For some reason I always thought the French Laundry had both a regular tasting menu and a vegetarian tasting menu. And each time I went to the French Laundry I told myself: next time I really should try the vegetarian tasting menu.
Not that I went all that often, mind you. I mean, who can afford to?
But in the end, each time I chose the standard fare. Well, not that anything at the French Laundry can be considered standard. It can't.
Turns out I was wrong. It's not a vegetarian tasting menu at all. It's a "tasting of vegetables." In fact, given that for some dishes you get to choose between two options, on the night I was there they had ham, bacon, and lobster, all in the vegetable tasting menu.
So that's what I chose, the "vegetable tasting menu." Of course this time around it was also a little easier because I knew I'd be able to try at least a bit of each of the dishes in the regular tasting menu from my companion's plate.
When the waiter brought the famous coronets, I started to get a little worried.
It's not that the vegetarian one wasn't good (made with squash I believe); it's merely that nothing can compare to the awesomeness of their signature salmon coronet.
Luckily, after that there really was nothing I was jealous of in the Chef's Tasting Menu. Perhaps here and there I would have preferred something in the regular tasting, but overall the vegetable tasting menu was better.
Yes, that's right. The regular tasting menu is, indeed, perfection. Therefore, the vegetable tasting menu is better than perfect!
Of the eleven or so courses, I'll remember one for the rest of my life: the "fricassee" of cepe mushrooms, which had Hobbs' bacon, golden corn, French Laundry garden flowers, tarragon, and Maine lobster broth.
The service was excellent. We had a great waiter overall. But when it came to wine, the waiter was perhaps too helpful. Eventually I had to explicitly ask for the sommelier. I mean to me being the sommelier at the French Laundry would be the world's greatest job. I had to meet Christopher Hoel.
Besides how can you not like a sommelier who describes Gouguenheim Otono (Malbec) as: "the next best thing to edible underwear and larger drive-thru liquor stores. Massive dark fruit of blackberries and smoked meat with a nose that reminds me of a guy that would kick sand in your face and steal your girlfriend all in one fell swoop."
With Christopher's help we chose the perfect bottle of wine for the first half of our meal. It was also nice, since I was picking up the check for all four of us, that this was pretty much the cheapest wine on the list, the Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Riesling Kabinett.
How was the Meulenhof? It was sweet and wonderful and the perfect accompaniment to the food. I'll be giving a full review of the Meulenhof later on in this blog. But first I need to buy another bottle so I can properly divorce the wine from the French Laundry ambiance.
The wine for the second half of our meal was a Don Melchor. It will also get its own blog post in the next few weeks.
The other great thing was I finally got a tour of the kitchen. It was nice to see Corey Lee and Timothy Hollingsworth making magic together. Especially because Corey will be leaving the restaurant in the next month or so.
Thomas Keller, alas, was nowhere to be seen that night. But according to our waiter he'd been in all afternoon.
The French Laundry continues to be absolutely incredible. It's hard to imagine a better meal. Now I just have to try its East Coast counterpart, Per Se.
