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Tonight is a good night to die.
'Tis the season for game meats, and one of my favorite dishes from this genre is
lièvre à la royale - which I've been lucky to have at a few top restaurants in Europe as well as here in Hong Kong. The dish is pretty heavy, so it's not something I have every year. In fact, the last time I had this was actually 4 years ago!
So once again, I organized a boys' night out at
Caprice.
Hairy Legs Cookie Monster always serves up a great version of the dish, and while I have tasted other dishes served with hare more recently, I still can't believe it's been so long since I last tasted this classic.
I was grateful that Cookie Monster put us at the Chef's Table, which was
where some of us last had this dish together with a huge game menu. We would be having a slightly lighter menu tonight... or so we thought.
I gotta say... I've had these three bites from the
boîte à bijoux multiple times by now, and tonight each of them were the best versions I can remember.
Mushroom tartlet - tonight the mushroom flavors were pretty intense... porcini,
par hasard? There was the usual Parmesan cookie at the bottom, and a small disc of Comté on top with a bit of tarragon. This was more salty than I had remembered, but the flavors were very, very good.
Lobster tartlet - with dill and lemon gel. The acidity was very prominent, as was the dill.
Crispy onion roll - with anchovies and green olive. This was very tasty, and definitely the best one I've had over the last couple of years. The shell was very crunchy and pretty nice.
Gourmandise - did I get the timing wrong? Are we having breakfast here? Because that's what this looks like...
Egg yolk, artichoke, vin jaune sauce - nice foam on top.
Digging into the egg we've got bits of crispy artichoke covered in runny yolk and the
vin jaune sauce. OF COURSE I put this on my baguette, as runny yolk goes best with bread. I also ended up just tilting my head back and pour the contents of the egg straight into my mouth. That combination of warm yolk and alcohol just warms up one's stomach, and it's so comforting.
Was this
croque monsieur or
bikini? In any case having ham and melted cheese between toast is always a good idea.
Brittany sea urchin, caviar, leek - WELL! Isn't this a totally Instagrammable dish?! Sea urchin served in shell filled with some foam, with a
quenelle of Kaviari Kristal caviar sitting on top in the middle.
The flavors of the Brittany sea urchin are not as light and sweet as ones from Japan, and so it was that the foam made with these sea urchins along with some wasabi should pack some punch in terms of flavors. I also really loved the flavors of the leeks as well as their texture.
Japanese squid carbonara, Alba white truffle, culatello - well... if it isn't my favorite dish from Cookie Monster... OK, almost. My favorite version is made with Japanese abalone, but this is the "updated" version with Japanese squid. This one also came covered in shaved Alba white truffle instead of black truffle
chiffonade.
I still love this carbonara, 10 years after I first tasted the original version. That mix of quail egg yolk, caramelized onions, ham
chiffonade, finely diced chives and springy squid is just wonderful. And the white truffle made it better, of course. Was there a bit of rosemary here? One of these days I'll ask Cookie Monster to make me a version with both black and white truffle...
Brittany blue lobster with hare and blue cheese sauce - someone remarked that the dish was too beautiful to eat, and it was! Leaving aside the white truffle slices on top of the alluring curves of the
homard bleu, the blue cheese sauce was painted on top of the hare sauce in quite an artistic fashion. And the sauce gleamed under the light.
As always, the execution was just as I would want -
mi-cuit in the middle, with a wonderful springy texture that gives a very satisfying bite.
That sauce, though, was pure sorcery. The cheese sauce was first infused with Roquefort, then Fourme d'Ambert was blended into the sauce to give a lighter touch than it would have been with Roquefort. We've got calamansi vinegar in the hare sauce, but I could have sworn it was Cookie Monster's other favorite vinegar made with raspberries. This sauce was so amazing that almost everyone cleaned it up. When I realized continuing the usual
la scarpetta with my baguette would fill me up too quickly, I followed the others in just spooning the sauce straight up into my mouth. If they had any rice in the restaurant, we would have asked for a bowl.
Cookie Monster came to check on us, and seeing our faces after such a rich dish, offered to get us some
"consommé". We thought it would be a good idea to have something to cleanse our palates...
Norwegian langoustine, light seafood consommé and Timut pepper - I had forgotten that Cookie Monster serves his langoustines with this amazingly beautiful seafood
consommé infused with ginger, yuzu, and
sudachi (酢橘). Once again, the execution of the scampi was perfect. That consommé, though, was so achingly elegant and beautiful I could cry. So delicate that I wanted to wrap it up in a blanket like a baby, and hug it gently as I sing it to sleep with a lullaby.
While we really didn't need to have a giant scampi taking up more space in our stomachs, we did feel a lot more refreshed after drinking a whole bowl and
consommé, and managed to regain our appetites.
There was a big pot of
hare broth cooking away on the stove top next to our table, so I asked Cookie Monster to give me a small bowl for a taste. It was nice and sweet, rich with flavors but not heavy.
Liévre à la royale - LA PIÈCE DE RÉSISTANCE. BABY, THIS IS WHAT YOU CAME FOR! We jokingly said that it looked like a chocolate tart, because of the color of the sauce and how it came as a glaze over this thick, round disc. The reflection just looked beautiful under the light. On top we had
girolles and
trompette de la mort, as well as both fresh and puréed Conference pear. That sauce made with raspberry vinegar, quince vinegar, Madeira, Whisky, and a dash of 1955 Toro Albalá Don PX Convento Selección was as beautiful as I can remember. Another sauce that we really wanted to drink, despite how heavy it is.
