June 26th 2008: Manresa

I had a sophisticated celebratory dinner with some co-workers at Manresa. One co-worker said, appropriately, that the meal reminded him of Ratatouille's visual, imaginative scene in which strawberries and cheese are combined.

I certainly need to thank some co-workers for the meal as well as the accompanying wine they brought. (Sorry, I don't have notes on these wines.) And I should thank all my co-workers for the entertaining company. This event was a great reward.

Service was impressively synchronized, and our waiter exceedingly well informed, exactly as it should be at the highest caliber restaurants.

Sorry about the picture quality. I didn't use a flash so the long exposures caused problems with fuzziness. Given how badly many of the pictures turned out, I'm glad I didn't bother attempting to photograph any people.

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Click on images below to enlarge:
Beginning
Petit four. Black olive filling is in the spongy sandwich-cake at left; at right is a red pepper pate.	Sweet corn croquette. Awesome. We were told to eat it in one bite because of its liquid center. I loved the feeling of the creamy corn juices exploding from the fried shell. Someone thought he detected a hint of toffee.	"Crispy mussels with cucumber" and lime yogurt. I definitely liked this, perhaps because, in retrospect, it's a modern rendition of a classic fare of fish and chips, simply with mussels replacing the fish and a cucumber-yogurt mixture replacing the tartar sauce.	"Arpege farm egg." Delightful and surprising. In the shell, in addition to the lightly poached, still runny egg, there was a layer of maple syrup and a layer of something (a sweet vinegar?) with seeds. The various slightly warm, a bit sweet, viscous liquid layers melted together in a very pleasing manner. Arpege is the restaurant that made this dish famous.
We were offered a choice a between French and house bread. I chose the house bread. This was perhaps the only disappointing thing about the meal--the crust was so thick it made the bread hard to eat.
Middle
"Shellfish and bonito broth, golden raspberries, green curry oil." Various types of shellfish. The broth, combined with the green curry oil, was so good I had to eat every drop with either my spoon or via soaking it up with bread.	"Roasted and raw cepes with their veloute." In short, porcini mushrooms in a sauce made from their juices. They actually served this dish then poured the juice around the plate. The smell of mushrooms was intense.	"Abalone with garden basils and courgettes, slow egg." Abalone are sea snails. Courgettes are, I believe, a fancy word for zucchini.	"Cod cheeks in a smoky white bean emulsion, topped with country ham." I'm usually not a great fan of fatty cuts of fish like toro, so I looked on the cod cheeks with skepticism. Yet, the way they melted in my mouth like butter was almost magical. Ham or no ham, this was one of my favorite dishes of the night.
Sweetbreads, morels, and ramps. The richness of the sweetbreads perfectly complemented the earthiness of the mushrooms and root vegetables.	Roasted lamb with Indian spices. Simply terrific. Nothing more needs to be said.
End
"Olive oil ice cream with sea salt, carnaroli rice with cherries." Yes, that's olive oil ice cream. It's amazing how different the whole cherries tasted compared with the thin cherry sheet laying over them.	"Nectarine with an herbal granita."	"Chocolate cloud cake with popcorn milk, caramel and blackberry sorbet." I don't know how they did it, but the milk/cream really smelled and tasted like popcorn!	We were served a light, clean peppermint tea as a digestif. It served its mission perfectly.
Manresa has pretty teapots made entirely of glass.	Petit fours. Chocolate filling is in the spongy sandwich-cake at left; at right is a strawberry pate. Considering that the meal's first item was also petit fours, this brought the meal full circle.