turns out i suck at food pictures

[susandennis]

I'm just too interested in eating. Sunday morning we headed out for one of my favorite spots - Cheeky Cafe and had delicious eggs and pancakes.

Last night we went to Bateau. We had been there before. The food is fab but the selection process is daunting. You order your steak starting from an exhaustive list of cow parts. Their sides are fabulous and easier to order but last night we went with their new 5 course tasting menu which, turned out to have 6 courses.



We did not know what most of it was - even after we ate it - but, with the exception of the collard greens, was every single bite wonderful.

Two things we discovered eating in Seattle restaurants this week... They have all now serve water with no ice and you need to commit to sparkling or still in the beginning and that's what you get all night. For years - and I mean now 55 years - I've been ordering scotch and water. What I expect and what I have gotten for 55 years is a jigger of scotch with at leas that much water or more over cubes of ice. Well, twice now, my scotch and water now means something different. In one place it meant scotch over ice with a tiny splash of water (I think it was more a drop than a splash). "Oh, you really want water?" Then last night, my scotch arrived... ZERO water and ZERO ice. WTF??? I'm not sure how or why this changed but, from now on, I'm going to have to assume no one understands what I mean by scotch and water. WEIRD.

Now it is 6 am. I've done my internetting and had my coffee. We'll leave for the airport about 9. I think I'll go pop into the shower before Bill wakes up so that he can have it after.

Comments

[rsc]

I'd be all over that tasting menu. I'd probably take their wine suggestions, too, which would mean I probably shouldn't drive home.

[susandennis]

We talked about you last night in the middle of dinner because I knew you'd be delighted with it all. No driving because there are very few parking spaces so we Lyfted and you should, too.

[rsc]

Actually, it appears that we will in fact be in Seattle for a few days in early August, when, as it happens, the Red Sox will also be in Seattle. Will follow up in email.

[susandennis]

SWEET!!

[lostincandyrain]

I'm jealous of your Bateau meal. It's one of the restuarants that had been on my list to try in Seattle, which we never made it to. I don't think Jasper would have survived 6 courses though...

[jss]

> [...] turned out to have 6 courses.

Well... I think technically it's still five courses, it's just that the dessert course was both the ice cream and the beignet. Though this seems to have been five courses just like the Montreal motss.con foodie dinner was 10 courses (with 22 (!!!) components, including four amuse bouches and five desserts).

[susandennis]

Actually there was a whole course not listed. It was a savory something in a choux pastry that they served before the first course.

[rsc]

That would be what's generally called an "amuse-bouche" (French for "amuse (for entertain) the mouth"), which are never counted among the courses.

[rsc]

That Montreal dinner was really too much food, especially too much dessert (yes, there is such a thing).

[jss]

Yes, it was definitely an exercise — albeit a tasty exercise — in excess.

[msconduct]

Loling at the menu! I read all the trendy food magazines, so I can tell how super-fancy a place is by whether they have something I haven't heard of. This place had four! Actually, make that five - beef heel? And it's also very tight-lipped as to what the stuff actually is. Carpaccio of what? Croquette of what? Just "fromage"? Which one? And I'm still trying to figure out how you make a mille feuille out of collard greens. WTF? It's fun to go to that kind of place occasionally, and it sounds like your meal was mostly lovely but the older I get the less interested I find I am in fine dining. I've been to fancy places all across the US and now I've done too much of it. I can't stand one more waiter whipping the glass lid off a plate full of smoke.

The sparkling or still thing is how all restaurants do it in NZ. They hope to sell you the stuff in the bottle instead of good old tap and I always fall for it. It must be a couple of decades at least since a waiter has rocked up with just plain water to my table.

[rsc]

I would guess that the collard greens were encased in the mille-feuille, rather than substituting for the pastry.

Most places I've been are pretty clear about tap water being an option, which we always choose. (Not so in much of Europe, where if you want water at all you have to pay for it.)