Pacific Coast Highway Album: Hearst Castle

Second in a five-part series (part 1 here)

We left Morro Bay for the 30-minute trip north to Hearst Castle, in San Simeon. William Randolph Hearst’s family had, at one time, amassed some 300,000 acres of coastal property. When Hearst inherited the land from his father in the 1920s, he started construction on Hearst Castle, an enormous mountain-top mansion where he ran his media empire and entertained his friends. The castle was eventually donated to the state, although tens of thousands of surrounding acres are still owned by the Hearst Corporation.

You arrive at a visitor’s center at the base of the mountain. The castle is a long way in the distance. The photo above is as good a zoom shot as we could get. It’s actually a close-up taken from the photo shown at right, which gives an indication of just how far away the “castle” really is. A tour bus takes you up the winding road to the estate.

Four different tours are offered. We took the one recommended for first-time visitors. We had a shade more than an hour at the mountaintop, but allowing for the bus ride either way and the National Geographic film shown at the end, it turned into a 2½–3 hour visit.

Left: The gothic spires of the main house. The grounds also have three elaborate guest houses, which we didn’t photograph. We also didn’t get any shots inside the main house (it was too dark). All of the rooms we saw were decorated in a gothic pre-renaissance style. One can appreciate the artistry of it, but it’s not a style I would choose in my own home. Right: Around the grounds.

Left: Around the grounds. Right: Egyptian statues on the grounds, the castle’s oldest art works.

Left & right: Mr. Hearst wanted his guests to appreciate the view, so we shall.

Left & right: More of the view.

Left & right: The massive Romanesque outdoor swimming pool. It was under repair at the time of our visit. Normally, it would be filled with water.

Left & right: Architectural details around the outdoor pool.

Left: The indoor pool is, if anything, more spectacular, though hard to capture through the camera lens. Oddly, though this pool is indoors, the guests had to go outdoors to reach it, as it has no direct entrance from the house. Right: One last look at Mr. Hearst’s vast lands.

Pacific Coast Highway Album: L.A. to Morro Bay

First in a five-part series

My son and I took a four-day trip along the Pacific Coast Highway (Cal. Rt. 1) from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He took all the photos. I present them here with minimal commentary.

Day 1 took us from L.A. to Morro Bay, a trip that would take about four hours by the inland route, but took us around six and a half along the slower Pacific Coast Highway, with ample stops for photo-ops and food breaks.

Left: All of that L.A. smog you read about is really true.
Right: Scrub brush along the way.

Left: The vastness of the Pacific. Right: Robert and me.

 
Left: Rocky outcrops like this one are common along the route.
Right: So is scrub brush. 

 
Left & right: Rocks and mountains along the coastline.

Left:We arrive at Morro Bay, known for the Morro Rock. It appears to be out in the middle of the bay, though in fact there is a man-made road to it. Climbing the rock is illegal, as it is home to endangered bird species. Right: Boats on the bay.

Left & right: We don’t find much excitement in Morro Bay, aside from the sunset.

We leave this post with one more sunset shot over Morro Bay.

Mosaique

I’ve just returned from a week in London. On past trips, I’ve spent my London evenings at the theatre. This trip, I wanted to focus on restaurants. I arrived on a Wednesday, but had no specific reservations until Friday.

On Thursday, I was a bit under-the-weather and didn’t want to travel far. Mosaique was located about a ten-minute walk from my hotel. On a stiflingly hot evening, its open-air façade and faintly Mediterranean décor seemed appropriate.

I loved deep-fried brie (£3.50), two pie-shaped slices with a charred-brown exterior from the deep fryer, and with a lingonberry sauce. Monkfish (£9.25) was tender and came with a vegetable medley. Add a half-bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (£9.50), and I was out of there for £22.25, making this probably the best dining bargain of the trip. There were two servers, who kept things running efficiently.

The restaurant is not really near any important destinations, so which might explain why only a handful of tables were taken. It’s a reasonably walk from King’s Cross, Russell Square, Farringdon, and Holborn, without really being convenient to any of them. 

Mosaique (73 Gray’s Inn Road, between Guilford St and Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8TP)

Food: *½
Service: *½
Ambiance: *
Overall: *½

Le Pont de la Tour

A colleague recommended Le Pont de la Tour for its superb views of Tower Bridge (for which it’s named) and the Tower of London, from a perch along the boardwalk on the south bank of the Thames. There are numerous outdoor tables. None of these were available, but I was given an excellent window table facing the Tower, and as the windows were wide open, it amounted to the same thing. The décor is refined and elegant. I was overheated from an unexpectedly long walk, and started with a Pimms cocktail (£5.95) to cool off.

