The sweetest of all endings...
But let's start from the very beginning, according to Maria von Trapp, it's a very good place to start. We went to 11 Madison Park to celebrate lovely Cheryl's bday. Our stomachs celebrated the fact that we went to 11 Madison Park.
I started the night off with a bang, in the form of a mint julep interpretation. Unfortunately, 11 Madison neglected to put my drink on their online menu, and you all know my feeble memory can only recall what my pictures captured. So my memory of the drink was mmm.. yum, minty, cold, slightly sweet, bourbon. The exact ingredients escape me. But I do remember its silky smoothness. And look! it's so pretty!
We each got 5 different hors d'oeuvres after we were seated. I was going to just ask them to make me a meal out of these. They were damn good, damn right! Included were - a tiny piece of toast topped with foie gras and jam, a tart of some sort (argh that memory), an amazing spring roll like fried thing stuffed with sweet bread, stuffed cuke topped with smoked salmon and roe, and a sweet radish dipped in french butter. All were awesome, but my favorites were the sweet bread spring roll and foie on crackers. I like 'em rich food. Yes I do.
Can't go to 11 Madison without stuffing yourselves silly with their famous gougeres. Cheese puffs. Count me in.
After the more than generous plate of hors d'oeuvres, 11 Madison bestowed upon us, count them, not 1 but 2 amuse bouches. The first was a creamy lobster bisque studded with corn and lobster pieces. It was the essence of ocean, squared. I want more. MORE!
The second was a deconstructed caprese salad. Suspended bubble sacs were filled with buffalo mozzarella and tomato flavor. I think molecular gastronomy can be a hit or miss. I loved every dish I had at WD-50, but I've also had random foam and "caviar" that are more interesting than tasty. This dish fell in between. I liked it, but would rather have a real caprese.
After eating some yummy bread with goat and cow butters, we finally moved on to our first course. I made a beeline for the tete de cochon. Bits of pig face grounded into a pate-like yumminess? Who can turn that down? This was good. The tanginess was complemented by the pickled veggies. It was light and fresh tasting but with the deep flavors of the pig. Unfortunately, I neglected to notice the crackers that accompanied it until I ate all of my head cheese. Boo me...
Jenn had the Atlantic Fluke Carpaccio with Meyer Lemon Oil, Sea Urchin Cream and Piment d’Espelette. Yes, I copied that from the online menu. It's the best description you're gonna get! Fluke isn't my favorite fish. It's usually pretty bland (but I love fluke fin). The blandness of the fluke was saved by the sea urchin cream. Sea urchin is my favorite food of all time. I. Love. Sea. Urchin.
Cheryl's app was frog legs, poached farm eggs, and farro. Or something like that. I need the online menu, damn it! It was really good. Very comforting and homey. It reminds me of the porridge of my youth, except with ingredients that are about 10000X better.
My pic of Hidy's delicious ricotta gnocchi was a major fail. Take my word for it. It was pillowy soft and creamy. Yum.
My main was colorado lamb with sheep's milk yogurt. It also came with lamb sweet bread pieces, which were my favorite part of the course. The lamb itself had an amazing flavor. The subtle gaminess reminds you the reason why you wanted to eat lamb in the first place. But not too gamey that it turns you off. I thought the lamb was slightly over cooked, but that was find since I don't mind medium temperature lambs (not beef though, I like 'em medium rare and no more than that).
Hidy's milk fed veal was delicious as well. It came with the best accompaniment - morel panna cotta. I am obsessed with anything in pudding form, so this rich, earthy jiggly stuff was right up my alley.
Continuing with our theme of baby animal consumption, Cheryl's suckling pig was definitely the winner of the night in my book. The skin crackled as you bite into it, followed by the buttery meat. Perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned.
Jen did not order a baby animal. Her loup de mer was delicious. Sweet and delicate, offset by the deep flavor of star anise.
If that was not enough food for 4 girls, we braved on to consume our dessert course. Because we really needed it at this point, 11 Madison gave us an extra dessert. But first, they rolled their impressive cheese cart to our table. And we swooned.
We got a selection of 5 cheeses. The triple cream brie like cheese was the favorite. But I was partial to this other cheese that was gouda like. Sorry, that description sucked. Why didn't I write down the names?! =(
Our two chocolate desserts were Chocolate Peanut Butter Palette with Caramel Popcorn and Popcorn Ice Cream and Eleven Madison’s Symphony No. 2 - Chocolate Tart with Caramel and Maldon Sea Salt. Both were playing with the salty/sweet theme, which I whole heartedly welcomed. I love both desserts. So you should get both when you go. Yep.
We also got summer melons with citrus tapioca and a passionfruit souffle. I loved the summer melons, it was refreshing after our long meal. The souffle was yummy as well, both tangy and sweet.
And finally, we got more sweets! Macarons, how I love thee. Because, we were greedy and because the nice people of 11 Madison let us, we each got one of each flavor, which came out to 7 macarons per person. They were small, okay? It was just too hard to choose between flavors like black sesame, black olives, and other stuff. Damn, my memory failed again. They were all good. My favorites were the two I remembered.
At least I remembered something! And what great memories they are...
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