Marc's Public Blog

2019/08/08 Anniversary Dinner at La Folie

π 2019-08-08 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

We had already been at La Folie in the past, but it had been a while, and it's a good restaurant in SF, so we were happy to go back for our anniversary (a couple of days early):

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2019/07/01 7 Course Tasting Menu at de Silveren Spiegel in Amsterdam

π 2019-07-01 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

While in Amsterdam, I found a very nice restaurant Yves Van Der Hoff, a young 24 year old chef with much talent.

We got their 7 course tasting menu (skipping the cheese in the 8 course option), and the dishes were quite nice. The price was quite reasonable considering that this easily rivaled michelin star restaurants we've eaten at.
The only thing they could easily improve is having a fancier wine pairing option. The one they had was well priced but also pretty basic wines. They could offer a more expensive pairing option with older and better wines.

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2019/06/20 75th Anniversary Dinner with my Dad at Hélène Darroze in Paris

π 2019-06-20 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

This was our 4th time there. The first time was best as she was not too well known yet. That was mid 2000's. By the 2nd time, the prices had more or less doubled and by the 3rth time in 2014, her prices had stayed quite high, but the service had gone way down, to embarassing levels.

Thankfully for this 4th time, the service was back to where it should have been. The base menu price stayed in the expensive range, they finally stopped forcing you to buy pointless bottled water for prices higher than good wines by offering filtered water if you asked enough, but they sure upsold you a lot on drinks with no price at all. They didn't even publish the price of the wine pairing...

The nice surprise is that we got the chef's table by the kitchen and were greeted by Hélène who was working there that day, and took a few pictures with us).
The meal itself was great and my dad was very happy to get pictures with Hélène, so that worked out great as a 75th BD dinner.

they didn't have 1944, for my dad's birth year, but they had 1941

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2019/02/06 Dinner at Jerome Ferrer's Europea in Montreal

π 2019-02-06 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

I arrived in Montréal with not a lot of research for food and when I looked for a nearby restaurant that offered seared foie gras, I randomly ended up at Europea which had a 10+ course tasting menu and was the top restaurant in town. Somehow I was late enough on the right day of the week to get a last minute table. Lucky me :)

this soup was made by heating up the liquid and making it climb into its mushrooms

they gave us VR goggles to watch where the oysters came from

then came time for cheese which they made for us from milk

it didn't have much taste though, salt, oil and vinegar helped

I had to paint the next menu for the content to appear

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2019/01/26 Chillingworth Road Fine Dining Restaurant in Christchurch

π 2019-01-26 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

Jennifer found a nice find dining restaurant around Christchurch. It was not too fancy looking, but still had a nice multi course dinner:

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2018/11/29 Ohahu Fine Dining #4: Maru Zushi

π 2018-11-29 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

Since we were in Ohahu for a few days, and there were lots of good restaurants in Waikiki where we were staying, Jennifer lined up nice restaurants for us every night.
Night #4 was Maru Zushi, another very good Tokyo Ginza like sushi tasting menu with more dishes than we were able to count:

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2018/11/28 Ohahu Fine Dining #3: Senia

π 2018-11-28 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

Since we were in Ohahu for a few days, and there were lots of good restaurants in Waikiki where we were staying, Jennifer lined up nice restaurants for us every night.
Night #3 was Senia, a custom tasting menu at the chef's counter. It had plenty of food, but when I saw a bone marrow dish go by that seemed very tasty, I added that to our tasting :)

7 extra deserts for the road :)

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2018/11/27 Ohahu Fine Dining #2: Chef Mavro

π 2018-11-27 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

Since we were in Ohahu for a few days, and there were lots of good restaurants in Waikiki where we were staying, Jennifer lined up nice restaurants for us every night.
Night #2 was Chef Mavro, a French-like 9 course tasting menu with Hawaiin Flair. It wasn't bad :)

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2018/11/26 Ohahu Fine Dining #1: Sushi Sho

π 2018-11-26 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

Since we were in Ohahu for a few days, and there were lots of good restaurants in Waikiki where we were staying, Jennifer lined up nice restaurants for us every night.
Night #1 was Sushi Sho, a Tokyo Ginza like master sushi restaurant. It was around 20 courses and they were yummy :)

Oh yeah, we also took the 8 course sake sampler, and the portions were generous :)

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2018/08/07 Anniversary Dinner Meadowood

π 2018-08-07 01:01 in Dining, Ndining

Jennifer booked us a table at Meadowood 3 months early when their calendar opened up. It's a competitor to French Laundry in Napa, which features Californian food instead of French food.

It was a fancy 10 course menu, well presented, and not as much food as French Laundry (both good or bad depending on how you look at it).
The food itself was good, including a nice helping of good tasting caviar, but the French person in me was disappointed at the total lack of any bread, and when I asked about some, all they had to offer was sourdough, which I politely declined :)

The desserts were ok, but not to the same level as a French restaurant like French Laundry, but I'm obviously biased :)

All in all, it was still a good meal which we quite enjoyed, and their reservations were easier to get than French Laundry, so that's also a plus. A few pictures:

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