Friday, February 25, 2011.
Le Foret With The Godparents.
The day is always easier to get through with the promise of a great dinner at the end of it. Mary Ann arranged a dinner for us at Le Foret. Her motivation came from a lunch she had with Le Foret's manager Danny Millan a few days ago. She thought he seemed desperate for me come in for some reason. It probably concerns the departure of Chef Jimmy Corwell. I have been asked about that quite a bit. But in my experience, the decline of a restaurant after a chef change is the exception rather than the rule. Really, it's the owner who makes the biggest difference, and Le Foret is solid in that regard. It's too soon to tell, anyway.
MA and I have made a pact to start inviting more of our friends to join us for dinner, especially those who fell away from us in the last twenty years while we were predominantly parental in our routines. A perfect example of such people are Oliver and Carolyn Kluna, who were neighbors, clients, landlords, and all-around closest friends for many years before I hitched up. Oliver was, in fact, my best man. We still dine with them once a year--they're Jude's godparents, so we always see them around Christmas. But that's not enough.
They were in the classy, well-tended bar when I arrived, trying out a cocktail made of St. Germain elderflower liqueur, lime, and a few other things. I had one, too. Good! When MA turned up, we moved to the table next to the first Common Street window. The scene is unique. The corner of Camp and Common is not very camp but it is rather common, with a handsome old building across the street but a utilitarian parking garage catercorner. Yet the curtains on the big windows are wide open, as if we were on the fortieth floor overlooking the river. It works.
I lost the argument with Danny about which Champagne we should have. I let it go because the Klunas--who were very nice to me during some rough times in my twenties--deserve Dom Perignon. And it was good with all the appetizers. The amuse-bouche of thin slices of beet surrounding Higgins crabmeat (the Higgins family is one of the best producers of local jumbo lump), with a little Louisiana caviar on top.
Oysters Rockefeller: I've got to tell the new chef to unload the Mornay sauce she inherited from her predecessor. Otherwise delicious and generous. Roast quail with gnocchi made green with mustard greens, of all things. Turtle soup: served dramatically under a pastry dome. It looked better than it tasted. I don't think I would have identified it as turtle if I'd eaten it blind.
The great dish in the first course was something I've never heard of before: lamb belly. Same idea as the ubiquitous pork belly--uncured bacon, in other words. But made with lamb. This was nowhere near as fatty as the pork analog, and for that reason I liked it a lot better. The unique tang of lamb made it happen.
Into the entree department with a Cabernet Sauvignon I rarely see outside of Napa. Peju Province has some great vineyards in the middle of Napa, but it is probably better known for its cooking demos, wine tastings, and other activities geared to the visitor to Napa than for the superiority of its wines. But Danny thought highly of it, and I haven't had it in years. It has improved. Big black juice.
Only one of us had a good pairing to that. Oliver ordered the veal chop, which I had two dinners ago. This one looked identical to that one, and judging by Oliver's reaction it was as impressive gustatorially, too. It's an oversize chop, bone-in, seared and seasoned perfectly, with a fine reduced sauce and the unique potatoes Maxim--a daisy made of potato chips, essentially. If this isn't the signature entree of Le Foret, I don't know what would be.
The girls had fish--tilefish, to be exact. That's a species common along the Atlantic coast but not often seen here. It's a funny-looking fish with big lips. Carolyn thought the sauce, shrimp, and other garnishes were better than the fish itself, but good enough. Mary Ann continued to be dazzled.
For me, three very large scallops with a fricassee of various vegetables. I thought this was terrific, but with the big wine I wish I'd ordered a lamb rack or something. The only reason I didn't was that I needed a lighter meal than the one last night at Carmelo.
The best dessert was the milk soufflee in front of me. But the most dramatic was a pyramid of thin cakes with a chocolate filling--almost like a doberge.
We must have talked ourselves out about how wonderful Jude and Mary Leigh are, because by this point we veered into politics. I was--as so often happens--the odd man out. Oliver and I came to a disagreement on something or other, but we both know better than to try to change each other's minds.
Instead, we decided that our next dinner together must be at Charlie's Steakhouse, where Oliver and I often lunched in the old days. We kept track of whose turn it was to pay on the back of a sign hung from a nail that said "Closed Sun. & Mon."
Everybody left but me. Mary Ann said Danny wanted to speak with me privately. He introduced me to the interim chef, but that was about it. I didn't tell her to lose the Mornay sauce on the Rockefellers. Maybe next time.
Le Foret. CBD: 129 Camp. 504-553-6738.
