YOU BET I DID!
Sorry, I forgot I was going to post a review. Here we go!
At Picasso, they offer two styles of dining: "Prix Fixe" and "Degustation," which is really just a different prix fixe menu, and another ten bucks. The Prix Fixe offers one of three choices for the first three courses, and your choice of several desserts; the Degustation offers four preset courses, then one of two choices for the entree, followed by the same dessert system. Both are available with paired wines for about half the price of the dinner extra. Before your order is taken, though, you are presented with an "amuse bouche" (or however that's spelled). Now I shall, as they say, "break it down a touch further."
The missus and I began our anniversary dinner with a lovely glass of champagne, during our enjoyment of which came the amuse bouche - a pheasant croquette with a touch of tomato sauce. Extravagant! I opted for the Prix Fixe, with mrs|Choop volunteering for the Degustation menu. Our appetizers arrived: mine was a quail salad, lovely and fatty small fowl with bitter greens and artichoke prepared better than I've ever had before; my dear lady's was a georgeous crab lump cake, the second best of all the crab cakes we've sampled: light, creamy, almost no breading or filler.
Course two! By now we've got real wine, not just champagne, but a lovely sharp Chardonnay for her, and a nice dry and spicy Zinfandel (not white zin! for shame!) for moi. The server brings to my love her sauteed scallops over some of the finest mashed potatoes in all of the country. I've got now a seafood boudin, a small sausage containing lobster, crab, scallops, and shrimp. With this comes a mild sauce tasting of poblano, tomato, and basil. Extraordinary.
Course the third! I've only got the one more course, which will be discussed later, but my sweetheart has an extra interjection here of seared foie gras. Never before have I had foie gras. Never again will I understand why I never before had foie gras. This is the single best part of the meal: it's soft, it's rich and fatty, and it disappears in about forty-five seconds. Yes, she was kind enough to share with me.
Entree! Entree pour vous! Lamb for the lady, and deer for me. Her chop is lovely, cooked just to medium, and accompanied by some vegetables of some sort. However, I have no recollection of its taste: blown away by the foie gras, I taste the venison medallions on my plate and am reassembled. There are few enough vegetables on my plate as to be nearly laughable; still, each is expertly prepared, and what I thought at first glance was potato turned to apple in my mouth. Lovely! Woodsy! Not gamey in the least.
Dessert was perhaps the weakest point of the meal, except for the coffee and the post-dinner liqueur I tasted. Complex, tasting of coffee, chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, tart cherry, spinach, vodka, and citrus, it had been aged over thirty years and breathed for five minutes before it came to me. I only wish I could remember the name of it: I've got the vintage.
All in all, especially considering the credit card snafu (about which our waiter was especially kind and understanding) this was perhaps the finest meal of our lives. It's at least in the top three, and that's saying something. Five stars out of four!
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Topic: National Lampoon's Choop Vacation (Read 16620 times)