all the way out from Florida. As I said before, Good Times!