restaurant week
Nov. 15th, 2008 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kismet09Have I really not posted since Monday? I guess not much has happened. I'm dyeing yarn in full swing for Bazaar Bizarre, work is work, I watch 2 eps of house every night, and I can't stop playing Trism.
We did go to Restaurant Week dinner last night at the Dunaway, which is part of Strawbery Banke, a historical museum-y area in Portsmouth. We're definitely getting both more extravagant and pickier in our dining, and were able to pick out quite a few nuances of the meal that put it into our top 20, but probably not even top 10 meals. A few years ago, almost any $10 meal would've made the top 10. I had a great martini, though - ginger vodka, ginger ale, something citrusy... I can't even remember all of it.
Anyway, we ate:
Bread basket - sea salt and rosemary, flaxseed oil and whole wheat, served with brandied maple butter
Gnocchi Gratinee - Wild mushrooms, brocolinni, white truffled sauce mornay
Pumpkin Carnaroli Risotto - Caramelized cipolinnis & sweet potatoes, Blythedale Farms brie & sage oil
Pear ice cream with rosemary foam
Red Kuri Squash Soup - Meadow’s Mirth Farm squash, housemade vanilla creme fraiche & paprika
Roasted Peking Duck = Bacon braised kale, duck confit, organic mushrooms & parsnips with chicken reduction
Financier, dark chocolate mousse, pistachios, callebaut chocolate sauce, huckleberries & salted chocolate ice cream
Some of the missteps: They spelled the names of at least two alcohols wrong on their menu. The servers mis-said a couple of things ("triple cheese brie" and "egg white chocolate cake" were two of them) and made us think they didn't really know the menu very well. There was no confit served with my duck. Many of the components of different dishes, while good on their own, didn't really come together well. The chocolate cake was dry and bad - I still don't know what she meant to say the cake was - maybe flourless? maybe egg free? And there was definitely no financier associated with the dish - that would've been a lighter cake, I'm pretty sure. It's never good when the dessert leaves such a negative final impression.
The restaurant itself was nice - wood burning fireplace, two levels, open kitchen (though we sat upstairs, so we couldn't watch kitcheny things). But, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't go back and pay full price.
We did go to Restaurant Week dinner last night at the Dunaway, which is part of Strawbery Banke, a historical museum-y area in Portsmouth. We're definitely getting both more extravagant and pickier in our dining, and were able to pick out quite a few nuances of the meal that put it into our top 20, but probably not even top 10 meals. A few years ago, almost any $10 meal would've made the top 10. I had a great martini, though - ginger vodka, ginger ale, something citrusy... I can't even remember all of it.
Anyway, we ate:
Bread basket - sea salt and rosemary, flaxseed oil and whole wheat, served with brandied maple butter
Gnocchi Gratinee - Wild mushrooms, brocolinni, white truffled sauce mornay
Pumpkin Carnaroli Risotto - Caramelized cipolinnis & sweet potatoes, Blythedale Farms brie & sage oil
Pear ice cream with rosemary foam
Red Kuri Squash Soup - Meadow’s Mirth Farm squash, housemade vanilla creme fraiche & paprika
Roasted Peking Duck = Bacon braised kale, duck confit, organic mushrooms & parsnips with chicken reduction
Financier, dark chocolate mousse, pistachios, callebaut chocolate sauce, huckleberries & salted chocolate ice cream
Some of the missteps: They spelled the names of at least two alcohols wrong on their menu. The servers mis-said a couple of things ("triple cheese brie" and "egg white chocolate cake" were two of them) and made us think they didn't really know the menu very well. There was no confit served with my duck. Many of the components of different dishes, while good on their own, didn't really come together well. The chocolate cake was dry and bad - I still don't know what she meant to say the cake was - maybe flourless? maybe egg free? And there was definitely no financier associated with the dish - that would've been a lighter cake, I'm pretty sure. It's never good when the dessert leaves such a negative final impression.
The restaurant itself was nice - wood burning fireplace, two levels, open kitchen (though we sat upstairs, so we couldn't watch kitcheny things). But, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't go back and pay full price.
