"...The walls covered with flower-patterned genuine seventeenth century cotton percale, the chairs upholstered in red velvet, the crystal chandeliers are all the product of Madame`s discussable taste: but you can`t eat the decorations and the table arrangements were beautifully done, and when course after course arrived escorted by the least forbidding type of maitre d`hotel, under silver covers that were whipped away simultaneously to reveal dishes of such insubstantial-looking beauty that one was reminded of eighteenth-century water-colours of flowers and vegetables, everything else was forgotten. Among the dishes that we ate were courgettes a la fleur et aux truffles, a dish in which the baby vegetables were scooped out, the orange flowers folded and filled with the puree and then cooked in batter with basil, the courgette from which the flower sprouted being sliced, launched into a butter sauce and surmounted with slivers of black truffle. There was also gallette de pigeonneau aux cepes et girolles, a fan of underdone slices of pigeon`s breast with almonds and a mushroom sauce composed of fresh cepes and chanterelles, and, most wonderful of all, saumon au gros sel et tous les legumes frais, fresh salmon flown from Scotland, steamed, surrounded by freshwater crayfish, minute cucumbers, carrots and sliced turnips so small that they could hardly be seen, served with crystals of sea salt, a masterpiece, like no other salmon I have ever eaten.For a sweet we were given one of the creations of Jacques Torres, one of Maximin`s adjutants, gratin de fraises des bois au beurre de Grand Marnier, wild strawberries in a sort of creme brulee with Grand Marnier...
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Just finishing a book I loved and here is an excerpt from a chapter called "Dinner at the Negresco". It is a hotel-palais in Nice.
"...The walls covered with flower-patterned genuine seventeenth century cotton percale, the chairs upholstered in red velvet, the crystal chandeliers are all the product of Madame`s discussable taste: but you can`t eat the decorations and the table arrangements were beautifully done, and when course after course arrived escorted by the least forbidding type of maitre d`hotel, under silver covers that were whipped away simultaneously to reveal dishes of such insubstantial-looking beauty that one was reminded of eighteenth-century water-colours of flowers and vegetables, everything else was forgotten. Among the dishes that we ate were courgettes a la fleur et aux truffles, a dish in which the baby vegetables were scooped out, the orange flowers folded and filled with the puree and then cooked in batter with basil, the courgette from which the flower sprouted being sliced, launched into a butter sauce and surmounted with slivers of black truffle. There was also gallette de pigeonneau aux cepes et girolles, a fan of underdone slices of pigeon`s breast with almonds and a mushroom sauce composed of fresh cepes and chanterelles, and, most wonderful of all, saumon au gros sel et tous les legumes frais, fresh salmon flown from Scotland, steamed, surrounded by freshwater crayfish, minute cucumbers, carrots and sliced turnips so small that they could hardly be seen, served with crystals of sea salt, a masterpiece, like no other salmon I have ever eaten.For a sweet we were given one of the creations of Jacques Torres, one of Maximin`s adjutants, gratin de fraises des bois au beurre de Grand Marnier, wild strawberries in a sort of creme brulee with Grand Marnier...
"...The walls covered with flower-patterned genuine seventeenth century cotton percale, the chairs upholstered in red velvet, the crystal chandeliers are all the product of Madame`s discussable taste: but you can`t eat the decorations and the table arrangements were beautifully done, and when course after course arrived escorted by the least forbidding type of maitre d`hotel, under silver covers that were whipped away simultaneously to reveal dishes of such insubstantial-looking beauty that one was reminded of eighteenth-century water-colours of flowers and vegetables, everything else was forgotten. Among the dishes that we ate were courgettes a la fleur et aux truffles, a dish in which the baby vegetables were scooped out, the orange flowers folded and filled with the puree and then cooked in batter with basil, the courgette from which the flower sprouted being sliced, launched into a butter sauce and surmounted with slivers of black truffle. There was also gallette de pigeonneau aux cepes et girolles, a fan of underdone slices of pigeon`s breast with almonds and a mushroom sauce composed of fresh cepes and chanterelles, and, most wonderful of all, saumon au gros sel et tous les legumes frais, fresh salmon flown from Scotland, steamed, surrounded by freshwater crayfish, minute cucumbers, carrots and sliced turnips so small that they could hardly be seen, served with crystals of sea salt, a masterpiece, like no other salmon I have ever eaten.For a sweet we were given one of the creations of Jacques Torres, one of Maximin`s adjutants, gratin de fraises des bois au beurre de Grand Marnier, wild strawberries in a sort of creme brulee with Grand Marnier...
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