French Laundry...aka foodman

i know that it has been almost a week since j and i had our meal at French Laundry and i have not said a word...well i have been trying to get my thoughts together and organize them into a cohesive post but i don't think i can really do that without just putting pen to paper so to speak...so here goes...

sunday after i relaxed for a bit by the pool...had a nap and j a massage...team mates started returning...Coach Chrissie had earned a spot at the 70.3 championships and stayed at the race to accept her spot...nice job coach!...so folks were returning and ben brought out the champagne and the celebration had begun...

it was really nice to sit around the pool and chat with the rest of the team and hear about their races...a lot of people had a tough day...some kicked butt...there was a whole range of races...and well, that was reassuring to me...this really was my first A race that i didn't achieve what i set out to do...i'm still processing...but i think i figured out my down fall...and well, we move on...

so after a few glasses of bubbly i was off to shower and pack up and head off to french laundry...chrissie gave me my spa treatment (scrubbing my race numbers off)...i showered off the day and put on my pretty blue dress...j and i had decided to say good bye to boon hotel and spend the night in san fran...not far from the airport (so our drive in the morning was 5 minutes rather than 2 hours)...so we said bye to the rest of the team and were off

the drive to French laundry was really gorgeous...we had a really nice time chatting and driving over the mountains...checking out vineyards and the sights of CA...and CIA west...wow that is a pretty campus...even though we drove about an hour and a half it was a lot of fun...and nice to see some of the spots where my favorite wines are grown...and made...

we arrived just before sunset...and found the pretty gardens that were across the street...they had little french laundry tags on them...very pretty...i was excited to eat what was growing there...j and i walked to the door and were greeted and went out to the courtyard to wait for our table to be ready...

the grounds were totally beautiful...roses and green green grass...there was one building that was the main spot...where all the tables were...like an old house...and two out buildings...one attached (the kitchen) and another that housed a rest room and several rooms that we couldn't figure out what they were...i guess private dining rooms of some sort...

about 10 minutes later we were brought in to the house...they took j's jacket and my sweater...and we went upstairs to our table...the first thing that we both noticed was that the tables were kind of crammed in the room...there was a 6-8 top three 4 tops and our 2 top crammed into a room that would have been more comfortable with 2 less tables...we got menus and the wine list...the wine list was maybe 30 pages long...couldn't even read the whole thing...read the first few pages...uh spendy to say the least...there was a half bottle for a grand...seriously...we found a (relatively) cheap half bottle of wine to split since we knew we were driving after dinner...

we checked out the menu...there were two options...both tasting menus and nine courses each..with a few options along the way...like choose between this and that for course 3 etc...one was a vegetable tasting...the other...not so veggie...the veggie one was not entirely veg...there was some lobster broth in there...but nothing over that...j got the meat option i the veg and we were resolved to share...well he would share with me :)

the food....well that was just fantastic...from the amuse bouche (a black pepper tuile filled with house made creme fresh topped with beet tar tare...j's with Scottish smoked salmon)...to the espresso...to the tiny diced melon...and peeled toy box tomato salad...eggplant confit...nectarine sorbet...uhm wow...my gnocchi was meltingly good...every vegetable was the most flavorful that i have ever tasted...white alpine strawberries with the cheese course tasted more like strawberries than the reddest one i have ever eaten...and the presentation was also super beautiful...the artistry of the knife work from the kitchen was fantastic...i think my favorite thing was something of j's...it was a lobster knuckle in a biriani curry with basmati rice...best Indian food ever :D

there was nothing about the food that could have been recreated...even if you studied the menu...there was just such perfect produce that you could not get anywhere else...just very perfect...and i was really impressed with the food...we were there 3 and a half hours (we were seated at nine pm) and actually had to hurry up the service since we needed to drive to SF...and hopefully before sunrise ;)

but there was something that i just couldn't put my finger on that was off about the meal...i thought that it was the four top that was across from us...two couples...it was very clear that one of the guys was trying to impress the other couple...i had thought it was his in-laws but it wasn't the in-laws...they were sitting the kid...(yes the tables were that close that we didn't even need to try to hear...oh and the wife of the trying to impress dude was having some GI issues...yeah...like we needed to know all this)...but j really nailed it the next night when we were home sitting on the porch...i was drinking cheap wine and he was having a tall boy of lone star...(love it)

the whole thing was inauthentic...the experience was manufactured...i feel like i have more of an experience at my neighborhood starbucks since each employee is a true human and does not speak from a script...the courses were timed for each table the same way...so much so that we wondered if there was a stop watch set in the kitchen for each table and course...each presented in exactly the same way...it was all very very much the same...what was really disheartening was that the waiters even asked each table the same questions to make small talk...seriously...it's strange...i think i would have liked it better if i had a story to tell that a waiter at the french laundry spilled an iced tea on me...or told me that they were working their way through school at the the Culinary Institute of America down the road...something to make it more real...more down to earth...

don't get me wrong...it was amazing to have the opportunity to eat such fantastic food at such a legendary restaurant that had launched so many chefs into stardom...and i would not change that for the world...it was just surprising that it was really cookie cutter...and forced...

oh yeah i forgot to mention my dessert...it was so cool...there was apple wood smoke trapped in a sphere of chocolate....best presentation ever...the server poured a warm sauce over the ball to release the smoke...very cool...and one last thing that was fantastic about this place was the kitchen...lots of windows...a flat screen live to per se in new york...and totally immaculate...loved it...

and no way around this...it was totally memorable...something i will not forget...thanks j and happy anniversary present to me :D

and with that...that is the race report for foodman