My Birthday Dinner at Five Sixty, Part III

Now for the fourth course...General Tso's Quail with a Mizuwa Salad.  Now, for the first time, we had a red wine--one that I'd actually heard of and tasted before--Irony Pinot Noir, from Monterrey, CA.  Again a perfect pairing.  I'd had quail before, but not with this sauce--it was sweet and crispy and kind of orangey (if I recall correctly) and I did not at all mind gnawing at the tiny leg bones until there was nothing on them.

After this course, we were brought hot napkins to wipe hands and mouth on, and, yes, we needed them! 

Next, (Fifth Course), we had Mango Chili Glazed Gulf Coast Prawns with Jasmine Rice and were back again to a white wine,  Arneis from the Russian River Valley, in CA.  The winery is Segshesio (?), or perhaps I have the name of the wine and the winery reversed.  These, too, were wonderful and the pairing a delight, but sandwiched between the last two courses and the next two, well, shrimp are somewhat mundane  But, they certainly cleaned the palate for the next course.

I know we had a curried dish as well, it may have been a bonus, or it may have been the shrimp, I just don't remember for sure now.

 

 



As the sun began to go down behind Dallas, our sixth course was served:  Beef Filet and Wok fired Corn with a smoked Shallot Sauce)  By now, I was becoming very full and knew I needed to save room for dessert.  I was, however sure this was Wagu (sp?) beef, and it was cooked exactly the way I like it, seared and removed from the heat--blue!  TR dug into my corn when finished with his, but he wasn't getting any of my beef--it was the most tender flavorful beef I've ever had and was served with our second red wine of the evening, Cotes Du Rhone, "Le Clos DeCalliou" from, of course, France.  It was not strong enough to overpower the beef, but was also not overpowered by it.

I cannot find a picture of that course or the next, but you can probably get the idea by the description.





 



And, now for dessert.:  We had a flourless chocolate mousse cake, in a half circle shape, with cherries macerated in Amaretto and a chocolate ice cream.  On my plate, in chocolate syrup was written, "Happy Birthday, Julie."  This was served with a Bergman Eiswein (Ice Wine) from Germany.  Thank GOD I'd saved room!  I'm usually not fond of ice wine--much too sweet, but, this dessert needed a sweet wine, and this complemented it perfectly without adding heaviness--the dessert was rich, the wine was light.  A perfect ending to the day.




 

 

 

And, surprisingly, as we left nearly five hours after we had come, we did not feel uncomfortably full or inebriated.  We were just really satisfied and had a good night's sleep that night.

 

My Birthday at Five Sixty, Part II

Please see Part 1, one entry down.

Our first course was a summer corn soup with Thai basil oil and pork belly (pork belly and fish will become a theme, as you will see.)  It also had a drizzle of chili oil on the top which tended to burn my mouth something fierce, but nobody else was bothered, so it was just my super sensitive mouth that was at issue.  No bread would be served at all, so I dove into the water and the wine--with this course it was a Gruner (Vetliner?), by Saurenz V "Singing" from Austria--a light white that worked perfectly with the corn and pork belly. 



The bar in Five Sixty.

The second course was Miso Marinated black cod (sushi arrangement for table), salmon, sea scallop, octopus, and Hamachi.  It was served with a Momokowa unfiltered Sake from Japan.  This was the best Sake I'd ever had, which means I was actually able to drink about half of it before I let TR finish it for me (which, yes, required his wavering from his course of only drinking champagne.)  All of the sushi was delicious, especially the scallop which I'd never had raw before.  The texture of cooked scallop was gone and this was just smooth, buttery, and melt-in-your-mouth good.  There was also California roll, but only a taste for each of us, so we would not get full on rice.

Not exactly what we had, but close.
 

Our third course was "Dim Sum" which included Tamarind Glazed Ribs, Porkbelly Potsticker, Organic Chicken Dumpling with Szechuan Dan-Dan Sauce, and Lobster and Shrimp Spring Rolls.  With it came the Sankerre (wine) by Henri Bourgeois of France.  This was a large course and took us some time.  We lingered over and commented each bite.  There were four tastes of each treat, so dividing up the platter between us was pretty easy.  Again, the wine was a superb pairing, and still not a red wine in sight.  This is, of course to be expected with so much fish included in the dinner.

These are the items we were served, except the ribs are not pictured, but ours were arranged for four on one plate.
Pretty spectacular.

Four courses to go.  Hopefully, I will finish this treatise tomorrow.  And, I promise, next time I will take my own pictures which should take a lot less time than searching the internet for pictures similar to what we ate.  Thank goodness Julie took some pictures!




