Celebratory Dinner at Manresa

Before I get into this post about Manresa, it may seem like Bill & I go out a lot but to be honest, we rarely go out now that I’m retired. I cook at home and try out a lot of recipes from either our next cookbook or from the current food magazine. During his radiation, his diet was very restricted. He couldn’t eat fresh vegetables, fruit or anything with fibre. Everything was overcooked and I bought a loaf of white bread for the first time in over 20 years! After eating this way for 2+ months, gourmet food was on our “To Do”list.

We dined at Manresa with the Simonis and Pattersons to celebrate the end of his radiation treatments. We waited for over a month to make sure he was able to eat “anything” and to get on everyone’s calendar. It’s been many months since we have dined here and as always, it’s good to return and see familiar faces.

If you haven’t tried Manresa lately you must go. They have remodeled the restaurant, added a cocktail lounge and an elegant look to the restaurant. The menu continues to reflect a Japanese influence. We did not get to see David since he was in Japan for 2 weeks. Next week’s menu should be fascinating since he will be infusing it with the latest ideas from his trip.

In the past you would chose whether to have 3, 4 or 5+ courses at different prices. Now there are two prix fixe menus. The Prix Fixe is $125 pp and the Tasting menu is $175 pp. This is without wine pairings. We, of course, brought wines from Bill’s and Bob's cellar.

We chose the $125 menu.

Smoked Avocado ceviche

Selection of Manresa baked breads and hand-churned butter

Toasted buckwheat and duck foie gras, Etrog citron

Into the Vegetable Garden, their juices. . . Roots, raw, leaves, flowers

Poached egg Manresa: quail egg yolk, Vermont maple syrup, chives, whipped cream, sherry vinegar, sea salt.

A Winter Tidal Pool, shellfish, mushroom, seaweed

Black Cod, a crab and squid risotto without rice, root vegetables

Lemon grass and lemon balm tea

Duck, slowly roasted in hay and salt crust, homemade walnut wine

Roasted parsnip custard and demeara crumble, lime and yogurt sorbet
Chocolate cremeux with argan oil, a light jam of sanguinello and Campari, rhubarb

Before I go on, I looked up several items on the menu.
Etrog is a lemony type citrus fruit, grown primarily in Israel.
Demeara is a natural brown sugar from sugar cane, sometimes called demerara sugar.
Cremeux is a French word that means “Creamy”…it’s not a pudding, mousse or a sauce but has a silky texture in between them. I found a website that describes how to make it: http://baking104tw.blogspot.com/2010/09/chocolate-cremeux-what.html
Argan Oil – oil produced from the kernels of an argan tree…what else? It is found in Morocco and is one of the rarest oils in the world.

Our dinner reservations were for 6 p.m. and we ended the dinner at 11. It was well spaced out and Jeff Bareilles took Bill’s & Bob's wines and made choices in terms of what to pair them with. We started off with a bottle 2002 Roederer’s Crystal, my favorite champagne, that had bubbles so fine that you could fit several on the head of pin! We drank that before dinner and with the first entré. Jeff selected a Loire wine, a 2004 Philippe Delesvaux Chenin Blanc, gran nobles, to go with the foie gras dish. We then had 1997 Louis Latour Corton Charlemagne with our Vegetable Garden, one of David’s signature dishes. Bob brought a 1997 Gaja Borolo that was the perfect match to the Black Cod because it was a very rich dish. A 2006 Rochioli West Bank Pinot Noir was served with the duck and 2004 Chateau D Y’quem was served with the desserts. It went well with the parsnip custard but better sipped alone than with the Chocolate cremeux.

For me, this menu was too much food but everyone else thought it was perfect and ate every last bite. I had to bring my duck home. I was full by then.

My favorite dishes were the Smoked Avocado ceviche and A Winter Tidal Pool. The flavors were so clean and just burst in your mouth. The smoked avocado was formed into a oval egg shape and was immersed in a shallow pool of water that had a ocean taste to it. What is was, I couldn’t tell you but I loved every small bite of it! The Winter Tidal Pool was a beautiful dish that did look like a tidal pool, complete with uni and seaweed! Hidden in the tidal pool was a dollop of foie gras that added a richness to this dish that was amazing. The mushrooms were teeny, tiny enoki’s.

The Poached Egg was an added amuse bouche because it is one of Bill’s favorite dishes. Jeff, our sommelier and Wine & Beverage Director, overheard us all raving about it and asked the sous chef to add it to our menu. Ahhh, the crowning touch to an already perfect evening.

The duck was perfectly prepared and delicious. The walnut wine, Nocino, is a liqueur made with green walnuts that has been steeped in vodka, sugar and spices. Although it starts off with green walnuts, the liqueur turns out a dark brown. The Nocino adds a depth of flavor to the duck breast slices that were sitting on top of a “riceless risotto” made out of barley and creamed potatoes.

The Roasted Parsnip Custard is the prime example of creating something new out of the basic principles of the Flavor Bible. The Demeara crumble added the crunch and sweetness to the dessert in contrast to the creamy parsnip custard and the tart lime and yogurt sorbet. It was garnished with a little sprig of fennel frond.

The last dessert, the Chocolate Cremeux was a complex jumble of flavors. I’m not sure that I could separate the argan oil flavor but the blood orange, Campari and rhubarb granita was wonderful and it was chocolate-y enough for Bill.

Before we walked out of the restaurant, we were treated to Coconut Meringues with coffee cream filling and a take-home bag of 6 pistachio butter cookies AND those to-die-for caramels (I am such a glutton, I took 3 out of the candy jar).

Bill is definitely off the bland food wagon now!