Food Porn or How the Rich People Live

[susandennis]

I have been working like a dog to clear the decks for a 10 am conf call. Which I figured out at 10 am was actually at 2 pm. Good thing it's Friday. I figure now is a good time to break and record the adventures of last night.

My Dinner At Herbfarm... Or the most uses of 'amazing' in one entry ever!

Turns out it was dinner theater. Dinner was at 7. We walked out at 11:30. 1/3 of the time was spent in between stuff. 1/3rd of the time was spent eating and 1/3 of the time was spent hearing about the food... what it was, where it came from (in excruciating Portlandia detail) and how it had been prepared.

We were 12 in a private room which was great. The main dining room held about 40 people in probably 15 groups. We went in there to hear the invocation - the chef told about the food, the wine person told about the wine, the owner told about the joint and introduced the entire staff.

Then back to our little room which was really just perfect and amazing cozy. The attention to detail was amazing - detail in everything from the place cards to the menu booklets to the table arrangements. We had one guy, Barry, who was with us all evening explaining every course, making sure we had everything we needed seconds before we needed it. If you left to go pee, he'd take your plate back 'to keep it warm' and bring it back when you returned - I mean the minute you entered the doorway. It was a little freaky.

The food was actually amazingly amazing. And delicious. It was tiny bites of tiny food in amazing sauces plated artfully in specific dishes. I finally figured out that they must look at their service ware and then use what pieces they have available to determine what to make. A teeny tiny pitcher for the broth that went over the spoonful of sorbet... etc.

It was all pretty amazing. Towards the end, it took on kind of a Saturday Night Live skit-ish tint. Probably it was the 48 different wines I had had but I was finding it pretty hard to giggle. The chef - who looked to be about 14 (he had earlier been introduced as the youngest chef at a 5 star restaurant in the country) - came in to describe the cheese plate and noted that the teeensy weensy berries were some he had found earlier that morning while out walking his dog. I tried so hard not to picture them sauteed in dog pee...

In thinking back over the various courses, while they were all amazing, they were also just the right amount. I'm not sure more of any of them would have added anything positive to the experience. The wines were delicious. Each course had its own. For a couple of the courses I tried the non-alcoholic drink option which was also very good.

Midway through the thing, I decided that I really wanted to be a regular. But, now I think it was a marvelous once in a lifetime experience. I may feel different one day but now I'm good with the memory... and the pictures.

One very special treat of the evening was to finally meet cinenaut who holds the record for following me the longest. He first found me before I started this journal! He first found me when I was doing my Kingdome picture of the day series in 2000. We've almost met several times. His office - for the past few years has even been less than a mile from here... Last night we finally got face to face - quite fun.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Really? It was that good? I didn't need to hear that. I mean i expected to to snark about how over done it was and that it was overrated food wise.

Cuz now I want to go. Maybe for graduation....

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

That was me, that whole logging in thing is hard.

[susandennis]

ha. So yeah, I could not imagine any meal worth that kind of money but turns out my imagination was the problem there. It was good and worth it. Graduation would be a perfect excuse.

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

I'll keep you in mind for the guest list for next year then. =)

Oh and if you need meat eating company at the melting pot just holler.

[susandennis]

Oh! I totally need a meat eating melting pot friend!!! Name the day - I'll even get the car out and pick you up. That would be outstanding.

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

With my commute what it is, it would be very easy for me to bus straight to the international district station and meet you at the house and go. =) Next weeks wonky, but maybe the week after?

[susandennis]

next week is wonky for me, too... the week after sounds great and your bus to her plan sounds perfect. i am so glad you suggested this! plus i'll get the inside skippy on the new job (which sounds like it got off to a nice start so yeah!)

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

OMG look, your name on a place card!!

“We went in there to hear the invocation”

Makes it sound like it should be in Latin...

[susandennis]

Probably should have been... with incense... It was a hair too sincere anyway so that's probably why they went the non-Latin route.

[unbleachedbrun.livejournal.com]

What did you all wear?

[susandennis]

What a GREAT question!

Here in the northwest, the dress curve takes a funky twist. If you were to walk through downtown at lunch on a weekday, you'd be hard pressed to see 4 guys wearing neckties. It's just not a dress up town. Mix that with the fact that this group was all geeky all the time but over 40 and mostly over 50.

Our group wore sweaters and shirts. There were two ties and one jacket (like suit jacket) but spread over 3 guys. There were 4 women there. We all wore Better Than Every Day but not much better.

Had any of us been out to dinner at a halfway decent restaurant in Atlanta we would have looked like we were slumming. But we looked fine at this place. (I did notice that many of the male diners in the main dining room had on suits mostly very ill fitting. And the women - a lot of them had on dresses with very wrong shoes.

In other words the clientele knew they should dress up but didn't know how or didn't have the clothes.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

We have the Texas version of this across the street from our house...
Tender, gently smoked porcine ribs with a churlish red sauce plated on wafer thin fiber with green slices of bhindi rolled in a unique maize based meal and quickly heated in a stearin bath. This accompanied with a delightful combination of fresh garden cebolla and preserved cucumbers. Paired with a light scented effervescent aqueous based beverage.
Dress code is western chic, aka jeans and boots with/without wifebeater

Cleaverly named Moe's Bar-b-que. So busy no one goes there anymore.

(((submitted by the Perry for President campaign }}}

[susandennis]

and probably with fewer out-of-the-closet peops of the gay persuasion?

i bout choked on my coffee this morning when i heard some guy you were talking to ask if you weren't kind of a liberal... hilarious. (and heard you erase his 'kind of' pretty swiftly)

[vasilatos]

so sorry to have missed you guys. thanks for reporting.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

the teeensy weensy berries were some he had found earlier that morning while out walking his dog. I tried so hard not to picture them sauteed in dog pee

As soon as Eleanor (plantmom, the beloved across the living from) began to read that line out to me, I KNEW where your thought was going.

This sounds all kinds of awesome. As does the author ::rushes the friend button::

[susandennis]

Welcome!!

The menu

[kenrudolph.livejournal.com]

Hi, Susan, just in case your readers want to view the menu for the Herbfarm meal: http://kenru.net/motss/herbfarm_menu.pdf
Also, one slight correction: we were 14 in the small room, which was perfectly designed to fit exactly 14.

Re: The menu

[susandennis]

You found your password!! Excellent and thanks.