Else what's a heaven for?

Fri I lifted and didn't hurt myself, probably bc I did mostly core and balance exercises.

Sat was centered around food. Shocking, right? Lunch was a birthday party at Sushi Samba - they make some yummy girly drinks and the food was pretty good. Then the birthday girl wanted to go to Murray's Cheese Shop, so we did. I'd never been there and had considered going to their Cheese 101 that night before I developed dinner plans. As a cheese neophyte, I found it overwhelming, but the mad squidman bought us all cheese sticks, which I happily munched on my way home. Then it was time to get dressed for dinner.

When it comes to great food, there are people who want something that's made from the finest ingredients with the greatest skill. What I don't get is, if you can have the finest ingredients and the greatest skill, why wouldn't you also want innovative and brilliant pairings of flavors too? Fortunately for me (and my fourteen dinner companions on Sat night) we got all of the above. Jack is an occasional restaurant, meaning it's open for one fixed menu meal per month, but what a meal. I probably would not have ordered any of those items if they'd been on a menu bc there was something new or different or that I don't like in pretty much every course, and yet each was delicious. And the flavors!

The amuse boche was heartburgers with tangerine relish and sage pesto. The chefs are fonder of organ meats than I, so I would never have ordered this, but it was so yummy! Apparently calf's hearts are very melty.

The bulghur, blood orange, and radish salad was beautiful and the spices made the rice dish far more interesting than it ought to be. I liked the tobacco blackberry sauce on the cocoa-rubbed rib tamales very much; having known the chefs for quite some time, it's great to see how their palates and interests have evolved. I think it was they who got me into cooking with cocoa nibs. The only bad thing about the plum wine brandied quail, fig stuffing, and chard with pickled plum course was that the mechanics of getting chicken off the bone distracted me from appreciating the whole thing more.

I'd never had marrow bone before and I'll confess, I'm not entirely convinced it's worth the effort, but I'm glad I got a chance to try it. It was served with garlic and a filet mignon with a honey amber wine sauce. I've never had filet mignon with such a sweet sauce before - it was an unusual and tasty pairing.

The hot vanilla with sassafras and rum was a great choice of first dessert, clearing the palate. I'm not a fan of sassafras, but the sassafras marshmallow was fun to play with.

I never order creme caramel in restaurants any more - I've come to realize that my great aunt and my uncle both make flan so often and so well, I don't need to try anyone else's. Jack served the cocoa nib creme caramel with tempura pears, bay foam, and a mocha sauce that make it the elegant dessert it should be. The consistency of the tempura pears was exactly right, giving way to a not-too-firm spoon, yet still adding their distinctive flavor to the caramel and mocha. I've been taking these course names from the souvenir menu, but the creme caramel came with two concentric circles of tastiness (and pears on the side). I really really liked the inner circle. (lolitasir has pictures; there's a picture of a picture that's nsfw, if you're very sensitive about this sort of thing.)

I should not have taken a sip of the persimmon tea with a lump of "opium" while the guest of honor was reading, bc it was omg-eyes-rolling-back good. The flavors were perfect. The sweetness with the fruity spiciness of the persimmon tea, with the whateverthehecksimulatedopiumis combined perfectly. I've never put anything more sublime in my mouth. Two days later, I can taste it still. AND WANT MORE. (I'm kinda glad it was a small glass though, bc Per Se is right: there's something more precious about having only one taste of something that tastes that good.) It was served with bamboo gelee with clementines and cream, which might've received more attention if I hadn't been transported by the beverage. There were also cardamom bay leaf fortune cookies with fortunes from the book; I'm not convinced you need bay leaf in fortune cookies, but the result was so good, what do I know?

I have to admit, before dinner, I was expecting innovative pairings - the chefs are some of my fave mad (kitchen) scientists - but I didn't expect how brilliantly textured the food would be. I didn't expect how beautiful the presentation would be or how well the meal would move from course to course, with layers of flavors resting on each other, rather than competing. I loved every choice the chefs made, even if I wouldn't've made the same choices and would've been WRONG. I'm currently figuring out how I can drag OperaBoss and my siblings out to Brooklyn.

Sun, I could barely eat, bc nothing looked good :) Spent the day studying, but despite not goofing off, didn't get all that much done. I discovered a section I'd annotated, but couldn't remember, so I re-read that, and finished the reading I've been working on. Despite spending the day with the books, I got less than one unit done :( The only cheering thing about that was discovered that all the citations for the fi unit are from the late nineties, so they probably weren't teaching this stuff in school when I was there. i.e. studying harder then wouldn't've made this easier. Ran 4mi in 40mins in shorts, didn't go to yoga. ah well.