The menu is squarely in the French tradition. My colleague particularly recommended the chateaubriand, advice that several reviews on the web confirmed, but this signature dish is available only for two. I asked the server for an alternative recommendation. He must love the menu, for he went on to describe pretty much all of it, but his knowledge of the cuisine was impeccable—at least for the two dishes I tried. All of the options placed Le Pont de la Tour squarely in the French tradition.

I started with the morteaux sausage (£9.50), which came sliced, and with a honey mustard sauce. Sea trout, at £18.00, was the least expensive of the main courses. I wasn’t particularly looking to economize, but the server said the poached sea trout was ideal if one didn’t want to eat anything “heavy,” which was indeed the case on a sweltering evening. I’m usually not keen on filet fish prepared that simply, but this dish showed there are an exceptions to every rule when the flesh is as tender and the preparation as perfect as this one was.

The sommelier recommended a wonderful half-bottle of Chablis. I’m most definitely not a Chablis guy—it always seems to be the dullest of the white grapes, the way Merlot so often is among the reds. But this one, at £19.25, was wonderful, showing that even Chablis can rise above the commonplace.

When I arrived shortly after 8:00 p.m., most of the inside tables weren’t yet occupied, but by the time I’d finished my appetizer and main course—around 9:00 p.m.—the restaurant was nearly full. Service had been superb up to that point, but things slowed down considerably. It would take another 50 minutes for me to order and receive an order of French Coffee (£6.75), and to settle my bill. It was nice to know that they weren’t hurrying to unseat me from my table with a prime view, but that coffee took an awfully long time to prepare.

All-in, dinner came to £59.45 before tip.

Le Pont de al Tour (Butlers Wharf, 36d Shad Thames, London SE1 2YE)

Food: ***
Service: ***
Ambiance: ***
Overall: ***

The Savoy Grill

Despite my keen interest in Gilbert and Sullivan, I’ve never dined at the Savoy Hotel (though I had high tea there once, many years ago). I had wanted to dine at three-star Gordon Ramsay, but that restaurant is closed this summer for refurbishing. I chose the Savoy Grill instead, which turned out to be another restaurant in Ramsay’s large empire, though I didn’t realize this when I booked.

The Savoy Grill is more formal than its name would suggest, with fussy French-style service and tuxedo-clad waiters reminding me a bit of Alain Ducasse in New York. It is a much larger restaurant than Ducasse, and only one star, rather than three, so they are not quite as attentive, but many of the ideas are similar. The previous evening, I had a lovely window seat facing the Tower of London. At the Savoy Grill, I was seated next to a large column with a view of the hotel driveway.

After I sat down, a server wheeled over a cart with several champagnes, from which I was invited to choose. In this type of restaurant, I’m always wary of getting stuck with something that costs $20 a sip, so I asked him for a printed list. He was apparently confused about this, and asked if I’d like bottled water. I said that tap water would be fine. With barely concealed disgust, he slid my water glass to the edge of the table (apparently a signal to his colleagues that this chump doesn’t want the bottled variety) and moved on.

When a server arrived, I explained that I did want champagne. He apologized and sent the champagne guy back over. He remained quite irritated that I wanted to see a list of the choices, but he managed to point out where they were on the wine list, and I chose one. For all that trouble, it was worth it—a glass of sparkling rosé that was surprisingly sweet and smooth.

The regular menu is a £55 prix fixe, but on weekends there is a £30 alternative, which they call the “grill menu,” with six appetizers and six main courses to choose from. Several of these looked compelling, so I decided to save myself £25. Smoked salmon (£4 supplement) was unimpressive. It came without sauces or any other accompaniments, and the taste was no better than average. Particularly for a dish that carries a supplement, I expected a better performance.

Wiltshire pork belly was a tour de force. (After I ordered it, the server mentioned that it was a particular favorite of his.) It was cut in a long strip, in the shape of two thick cigars placed end-to-end. It was tender, fatty, and flavorful. As the server had proved he and I had similar tastes, I accepted his recommendation of the white chocolate cake for dessert, and this was most enjoyable.

