eating is easier than writing

I was recommending restaurants to a friend today and realized there were at least recent two food outings that I had failed to blog. I think when I take a lot of photos I get overwhelmed by the thought of uploading and writing about all of them, so I procrastinate so long that eventually I forget. Anyway, without further ado, here are some catch-up reviews...

Last December, I picked COI for my birthday dinner. They serve an eleven-course set menu with a few choices along the way:


The amuse was a milk and honey bubble, served on a silver spoon:


The first course was entitled "pink grapefruit" and it was a kind of sorbet, with a dab of perfume on the plate. The waiter explained we were supposed to put the perfume on our wrists so we could smell it while eating. Hmm.


Next up was a trio of tiny beets. I usually dislike beets but these ones were extremely well done and this was one of my favorite courses:


I chose a fromage tart as my next course. It was a bit disappointing; too gooey and not flavorful enough:


The other option was "oysters under glass". The "glass" part was made of yuzu, radish, and apple. I'm so-so about oysters (I refuse to eat cooked ones at all) which is why I chose the fromage tart, but this particular dish looked pretty interesting and I think I might have preferred it:


The soup course was a squash puree with asian pear, pomegranate, chili flakes, and mint. I actually don't remember this course that well except that I liked the hint of chili. It was rather a boring presentation, though, as you can see:


The next course offered a choice between an "abstraction of garden in early winter" and a crab melt. I chose crab, of course. The crab itself was good but whatever was on top of it was too gooey for my taste, and it didn't taste like cheese, either (which I think would have been an improvement):


I saw some people at the next table with the "garden" option and it certainly looked a lot more interesting than my dish, but I didn't ask them how it tasted.

Following that was an "earth and sea" dish which had tofu, mushrooms, and seaweed. It was very Japanese in flavor and I liked it pretty well but wasn't blown away:


I think by this time I was ready for some real meat, but no, my next dish was matsutake, "grilled on the plancha". I have no idea what that means. The matsutake was again, fine but not amazing:


The other option would have been abalone, with a caper berry vinaigrette. I had a bite, and decided I liked Chinese-style abalone better:


I finally got some beef at this point. The beef loin was cooked with marrow and wild mushroom. The chunk of marrow was huge, and really nicely cooked, and I liked the wild mushroom garnish very much as well. I guess it's not surprising that this was one of my favorites:


The cheese plate came with a single slice of cheese, watercress, persimmon, and walnut. The cheese itself was yummy but I guess I'm still not a big fan of persimmon. Also, at this point, I was kind of thinking that there hadn't been all that much food, and we were already on dessert, so I was a bit disappointed there wasn't more cheese:


The palate cleanser was cute and I vaguely remember liking it. It had melon, berry, and mint in it:


Then, on to dessert! This quince and huckleberry parfait doesn't look like much (especially because I failed to focus on it properly) but it was delicious. In fact, it was my favorite course of the evening:


The chocolate mesquite cake was quite good as well but I think it was a letdown after the parfait, and I wasn't fond of the accompanying squash sherbert:


My overall opinion was that there were a lot of creative ideas but the execution was a bit uneven and the amount of food, while okay for me, would have been definitely not enough for many people, even though there were eleven (!) courses. I am glad that I tried it once, just for the experience, but I don't think I'll make a special effort to go back.

On to even better things!

I'd been hearing great things about Cyrus for awhile now, but up until this year I'd been too lazy to make it all the way up to Healdsburg to try it. Big mistake.

About a month ago, I finally secured a Saturday reservation for dinner at 8pm. After running some errands in the city, we got on the road a little before 6pm. We actually arrived around 7:30pm, and normally I think I'd have enjoyed walking around Healdsburg a bit, but somehow the combination of running around all day and the long drive had made me feel sick. Luckily, D recognized my symptoms as dehydration, and after chugging a full bottle of water in about 30 seconds, I recovered in time to enjoy my long-anticipated meal.

The menu offered a five-course option and an eight-course option, and of course we chose the eight courses:


We started with an assortment of canapes, each representing one of the five tastes:


The sweet (cardamom custard) and sour (citrus & wasabi) were on the top, with the bitter (rutabaga & cranberry) and savory (mushroom & black sesame) in the middle, and the salty (pickled cucumber) at the bottom.

After the canapes came the amuse, which was kampachi with sakura shrimp and pickled veggies. I love kampachi (the waitress stopped explaining what it was when I exclaimed, "kampachi!!") and this preparation did not disappoint:


Following that was a lobster salad with avocado, mango, and heart of palm. We were told this was the chef's special, and it was very good, even with the avocado removed:


Next we had a choice between a foie gras and a gnocchi dish. I chose the gnocchi (served with brussel sprouts, parsley root, and black truffle):


The gnocchi was alright, but I actually liked some of the other things on the plate more, including (surprisingly) the brussel sprouts.

The foie gras was served flambe-ed, with pineapple and star anise-ginger broth. I was kind of proud of this photo:


I didn't eat any of this black bass (with bacon braised cabbage) but it looked good and crunchy:


Instead I skipped right to this delicious duck breast, served with ginger rice cake and maitake mushroom. The mushroom was yummy too, but the rice cake was a little dry:


Then, onto my favorite course of the evening, the Wagyu beef with burdock, lotus and oxtail umeshu consomme. The beef itself was practically rare and was really good that way:


The other alternative was a lamb dish with celery root, parsnip, and turnip. The lamb itself was disappointingly game-y. I only had a bite but it was still my least favorite dish:


On to dessert! We started with an amazingly generous cheese plate. I don't remember all the cheese but there were two sheep's milk cheeses, one roquefort, and one hard cheese, which I actually ended up liking best:


The person who came to remove our plate told us it was the cleanest cheese plate she'd ever seen. I'm sure she was exaggerating, but we did enjoy the cheese very much.

Next we had a verjus sorbet in blood orange riesling soup:


The sorbet reminded me a bit of the raspberry Zinfandel sorbet that we'd had at Alexander's, which I had also liked. The crunchy part was made with crystallized picholine olives. It was a little too weird for me.

Finally, we had a choice between a tiramisu and a layer cake. I chose the tiramisu because it came with a cappuccino "spoon" and espresso gelato:


It was good, but I ended up liking the cake better, partially because it came with basil-coconut milk gelato, and bits of passionfruit:


Of course, we had lots of mignardises, about which I remember nothing:


We were also sent home with a brownie apiece:


I thought the box was really cleverly constructed. The brownie (which I ate the very next day) turned out to be somewhat ordinary.

In the end, I liked Cyrus much more than Coi. Part of it was that the portions were better; although the bread at Cyrus was excellent, I tried not to eat too much of it because I was afraid of getting full. There was no such issue at Coi. And, although both menus were creative, I felt like at Cyrus I had fewer "hmm..." moments (really only once, with the lamb). Also, Cyrus seemed to have a stronger Asian flavor, which I enjoyed very much. In fact, given the choice, I think I'd rather revisit Cyrus than even French Laundry, especially given the price differential.