Providence

I was pretty sure that after my last two-star restaurant extravaganza, I wouldn't be eating at another two-star for a really really really long time. 

Is a month long enough? 

Exactly one month after our trip to Melisse, I received an invitation to a special wine and food event hosted at Providence restaurant, another LA restaurant with two Michelin stars (that I've often seen compared to Melisse).  The event included a wine reception with passed hors d'oeuvres, followed by a 5-course dinner created by the executive chef, and special appearances by the chef and the winemakers.  Pretty cool, huh?  The best part - it was free!  That is, if I was willing to part with a few airline mileage points.  The mileage points cost of two tickets to the event was fewer than 10% of what I currently had in my account, and not even enough for a free trip anywhere, so why not?  How often to you get the opportunity to have a 5 course meal at a two-star restaurant and meet the chef?  Needless to say, we were excited...really excited.  Perhaps too much so...

The wine and hors d'oeuvres reception was a nice introduction to the featured wineries and the restaurant itself.  Pinot gris from Inman winery in the russian river valley region in northern California was the wine chosen for the stand-up portion of the event.  I actually really enjoyed this wine even though I lost my taste for white wine about a year ago.  This one was quite drinkable and very light and I managed to finish the whole glass!

The passed hors d'oeuveres, though, were absolutely delicious.  Waiters danced around with gorgeous displays of skewers with grilled squid and chorizo.   Plain and simple, but absolutely scrumptious.  Attempting to be polite, I turned down seconds three or four times before I realized that they'd keep bringing them around, so I quickly gave up and scarfed down another three or four.  Also floating around were trays of fried clam puffs served with yuzu mayonaise.  These were also exceptional, as the fresh citrus of the yuzu cuts through the fried crust of the clam balls quite nicely, helping to avoid the heavy feeling often accompanying fried appetizers.  I could have eaten 5 or 6 of these as well, but I knew they were fried and served with mayonaise, so my judgement got the better of me (the wine hadn't kicked in just yet).  As the room crowded, it became more and more difficult to get our hands on the last of the hors d'oeuvres, as they disappeared as quickly as in the childhood card game 'spoons'.  Picking up on this, we began stalking the waiters to ensure we'd get to taste the shrimp toasts before they were gone.  Just seconds before being seated, we got our hands on the crispy "shrimp toasts", which weren't toast at all, but some concoction of shrimp and bread crumbs (maybe?) that ended up tasting like a shrimpy piece of crispy toast.  These were great in a how'd-he-do-that kind of way.

To the table!...where there were an additional 4 glasses for wine (I knew I was in trouble).  We sat at a table for six with a bunch of strangers.  This could have been awkward, but we got lucky to have an incredible group of people to dine with, and the conversation flowed easily all night, which may have turned out to be the highlight of the evening (foreshadowing!)

The feast began with a wonderful amuse bouche, actually a series of amuse bouches in my opinion.  The homemade wasabi crusted marshmallow was soft and fluffy and surprisingly very tasty, despite my distaste for wasabi.  I enjoyed the textural contrast of the crispy wasabi and the light squishiness of the marshmallow.
Served alongside was a tiny gougere, a cheesy-puff pastry, filled with warm creamy cheese.  Need I saw more?  It was incredible.  The best bite of food I had all night.  Finally, a tiny cup of trout tartare, which had so much complexity that I can hardly remember what was in the tiny cup (except the gold leaf...no one forgets gold leaf), but it was really very good.

The five courses that comprised the special menu were good. Not great, though.  I have a hard time really criticizing this restaurant's food, as this was a special menu for a special event which may have had particular limitations that I'm not aware of.  I did go into this with very high expectations, as one ought to approach a restaurant with such prestige as this one, but I certainly can't say that I was "wow-ed" by this meal.

The first course served was a Bobby's Block Island scallop served with rosemary, whole grain mustard, sherry vinegar, and wildflower honey.  Well, this poor course was doomed from the start, for me at least; the rest of the table really loved this dish.  The scallop itself was indeed cooked beautifully.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get it far enough away from the mustard.  I admit that I do have a strong aversion to mustard, but I did give this a chance to win me over.  The problem is that I can't imagine that even if I had liked mustard, that I would have wanted my scallop served with it.  The combination of scallops and mustard is conceptually very confusing to me. I understand mustard with sausage and saurkraut (a la Wurstkuche), and even mustard with chicken (a la Jose Andres), but scallops?  To be honest, I think scallops ought to be treated better than that!  But again, everyone else loved it, so who am I to say who or what scallops should be able to hang out with?  The Mueller winery chardonnay served with the scallops was particularly delicious.  I like when chardonnay tastes a bit like buttered popcorn (I polished this one as well!)

The next course was wild striped bass served with applewood smoked bacon, crushed potato, and bone marrow (and not one, but two different glasses of pinot noir from Inman family winery).  The bass was pretty good, but I found it a tad bit too dry.  I also had a tough time finding a composed dish here.  I found myself eating a little bit of this and a little bit of that, which doesn't entirely work because no one wants a biteful of just bone marrow...it's like eating fat, consistency-wise.  I will say that I can understand the difficulty in putting together a dish with white fish that pairs with a pinot noir.  This may have been the driver for including crispy bacon and meaty marrow with the fish.  I do commend the chef for his efforts, even though this wasn't my favorite.  I'm sure he did not have the pleasure of choosing the wines, but rather had to create a meal around them.  Quite the challenge for a restaurant that's known for seafood, and wineries from a region known for pinots!

Next up, wild troll caught king salmon (Did a troll catch my salmon, I thought? Are trolls real? Must have been the wine speaking) served with fava beans, french breakfast radish, and delta asparagus.  I actually really liked the salmon.  It was obviously slow cooked, so it didn't have the typical dry texture and heavy taste of cooked salmon, but was melt-in-your-mouth tender and light in flavor.  The asparagus, of course, was a perfect accompaniment, and the salty foam that topped the dish was pleasant and fun.  The radish was just...there.  Paired with two new pinots from Mueller winery.  Salmon and pinot is a perfectly acceptable pairing as is, but I was beginning to slosh, so I quit trying to finish my wines.

The main-er of the courses was a libery farms duck breast served with blood orange confit, braised daikon, and pea tendrils.  I was actually pleasantly surprised by the duck, which was tender and juicy and had a wonderful crispy, flavorful crust.  Again, the composition was a bit confusing to me, as the array of colorful accompaniments to the meat were tasty on their own, but they didn't really bring anything together for me for a composed flavor profile.

Finally...dessert!  I'm always eager to see what kind of fancy shmancy desserts will come out of places like this, and I always expect to loooove my dessert.  Our Providence dessert was a yuzu curd with blackberry sorbet and some homemade meringue.  It was very very good, very very tart, and did not contain chocolate...at all.  Palate cleanser really, not dessert.  It was certainly a pleasant finish to the meal, light and refreshing, but I wasn't necessarily oooh-ing and aahhh-ing over it.

All in all, it was a nice meal, but I'm certainly glad I didn't pay two-star restaurant prices for it!