There was, again, a reasonable selection of half-bottles available. Remembering my happy experience with Chablis at Le Pont de la Tour, I chose Chablis again (£25), but this was a more pedestrian bottle that reminded me why I don’t usually order Chablis.

After the champagne fiasco, the server went out of his way to ensure I was taken care of. If anything, the service was a bit too rushed, and I was out of there in about an hour. When I’m paying this kind of money, I’d prefer that the meal unwind a bit more slowly. However, to their credit the champagne was comped. (At least, I think it was—nothing was said, but it wasn’t on the bill). In total, dinner came to £59 before tip.

When I told the server that I’m from New York, he introduced me to the house manager, who will be transferring to New York later this year to manage Gordon Ramsay’s first American restaurant, which will be gunning for three Michelin and four New York Times stars. We had a pleasant chat and exchanged business cards. Obviously my Savoy Grill experience is not indicative of Ramsay’s three-star cuisine, but I’d advise him to focus hard on the kind of service glitches that the Times’s current reviewer tends to penalize.

One wonders how much time Ramsay will be able to spend in New York. The house manager said that Ramsay will be there for “the first few months,” and then occasionally thereafter. Ramsay has something like nine restaurants in London alone. Coincidentally, during my stay I saw him on a TV show called “The f word,” which features Ramsay swearing at everybody in sight. In the show’s main vignette, four amateur cooks do a service in the kitchen with Ramsay, in which he hurls expletives at them on the slightest provcation. The guests don’t seem to mind, as they all seem to know about Ramsey’s famous temper. Being told to shut the fuck up is obviously part of the game.

The Savoy Grill (Savoy Hotel, Strand, London, WC2R 0EU)

Food: **½
Service: *½
Ambiance: **
Overall: **

The Waterside Inn

There are three Michelin three-star restaurants in the United Kingdom. One would certainly have to question the inspectors’ objectivity, when an entire country has fewer restaurants with the top rating than Michelin awarded in New York City alone.

In an odd quirk of fate, two of the UK’s three-star restaurants are within 100 yards of each other, in the unlikely town of Bray, about 45 minutes west of London by train. I tried to get into The Fat Duck, but I hadn’t realized how hard it is to get in, and I didn’t book early enough. The Waterside Inn, which has been around a lot longer, was able to accommodate me on a Sunday evening. The restaurant opened in 1972. It earned its first Michelin star in 1974, its second in 1977, and its third in 1985. The original chef, Michel Roux, is semi-retired. His son Alain now runs the kitchen.

Michelin’s definition of three stars is “worth a special journey.” The proprietors of The Waterside Inn took that to heart. Their hotel exists, it seems, solely for patrons who want to dine at the restaurant. As the house manager put it to me, “we have 11 rooms and 11 tables for two.” The dining room faces a quiet part of the Thames, well upstream of London. There are no buildings on the opposite bank to disturb the view. Ducks paddle by, and there is the occasional pleasure boat. Green moss floats on the water near the shore. This was a gorgeous evening—not too hot, as it had been for much of the week, and with a mild breeze. The dining room’s picture windows were wide open, and every table had a slice of the gorgeous view. It was one of the most romantic dining spots I’ve seen.

I began the evening, as many guests do, with a drink on the terrace. The staff brought out a plate of canapes (the beef tartare being my favorite), a glass of champagne, and a menu, and I lingered a while. My order was taken while I was still on the terrace. When I finally took my table, it was already laid with the flatware and glassware that went with what I’d ordered.

You can order a la carte, with appetizers in the £20-38 range, main courses generally £35-53, and desserts about £20-25. When you bear in mind that the exchange rate is almost $2 to the pound, you get the idea that you’re in for an expensive evening. I chose the “menu exceptionelle,” which offered three savory courses and dessert.

I wasn’t expecting an amuse bouche after snacking on the wonderful canapes on the terrace, so a vegetable terrine to start was a happy surprise. I have to wonder, though, at the wisdom of that particular choice when another terrine, foie gras and chicken, was one of the appetizer options. The latter was just fine, although not as creamy as some of the better foie gras terrines I’ve had elsewhere.

The fish course was a scallop, perfectly sweet and just slightly seared on the outside. The other choice for the fish course was lobster, and a glance at other tables showed it was a more elaborate production. I wasn’t unhappy with the scallop, but I had a bit of regret about not choosing the fancier lobster.

