Duck pate with bronzed apples and warm toast.
Escargots with mushrooms, crushed potatoes, grilled bread, garlic-parsley butter sauce, and a balsamic reduction.
Seared sea scallops with asparagus persillade, gaufrette potato, and sauce vierge.
Grilled quail with dandelion greens, roasted gala apples, bacon croutons, and sherry-honey vinaigrette.
Quail is so tiny!!
Pan roasted Colorado lamb with caramelized onions, garlic crushed potatoes, carrots, snow peas, and lamb fennel essence.
Duck Confit Gnocchi with forest mushrooms, tomato, chard, truffle butter and Parmesan cheese.
Warm Date and Vanilla tart with toasted almonds, espresso ice cream and creme anglaise.
Chocolate Symphony: In the cup is a chocolate pot de creme, in the quenelle is a dark chocolate mousse, to the upper left of the mousse is a chocolate cookie, next to that is a homemade truffle rolled on almonds, and finally a flourless chocolate cake. The swirly sauce decoration is berry coulis and creme anglaise.
I first heard about this restaurant when I was in Niwot at my friend's house. I spent three weekends raising enough money to pay for 8 different dishes. We started the meal with a duck pate with bronzed apples and warm toast. The duck pate was very rich, it was almost like foie gras. If anyone has ever had foie gras you will know it is paired with fruit very often because of how rich it is. The fruit will bring acidity and sweetness to a very rich and decadent pate. Every single flavor worked perfectly together. The one thing I must say is that the plating could have been a bit better. In my opinion the pate was being hidden by the bread and the pate could have been in a tighter quenelle, that would have given it a much more eye popping appearance. The next dish we had was escargots with mushrooms, crushed potatoes, grilled bread, garlic-parsley butter sauce, and a balsamic reduction. With this dish, again, the escargots were buried under the bread. Other than the bread hiding the snails the dish looked a very good and was probably one of the best things I ate all night. The snails were super tender and every thing else on the plate went perfectly with them. The mushrooms added a great earthiness and the crushed potatoes added a very nice soft and creamy texture and tying it all together with a garlic-parsley butter sauce was just fantastic. The next thing we enjoyed was seared sea scallops with asparagus persillade, gaufrette potato, and sauce vierge. They were better than the scallops I ate at Jean Georges. The scallops were perfectly cooked and caramelized. The sauce was a very intense acidic sauce and that complemented the sweetness on the scallops. The asparagus was perfectly cooked and soft, with just a bit of crispness in the middle. The potatoes were very nicely salted and fried. The pattern added a very nice look to the dish. Scallops are an ingredient that are not good unless they are fresh. In Colorado there are no oceans and that means unless the scallops are being delivered fresh they will not taste very good. Well I do not know whether they were fresh or not but they sure tasted fresh. All the flavors and textures from the salty, the sweet, the sour, the crispy, the soft, and the tender all made the dish great. Our next dish was grilled quail with dandelion greens, roasted gala apples, bacon croutons, and sherry-honey vinaigrette. For me, most poultry ends up being very dry. Quail is incredibly moist and because they cooked it properly it was very tender. There was a slight problem with the amount of greens compared to the amount of quail. There were just too many greens on the plate. For our larger meat items we had pan-roasted Colorado lamb with caramelized onions, garlic crushed potatoes, carrots, snow peas, and lamb fennel essence. The chef really knows how to make garlic crushed potatoes. I was using all my self control to leave some for my dad. The lamb was perfectly cooked and medium rare. The only little thing that did not jive with me was the sauce. It was a little grainy and incredibly over powering on the fennel. Also, there were no actual caramelized onions; there were these little fried onions on top that were actually not that good. Next we had duck confit gnocchi with forest mushrooms, tomato, chard, truffle butter and Parmesan cheese. From the sound of each ingredient it seemed like it would be a very heavy dish, which it was, but in the midst of that the gnocchi stayed very light and fluffy. They were not quite as good as my gnocchi at Radda but they were still really good. The duck was very tender, I mean when you cook something in its own fat it is probably going to be super tender. Now into dessert: the first dessert was warm date and vanilla tart with toasted almonds, espresso ice cream and creme anglaise. The tart was fantastic with so much vanilla flavor and dates in every single bite. The ice cream added a great bite and temperature change and the creme anglaise was very nice. One thing was that there was not enough creme anglaise on the plate. Our next dessert was the chocolate symphony:dark chocolate mousse, chocolate pot de creme, flourless chocolate cake, nut truffle and a chocolate cookie. The chocolate pot de creme was the best. It was perfectly set on top and then hot and liquid in the center. I am so glad I have found a place where they make good chocolate mousse. So many people make it wrong when it is as simple as making chocolate whipped cream. The mousse was very good. At the end of the meal I had a long conversation with the chef about wagyu beef compared to filet. I totally recommend this restaurant.
