It's amazing how eating can be so much fun. From 7:30pm until 11:00pm, PM & I sat captivated by the sights, sounds & smells of one of the most amazing restaurants in the city. Perigee's kitchen is the centre of attention for it is an open kitchen with built-in coves for the chef to interact with the patrons and talk about the dishes being served. For a restaurant kitchen, it was very quiet as the head chef and 4 other chefs danced in a carefully choreographed dance between the fridge, grilling and cooking stations and the server's alcove. A separate cheese and dessert chef worked in front of our bar seats over looking the whole kitchen. The seats surround the kitchen in sets of two, three all having head-on views of the kitchen, the tables for four sitting perpendicular to the work space of the chefs. A true foodie would only sit at the bar, for all the action is right in front of them. I looked intently at every dish being prepared for it could be what we will be served. Perigee is not your typical restaurant with a set menu, you see. We were offered strictly a tasting menu with the server recording any food allergies and preferences. The chef then creates an option of five, six or seven courses for you meal. We chose the seven course meal and actually got a total of ten individual dishes each to taste. I would have been quite pleased to have ordered a full fourteen course meal if it was allowed. Every course that came to our table was absolutely fabulous. The complex flavours, simplicity of the presentation, perfect cooking techniques and thorough explanation of the contents of each dish all made the experience great beyond words. The sheer amount of dishes and cutlery per person was astronomical with at least one vessel per course and a new set of cutlery for each course. The head chef was quite pleased with the vanilla bean we presented him and talked to us a bit food. He actually returned on several occasions to see how the meal was going, with both PM & I asking a variety of questions of him and the pastry chef.
We found out where to get the world's best chocolate, Verona chocolate locally. The chefs really know their stuff. I think we really got their attention with the kind of questions we were asking and were quite pleased to answer our questions with knowledge and professionalism. Being probably their youngest patrons and the only ethnic minority eating there, it was quite interesting. It was much like going to the club with John's family during thanksgiving a few years ago. At least I wasn't mistaken for being a server this time. All the minorities were dish washers or removed finished dishes from the table.
After having the frois gras spiced hot chocolate with frois gras donuts, PM said "This donut is better than sex!” I have to say it was pretty darned good!! Not better than sex though.
As all the courses were amazing, it is difficult to pick a favourite, yet my choice would have to be the duck Prosciutto. It tasted so wonderful...I will need to eat more of it.
Firsts...
-having beef tenderloin with just the outsides seared with the middle nice and red
-having a whole steak of frois gras with that tenderloin
-eating sqaw (which I learned is pigeon) I wouldn’t order it by choice, but it tasted pretty good to me
-eating a total of twenty different courses (PM & I saved a bit of every dish for each other to try)
-watching a professional chef, cook my entire meal in front of my eyes
-eating Morales mushrooms
-using up so many dishes in one meal
-talking food with a head chef
It was a great experience food wise and PM is certainly the right person to accompany me. He wrote down the contents of our dishes in the Axim while I took fuzzy under exposed photos. I’ll have to design a setup to take photos of the vanilla meals in low light environment without a flash.
I couldn't wait to write this all down...
Written with Palm Notes
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