The palate cleanser was a rose petal sorbet, which seemed to be a strawberry sorbet with a small rose petal elegantly garnishing the top of it. Then came the evening’s only dud, a duck breast with classic orange sauce, potatoes and peas. The duck, although an ample portion, was slightly tough and over-cooked. I suspect the duck breast had been cooked too a bit too, and it dried out on the stove. I finished it, mind you (at those prices who wouldn’t?), but it was not up to the level of everything else.

An excellent cheese course, carved tableside, was partial redemption. And because I complained about the duck, the restaurant comped an extra dessert, a heavenly strawberry soufflé.

Service throughout the evening was impeccable, yet never haughty. The staff seemed to be mind readers; you would merely think about something, and in a matter of moments someone would appear. The one cheesy moment came early on, when a server appeared with an already-open bottle of Evian poised for pouring, and asked if I would like some water. Human nature is to say ‘yes’, at which point one will have purchased the bottle. I resisted that temptation and asked for tap water. The server replied, without any hint of irony, “Perfect!!” I dwell on the incident only because it was the cleverest ruse I’ve seen yet to steer diners towards bottled water.

I drank a little more liquor than I usually do—a pre-dinner glass of champagne (£15.50), a half-bottle of white wine (£26.50), and a glass of dessert wine (£10.50). None of it came cheap, but it was all excellent. The wine was decanted for me in advance, as naturally it should be at a restaurant of this quality. I was once again pleased to see—as I had at all the other restaurants I tried—a reasonable selection of half-bottles.

The Waterside Inn serves mostly classic dishes. There’s no foam or culinary fusion here; no molecular gastronomy. But it nevertheless serves up a special kind of magic. The duck gaffe was significant, but I would like to assume it was atypical. I would still put The Waterside Inn on my list of places to return to.

All told, the final bill came to £142 before gratuity.

The Waterside Inn (Ferry Road, Bray, Berkshire, SL6 2AT)

Food: ***½
Service: ****
Ambiance: ****
Overall: ***½

Hakkasan

Hakkasan resembles the “big-box” Asian restaurants that have taken over Manhattan (Buddakan, Megu, Matsuri, Ono). It’s located in a quiet back street that is practically guaranteed not to attract walk-in foot traffic. A friendly goomba asks for your name at the door. If you’re not already on his list, you’re not getting in. Then, it’s down three flights of stairs to a dimly-lit subterranean lair, with a modern Asian décor, although most of the staff seem to be Westerners. Just about every seat in the large space is taken.

With all of those gimmicks, you’d expect the food to be almost secondary, but Hakkasan has a Michelin star, and they seem to have earned it. A dim sum platter (£10.00) came with eight pieces. I have to admit that I didn’t recognize what was in them, but they were fluffy, tender, and delicious. Stir-fried Mongolian venison (£18.50) may have been a tad over-priced, but the spicy preparation was expertly judged, and lacked the generically over-salty taste to which stir-fry sometimes succumbs. Egg fried rice (£3.50) was also excellent A colleague recommended the signature cocktails, which came with names like The Hakka, Green Destiny, and the Lychee Martini (all £8.50). I was feeling pretty happy after three of those.

The clamor for tables at Hakkasan is obviously intense. When I called for a 7:30 p.m. reservation on a Tuesday evening, the hostess replied, “The table is booked for 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.” I know that some people resent being told in advance when they have to leave, but I am more than capable of finishing my dinner in two hours, and at this type of restaurant I don’t really mind the restriction.

Big-box Asian restaurants are getting a bad name in New York. There are so many of them now, with the menu often designed practically by rote. At Hakkasan, they really seem to care about the food.

The bill came to £57.50 before tip.

Hakkasan (8 Hanway Place near Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9DH)

Food: **
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: **

Toqué

A friend and I spent the long weekend in Montreal. That gave us two dinners to splurge on. We chose Au Pied de Cochon (reviewed in the last post) and Toqué (pronounced “to-KAY”), which seems to be the dean of Montreal’s fine dining restaurants. We hadn’t reserved in advance, and our hotel concierge was skeptical of our chances on a Saturday night at short notice. However, he managed to secure a 9:30pm reservation, which was just fine for us.

We chose chef Normand Laprise’s seven-course degustation menu ($88). The printed menu doesn’t tell you what you’ll be getting — it’s “an elaborate mystery menu of seven inspired courses.” To the best of my recollection, this is what we had:

• Amuse bouche of cold tomato soup with a cucumber foam, and a crisp mozzarella stick with a chive running up its spine.
• Scallop with strawberry foam. This was the one unsuccessful dish, as the strawberry foam totally overwhelmed the scallop. My friend, who doesn’t eat scallops, was given a seafood ceviche instead, which she enjoyed.
• Tuna tartare on a tortilla, with an avocado puree. This combination of tastes was the second most successful course, after the bass (see below)
• Grilled striped bass, which my friend and I considered the most successful course
• Pork belly, served in a sealed glass jar. This presentation was amusing, but frankly the taste of the pork was completely forgettable.
• Duck breast in a mild pepper sauce, which we noted was an ample sized portion for a tasting menu
• Goat cheese sorbet, which was excellent
• Dessert, which I have entirely forgotten

I apologize for the Spartan descriptions, but that’s about as much as I remember after a long and exhausting day. Service was terrific. The restaurant has a strange affectation of laying all the silverware at a 45-degree angle to the diner, and laying knives on their edge. It presents no inconvenience, and it is even a bit witty, but we wondered about the point of it. The restaurant is enormous and well appointed. Tables are both large and very generously spaced.

This was a very strong degustation menu, and for the $88 price a very compelling dining choice for the visitor to Montreal.

Toqué (900, place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, Montréal, Québec)

Food: ***
Service: ***
Ambiance: ***
Overall: ***

Au Pied de Cochon

My friend and I spent last weekend in Montreal—the first visit for either of us. Au Pied de Cochon (“The Pig’s Foot”) was tops on our list of restaurants to try. We were totally delinquent in making reservations, so we were pleased that our hotel concierge was able to book us in at 9pm on the night of our arrival (Friday), and Toqué (see the next post) at 9:30pm the following evening. In New York, we probably wouldn’t have had such luck.

Perhaps a better name for the restaurant would be Au Pied de Cochon et Canard, because the signature ingredient is foie gras. A whole section of the menu is dedicated to foie gras, and it figures in many other dishes as well. Several of the foie gras selections are clearly meant to be humorous riffs on popular comfort food normally served without it, such as foie gras poutine, foie gras grilled cheese, and foie gras hamburger. (A recent article in Gourmet said that Au Pied de Cochon goes through 300 pounds of foie gras per week.)

Poutine is a popular fast food dish (even McDonald’s has a version of it), consisting of french fries, cheese curd, and gravy. Foie gras poutine, naturally, is the same thing, but with a huge hunk of seared foie gras as the centrepiece, and a hint of foie gras in the gravy. We thought it was terrific.

Many of the dishes have cryptic names, of which the most humorous is “duck in a can.” There is no explanation on the menu, but our server explained that it’s duck breast and foie gras cooked inside a can. We didn’t order this, but we saw a serving of it delivered to another table. Sure enough, the server brings a medium-sized soup can to the table, opens it with a conventional can opener, and then pours the meal onto the diner’s plate. Who would think of such a thing?

During the summer, the menu skews towards seafood. We saw massive raw bar platters being delivered to the tables, priced anywhere betwen $45 and $320. Pork, lamb, and venison also remain fixtures on the menu. Au pied de Cochon’s steak frites is made with venison all year long.

We ordered the pied de cochon foie gras, which again would be obscure if the server didn’t explain that it’s a whole shank of pig’s foot with foie gras, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. It was indescribably good, and the kind of dish you’re not going to find anywhere else.

Portion sizes were enormous—not just the things we ordered, but also the servings we saw delivered to other tables. Our server kindly advised that one order of poutine foie gras and one order of pied de cochon foie gras would be ample for two people, as this wouldn’t have been apparent from the menu. That pied de cochon was $48, but when served for two it is a bargain.

The apple pie was the only thing we ordered that was listed as a portion for two on the menu. Naturally, it was big enough for three. It came freshly baked, and was about the best apple pie I’ve ever tasted in a restaurant.

The chef, Martin Picard, has made a reputation with his button-down shirts (never tucked in), wild hair, and three-day-old beard. While we were there, he was all over the place — cooking some of the food, drinking beer and wine, and chatting up the customers. He said “Bon soir” to us as we left.

The space is informal, with tables fairly close together. The restaurant is only about 20 feet wide (although it is fairly deep). To get to the men’s room, you actually have to pass through the open kitchen. However, service was friendly and attentive. Our server recommended a superb wine at about $48 that went perfectly with our foie gras festival of a meal.

Au Pied de Cochon (536, rue Duluth Est, Montréal, Quebec)

Food: ***
Service: **½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: ***

Number One in Edinburgh

Edinburgh has two Michelin star restaurants: Number One and Martin Wishart. I tried the tasting menu at Wishart’s a couple of months ago, and last week I decided to see what Number One could do. While both restaurants have their strengths, I would have to give the slight edge to Number One.

Located in the basement of the Edinburgh’s marquis hotel, the Balmoral, Number One exudes a sense of luxury. There is an ample and comfortably appointed lounge area to enjoy a drink before sitting down for your meal. The walls have a dark, highly polished sheen. They’re covered with small modern artworks that don’t distract you, but in fact are witty and eclectic if you take the time to study them. The tables and banquettes are plush and generously spaced.

The service at Number One is impeccable. As I watched them operate over two and a half hours, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the teamwork and precision. A team of five servers covered the whole restaurant (it is not that large, and not all the tables were taken), and while they had their individual duties, they operated as a coordinated unit. Now the sommelier serves you a glass of wine, and the next moment he’s serving appetizers at the next table. Now the lovely French woman is serving your soufflé, and the next moment she’s refilling wine glasses at the opposite corner of the restaurant.

I ordered the chef’s tasting menu with paired wines, which clocks in at £85 before tip. There were five courses plus two amuses and six glasses of wine in this degustation. Although most of the portions were small, as you’d expect on a tasting menu, I walked out quite full, and in fact skipped breakfast the next morning. All of the dishes were plated beautifully, in designs clearly intended to delight the eye as well as the stomach.

I had never ordered a full wine pairing before. It adds a significant premium to the meal, but I have to say it’s worth it. You get a selection of diverse wines that is expertly chosen to suit the menu, quite a few of which you probably would never order on your own. They are smaller pours than wine ordered by the glass, but with six of them included it’s about as much as most people care to drink. I did have trouble pacing myself, though: you were never sure how much time you had before the next course was to arrive.

Your meal begins with freshly-cut bread. A server wheels over a cart, with six large breads baked that day. You choose one (mine was walnut grain), and he cuts off a slice. Soft butter is already there on your table. A few minutes later he’s back to offer more. The bacon bread tempted me, but I held off, knowing there was much to come.

The amuse-bouche was a tiny cup of tomato consommé, which I found a bit disappointing. The more successful amuses-bouches display some culinary wit, which this uninspired dish lacked. The champagne paired with it was similarly unexciting.

A wonderful foie gras came next, served with oatcakes and mushroom chutney. It was paired with an intense New Zealand fruit wine that complemented the liver taste perfectly. The fish course was a scallop in a light curry sauce, accompanied by braised oxtail. This was the hit of the evening, and unfortunately that lonely scallop was gone all too quickly. This is the drawback of a tasting menu.

The meat course was less successful. Six slender lamb medallions were sufficiently tender and tasty, but I’ve had far better lamb elsewhere. Sauces are Number One’s strength, but this lamb was served in its own juices. Nothing was done to raise it above the ordinary. The grilled sweetbreads that came on the plate were far more memorable. Some writers have suggested that meat courses are not as well suited to a tasting menu, because they require larger portions to make a culinary statement. I can certainly see the point, although I’ll have to try the format a few more times before deciding whether that’s true.

The cheese course was generous to a fault. The server wheeled over a cart with a wide range of selections. I told him I preferred the exotic and offbeat, and he cut six thick slices. It’s easy to order a $15 cheese course in New York and get three skimpy pieces, so this was refreshing indeed. He asked if I wanted any more, so there didn’t seem to be a hard limit. Anyhow, at six pieces this was a more substantial course than the entrées had been, so I thought it best to stop there (with dessert still to come). I can’t describe cheeses, but the six I sampled were wonderful. They were paired with a sweet port wine.

There was a small pre-dessert of apricots and cream, followed by the main dessert, a raspberry and white chocolate soufflé. This is a specialty dish at Number One, which I’ve had on previous visits. It came with a white dessert wine, which the sommelier described as a palate-cleanser. I’m still trying to guess what that means.

At US$200 (including tip), my splurge at Number One was well worth it. This could turn into an expensive hobby.