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I've just got in from a late dinner at Le Gavroche. On balance, the meal was probably the fourth best I've ever had, and a full review will follow. (Edit: note to self - this never happens, write the whole things as soon as you get in)
I want to note one particular course now though. It isn't common, but it's not extremely rare, for food to make me moan, and sigh, and feel sensations not unlike the approach to orgasm. This dish, though, this duck pancake and fois gras in a cinnamon sauce, accompanied with a Banyuls 'Reserva' - a rich, spicy, sweet, dark grenache, is the only time food has brought me to the edge of tears.
I started by sipping the wine and letting it flow over my tongue, slip down my throat. I took a mouthful of fois gras. This is a delicacy that I've never been certain deserved its hallowed place, but as time has gone by I've acquired a taste for it, and this seemed like the culmination of that acquisition. Another sip of wine, and although it wasn't the flavours that meshed, there was an assonance, an almost Christmassy sense to the combination.
A pause, another mouthful, another sip, another pause. Then I tasted the duck. I can still, if I close my eyes, feel the crispness yielding between my teeth, revel in the seeming contradiction of lightness and richness and spice and juice released each time I bite down. I met the eyes of my dining companion and he commented, "I think these are the flavours the wine is supposed to match." Nodding my agreement I confirmed it with another sip, and found new layers as the aromatics of the wine and the duck melded together.
But what now? The fois gras, so delicious a moment ago, couldn't possibly compare. Self indugently I took another bite of duck, another sip of wine, and let the glory of it wash over me again.
Resistant still, I nonetheless returned to the fois gras, and was amazed to discover that the contrast to the duck, the smoothness after the meaty texture, the soft opulence after the sharp spice, the brusqueness of the charred edges, gave it something new and revitalised, a harmony where before only the melody had been audible.
Again and again I repeated the sequence, taking smaller and smaller bites each time, desperate not to reach the point where it would all be gone. And then, when it was all gone, and I almost wept, my darling companion gave me the last of his, allowing me to draw out this heavenly pleasure for a few moments more.
If I can ever create something like that I will die happy.
I want to note one particular course now though. It isn't common, but it's not extremely rare, for food to make me moan, and sigh, and feel sensations not unlike the approach to orgasm. This dish, though, this duck pancake and fois gras in a cinnamon sauce, accompanied with a Banyuls 'Reserva' - a rich, spicy, sweet, dark grenache, is the only time food has brought me to the edge of tears.
I started by sipping the wine and letting it flow over my tongue, slip down my throat. I took a mouthful of fois gras. This is a delicacy that I've never been certain deserved its hallowed place, but as time has gone by I've acquired a taste for it, and this seemed like the culmination of that acquisition. Another sip of wine, and although it wasn't the flavours that meshed, there was an assonance, an almost Christmassy sense to the combination.
A pause, another mouthful, another sip, another pause. Then I tasted the duck. I can still, if I close my eyes, feel the crispness yielding between my teeth, revel in the seeming contradiction of lightness and richness and spice and juice released each time I bite down. I met the eyes of my dining companion and he commented, "I think these are the flavours the wine is supposed to match." Nodding my agreement I confirmed it with another sip, and found new layers as the aromatics of the wine and the duck melded together.
But what now? The fois gras, so delicious a moment ago, couldn't possibly compare. Self indugently I took another bite of duck, another sip of wine, and let the glory of it wash over me again.
Resistant still, I nonetheless returned to the fois gras, and was amazed to discover that the contrast to the duck, the smoothness after the meaty texture, the soft opulence after the sharp spice, the brusqueness of the charred edges, gave it something new and revitalised, a harmony where before only the melody had been audible.
Again and again I repeated the sequence, taking smaller and smaller bites each time, desperate not to reach the point where it would all be gone. And then, when it was all gone, and I almost wept, my darling companion gave me the last of his, allowing me to draw out this heavenly pleasure for a few moments more.
If I can ever create something like that I will die happy.
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Food Pr0n!
Date: 2008-07-16 09:03 am (UTC)From:What were the other three?
Asked N, who's off to the Italian 'round the corner from the office (http://www.quaglinos.co.uk/) on Friday.
Re: Food Pr0n!
Date: 2008-07-16 09:34 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 10:11 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 02:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 02:12 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 02:21 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 09:57 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 04:14 pm (UTC)From:I wish I could recreate the perfectly tender guinea fowl I had in Fontevrault in France. The chef had cooked it just to perfection.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 06:45 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 09:38 pm (UTC)From: