La Quercia

Some old friends emailed me and asked me if I'm interested in an 11 course Italian tasting meal. Yeah!  Is the sky blue?

Just a caveat with this food blog entry.  I had 4 hours sleep last night (darn the Summer heat!) so I can't remember the details of every course.  My food descriptions will probably be more brief then usual and I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Course 1: Antipasti

Antipasti

The antipasti course was interesting.  Thinly sliced, prosciutto, beef tongue, melon, olives, pickled vegetables.

Course 1 cont:

Shaved tenderloin, tuna pure, capers on crackers

Course 2: Mozzarella with cherry tomatoes

I really like this dish.  The mozzarella was home made I believe and is was super soft and creamy.  The tomatoes were very sweet with no hint of tartness at all.  I wonder what kind of tomatoes were they.

Course 3: Cheese Soufflé on zucchini capriccio

 

Course 4: Cured Salmon with saffron aioli.  Smoked salmon puree canopy.

Course 5: Sole

The fish was served at room temperature which surprised me.

Course 6: Mushroom Risotto

The server boasts that this is the best risotto in the city!  It was quite good with the texture more on the al dente side then I'm used to.  I think mushroom stock was used as the mushroom flavour permeated throughout the whole dish.

Course 7: Stuffed home made pasta with beet root tops in a buffalo butter sauce

I kept trying to figure out what's the difference between buffalo butter and normal butter but I couldn't detect a difference.


Course 8: Pasta with pork ragu

Course 9: T-bone steak

The steak was so think that it tasted more like a roast than a steak.  It was seasoned more than usually but I found it worked and I enjoyed it.

Course 9: T-bone steak side: sautéed mini yellow squash

Course 9: T-bone steak side: sautéed peas with rhubarb

Course 10: Alagio cheese with pine honey

The cheese was super strong and pungent.  The pine honey was wonderful though and offset the strong cheese perfectly.  I don't know what pine honey is but I'm guessing it's like maple syrup where it's from the sap of a pine tree.

 Course 11: Dessert

Flourless chocolate cake, some sort of cookie, lemon pana cotta.  I enjoyed the chocolate cake a lot. I've had flourless chocolate brownies before from my gluten free friends and I didn't really think much of it - but this flourless chocolate cake rocked.  It had little bits of hazelnuts that added texturally to it.  I've seen pana cottas a lot on food shows but never had a chance to had it myself.  Not bad.  It's basically flavoured cream set in gelatine.


Sorry that I couldn't describe each course better.  But I'm so tired!  Overall I enjoyed the food and also enjoyed the company of my old friends as well! Adding on a bottle of wine, a bottle of sparkling water, a cup of coffee and gratuity, the bill ended up being $97 per person.