We were, of course, enjoying every moment.  Julie had us clear the area in front of us so it wouldn't
look like every time I was photographed, I had a glass of wine in my hand or food in front of me, but,
really, why else would I be at a restaurant?





My Birthday Dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Five Sixty at the top of Reunion Tower in Dallas

I confided in Julie, TR's daughter, that one of the things on my bucket list was to eat at least once at a celebrity chef's restaurant.  She immediately made reservations for Wolfgang Puck's Five Sixty (that  is the height of Reunion Tower) for the Sunday before my 69th birthday (July 6, 2014) while we were sitting at the coffee table at the Y.  Reservations were for 5:00, which rather disappointed me since in the height of summer it doesn't get fully dark here until 9:30 and the city is a whole new kind of beautiful when the lights come up.  Little did I know we would not be leaving until 9:45....  Yes, we were there for 4 3/4 hours--nearly five turns around the dining room.

 

After a first perusal of the menu, which I'd seen earlier on the restaurant's website, I was at a loss.  I wanted to try everything.  The closest to that was the seven course (there is a twelve course also, but I knew that was totally beyond my stomach capacity, large as I am) tasting menu with wine pairings ($200 a person!), but I figured that was totally out of line. 

I should mention, at this point, that this is an Asian restaurant, and in many of the menu items, I did not recognize a single word.  Julie went ahead and ordered a bottle of champagne while we decided and then proceeded to tell us what she and Chris had had in the past and enjoyed.  I said, "I just can't decide," although I did know I eventually would when she suggested exactly what I really wanted--the tasting menu with wine pairings.  All of us decided to have the same except TR who decided not to have the wine pairings because his meds might clash with unknown wines.  He decided to stick with champagne, finishing our bottle and then ordering by the glass as we went on. 

While we were still drinking our champagne, our palate cleanser (a sweet and savory spoonful to get the palate ready for good food) arrived: a cherry-size heirloom tomato, blanched and peeled, on a bed of avocado mousse with a kind of honey jam on the bottom (or maybe just honey) piled on a tasting spoon like the ones used on the TV show, The Taste.  Luscious, especially with the champagne.

 

I should note at this point that this was my first experience with fine dining--everything I know is from the TV chef competition shows which I am addicted to, so I may cite them often.

As we drank the champagne and waited for our first course, chatting with our very personable and knowlegible waiter, Mathew, who knew, not only all about our food and wine, but also everything, it seems, about what we were seeing out the window, Julie took and posted pictures:



This is Dallas looking east over the city--the highway is 75.

And here is the dining room as seen on the restaurant's website:

 

Mathew asked us if we had any time constraints, and when we said, "No, none at all, you are stuck with us for the evening," he seemed relieved and told us how he hated it when people thought they could get through a seven course tasting menu in an hour and a half.  This was no hour and a half meal for us!

 

The "Amuse" course was brought out, a bonus course now giving us eight courses, not counting the palate cleanser.  This was a glazed pork belly Bao Bun (a sandwich on a bon mi bun) with Hoison Gojuchian aoli (I know from my shows that an aoli is a mayonnaise,  usually flavored.)  With it was served a Rose, a Lucien Albrecht wine from France.  The pairing was perfect--the wine having enough body, while being light, to stand up to the pork belly, which I now learned was a glorified bacon, thickly cut.  Although Julie suggested that what really separates pork belly from bacon was that the hogs were raised as pets, fed milk and honey, curried and groomed, and had music played to them as they matured.

 

Part II of this discourse will come up tomorrow....We haven't even gotten to the first course yet!

 

 

 

Fourth of July

Why is it every time my picture is taken, I have a drink in my hand.  Julie entitled it, "Waiting for fireworks and drinking champagne."

Fourth of July, no triple digit temperatures yet, and none predicted.  (Turning to knock on my wooden desk).   As the sun went down, the thermometer dipped from 94 to 84 with a lovely breeze coming in from the lake.  This was our fireworks in Lake Dallas.  We'd tried to watch them from our house the past few years, but there were just too many trees in the way.  However, we knew enough to know it was a pretty decent show.  Chris filmed it--it lasted about 30 minutes--and was spectacular.  A lovely evening out with Julie (taking the picture) and Chris.  That is TR to the left of Chris--almost unrecognizable in that hat.

Now I have three fireworks shows I DVR'd to watch--D. C., New York, and Fair Park in Dallas.  :-).  I love fireworks.