Besides the hare, we also had foie gras stuffed inside... of course. A pretty dense and heavy chunk.
Cookie Monster came to check up on us again, and once again we praised the King of Sauce for his magic. We were loath to waste this amazing sauce, and someone jokingly suggested that we get some penne to pick it up. Well, you don't say these kind of words to dare a chef like Cookie Monster, because he would absolutely call your bluff.
While waiting for our pasta, we watched one of the
commis take a batch of
frites out of the deep-fryer just next to our table. Well, they would taste pretty good with the sauce, too... so we asked for some. One of us asked that the kitchen get us
two fries per person, but of course we got a helluva lot more than that!
Twice-fried frites - yes, these were dipped into the deep-fryer twice before serving. Not that we needed it, but they came with the customary little jar of Alain Milliat tomato ketchup that's always so tasty. And yes, dipping these fries into the sauce was a great way to help mop it up.
Soon enough, Cookie Monster came back with a little bowl of
spaghetti for each of us!
Since the spaghetti is usually served at Caprice Bar with white truffle during this season, we had ouselves some truffle shaved on top, too!
I made sure to twirl the spaghetti well to get as much of the sauce as possible. Oh the spaghetti was cooked
al dente! And I always thought
Frenchies suck at cooking pasta...
Vacherin Mont d'Or, from Fromagerie Antony - I've been waiting for this a long time... it
has been a while since my last baked Mont d'Or!
Of course Cookie Monster came to cover the cheese in shaved Alba white truffle.
Baked Vacherin Mont d'Or with truffles - look at those slices. What a pretty sight!
The magic, though, lay not just in the perfect ripeness of the cheese - which was ripe enough to deliver the punchy flavors but not over - but in the diced cubes of black truffle and onions buried inside before baking. This was so amazing.
And yes, runny, melted cheese should ALWAYS be eaten with fries... and I was so glad there were more than two fries for each of us.
Our pre-dessert was
yogurt mousse with pistachio tuile and vanilla lemon sorbet. Got some crumble hidden inside.
Chestnut tart and chantilly with blue vanilla - inside the ring of
filo we had chestnut cream, candied chestnuts, mandarin
confit, walnut crispy, semonila
sablé. Topped with a ring of chestnut
chantilly and a
quenelle of chestnut ice cream. This is a dessert I first tasted earlier in the year, and for a chestnut dessert, this wasn't intensely sweet like a classic Mont Blanc. This was partly thanks to the addition of mandarin and its fruity acidity. Very light and refreshing, actually.
Most of us politely declined the
petit four selection, as we just couldn't eat another bite. But other than myself, the boys all happily sipped on
cough syrupChartreuse as a
digestif.
With this crowd, it was no surprise we had a great lineup of wines tonight, even though I wasn't allowed to bring a magnum of Sine Qua Non like I had wanted to.
2015 Vincent Dancer Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières - started drinking some 3 hours after opening. This was sooo beautiful! There was a nice balanced level of toast on the nose, which wasn't too big and heavy but just right. Nice and buttery with a dose of lemon citrus and minerals. There was acidity on the palate, but once again it was nicely balanced with ripeness. What a wine!
2001 Sine Qua Non Albino - the nose was nice and floral, with lots of honey, marmalade, and some straw. Very ripe both on the nose and on the palate, but a little hot and alcoholic on the palate. A really lovely wine.
2006 Hundred Acre Ark Vineyard - decanted some 30 minutes after opening, and started drinking a little more than 1 hour after opening. Minty, a bit earthy, and actually a little savory on the nose. Definitely showing cool fruit, and surprisingly not as jammy as expected. Really opened up after 2 hours, and showing smoky notes, too. Delicious.
2005 Sine Qua Non Atlantis Fe₂O₃ Syrah 1c - decanted around 1½ hours after opening, and started drinking more than an hour after decanting. A bit smoky on the nose, and there was almost a hint of brett. Savory and a bit stinky on the nose. Pretty smooth and drinking well, but this was one of the least SQN reds I remember drinking. Totally lacking the typical punchy character and jammy fruit, and leaning more towards a French syrah.
1955 Toro Albalá Don PX Convento Selección, bottle 004, from imperial - this was so complex with lots of spices and herbs on the nose. Viscous texture and sweet on the palate.
What an incredible evening! Many of us have been saying this for a few years now, but Imma shout it even louder now: Hairy
Legs Chevalier is the King of Sauce! I've marveled at his sauce for the
lièvre a couple of times before, and my heart has melted a few times with his ginger-infused seafood consommé, but tonight he definitely reached new heights. That hare sauce with two different blue cheese - which was paired with blue lobster - had to have been concocted by Horace Slughorn or Severus Snape. It was pure magic! I have had many, many great nights here but this had to be one of the most fun with the boys.
Very grateful to Cookie Monster, Robin, Brownpaperbagged, Victor, Benoit, Carl, and the rest of the team for taking such amazing care of us.
We all went home with a box of
beurre noisette chocolate cookies with
fleur de sel from Brownpaperbagged. These were sooo good, but I ended up sharing them with a friend so she could take them to her son. Will make sure to keep them all for myself next time.
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