DINNER AT BLUE HILL AT STONE BARNS- REVISED

Ok, I'm back at work this week, so this may be my last post for a while. I'll try to make it a good one.

On Sunday we headed out of the city to spend the evening with Tom's brother and his family. They live in upstate NY, about an hour outside of the city, and very close to Tarrytown, the location of the famed Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Since we knew we'd be visiting, I had had Tom make reservations for Blue Hill two months in advance, and we were joined by our friends Huong and Kjell for dinner there. After spending the afternoon playing with Tom's adorable nephew, Jayson, we headed out to the restaurant. Located on a sprawling farm, Blue Hill is famed for its farm to table philosophy and practice. You can actually visit the farm during the day. There's a visitor's center, a cafe and picnic areas. Unfortunately we were visiting during the evening, so by the time we arrived, it was dark and couldn't see much, so we hustled over to the main restaurant to meet our friends.

When we entered the building we were first met by a warm lounge with a bar and a fireplace. We checked in with the hostess and then waited a few minutes in the lounge area before our friends showed up. We were then escorted into a pretty large dining room with 20+ foot tall beamed ceilings. It had that farm kind of feel in that they used a lot of gray granite all throughout. It was pretty dimly lit, so unfortunately, you'll have to miss out on photos. Sorry!

Many of you might not know how Blue Hill works, so I'll explain. There's no menu there - just a list of seasonal ingredients that they'll be using for the meal that evening (and they actually emailed the list to Tom before dinner). Basically you get to make one decision - if you're going to have the 5 course meal, or the 7 course meal. Everyone at your table has to agree. I argued for the 7 course, because we'd made the trip out there, might as well splurge. Then I listed off the ingredients I don't eat- pork and red meat. And that was it. From there the kitchen creates your email. (Kjell wanted to avoid anything dairy heavy).

And so you're first started off with a series of amuses. It doesn't matter if you get the 5 or 8 course, you all get the same thing. This is what we got:

Parsnip soup in a shot glass (yummy)
Homemade potato chips with fried sage (ok)
Homemade oatmeal crackers with butter and special salts. Butter is yummy.
Mini beet burgers - ok, Tom and I both really enjoyed these. First, they were super cute - the diameter of a quarter. And it was these sweet little "buns" with a tiny circle of beet and a little chevre.
Pancetta and salsify with sesame seeds. I avoided this one, but Tom got to have mine. And I think he enjoyed it.

Ok, and onto the actual main courses.
#1- Seafood chowder with Maine diver scallop. This was probably one of my favorite dishes of the meal. It was a really light chowder and the diver scallop was super yummy and nicely cooked. It came with lots of other seafood, like mini clams and mussels. The only once thing that bugged me was that I specifically said I wanted to avoid pork, and there were chunks of bacon in the chowder. Luckily, I'm not one of those people who freak out if there's pork or red meat in my food, so I just gave the bacon to Tom.

#2 - Local beet salad. Ok, I must admit, the presentation prior to the beet salad kinda annoyed me. Our waiter came up with a plate of beets and explained to us the different kinds that'd be used in our meal - Chiooga, golden, etc. And then how the grow and harvest them. I realize how proud they are of the food and their desire to educate, but these are the same beets I get every winter in my CSA. But the beet salad was actually one of Tom's favorite dishes. I'll admit that it was well prepared. I wasn't a fan of the yogurt dressing, but they had this toasted pine nut puree spread on the plate and it was delicious. I scraped up every bit of it.

#3 - Local farm egg with lentils. They served us a local farm egg (laid that morning) that had been deep fried in a crust of panko and then served on a bed of lentils. I guess you're supposed to be super wowed by the egg being laid that morning, but I really swear, having a soft boiled egg at Cafe Fanny tasted better and fresher than this one. I guess that the fried crust really didn't do anything for me. And the French lentils were well cooked, but I felt they it contained too much vinegar, so that took away from the flavor of the lentils. Tom felt that it worked well if you broke the egg and let the yolk run down on the lentils, but it wasn't my favorite thing.

#4 - Seabass. Ok, I forgot what the seabass was served on top of. But it was perfectly cooked with a nice brown crust. And I did like it.

#5 - Homemade gnocchi. My friends got pork cheeks, and I don't know why, but they also served Tom the gnocchi even though he eats pork. I though that it was well made, and I liked that it was served with local mushrooms. Those were yummy. Tom actually liked the gnocchi more than the pork cheeks.

#6 - Chicken. Everyone else got lamb (actually, Tom didn't like it at all - too fatty and unctuous for him). But I got chicken. And it was really good. Perfectly cooked and full of flavor. It may have been simple, but was my favorite dish of the entire meal.

Finally, dessert. We got 2 dessert courses!! And you all know how I love dessert. But they end up being my least favorite part of the meal. To start off with, we were served:

#7 - Grapefruit and Fromage Blanc Ice Cream. The Grapefruit had been candied, but I still found the rind far too bitter. I ended up avoiding it after a few bites. And I truly believe that cheese should not be made into ice cream. I had one bite of the ice cream and avoided the entire quenelle. However, my friend Huong like her ice cream a lot.

#8 - Apple Tarte and Squash Cake. For our last course, we were served alternating desserts. The ladies got apple tartes, the men got squash cake. Let's start with the apple tart. I found the apples themselves far too over spiced and then it was served for spiced ice cream. It was too much for me. So I traded with Tom, who was struggling with his Kabocha Squash cake and ice cream. To be honest, the cake wasn't too bad - kinda like pumpkin cake. But I find it utterly unnecessary for Kabocha squash ice cream to exist nor pickled Kabocha squash. I did love the candied pumpkin seeds that were served on top of this dessert.

Overall, we had a very pleasant dining experience at Blue Hill. The service was really great (finally at some point during this whole trip we got good service), but I gotta warn you, the place is not cheap. Not to mention after some consideration and discussion with my boss (who had also been in NY the same week), I've come to the conclusion that food in the Bay Area is just better than that in NY, and I am utterly spoiled from living here. And my friends who dined with us would agree. When you're forced to rely on seasonal ingredients in NY in December - there's just not a whole lot spectacular to eat. And truly, over 75% the ingredients used by Blue Hill I'll see in my CSA box at least once a year. And it'll also be locally grown, organic and direct from the farm.

I guess when you live 15 minutes away from Chez Panisse, the restaurant that started the whole farm to table thing in the U.S., you just get to experience better quality food on a daily basis. So my advice to you all is to come visit us. We'll take you for food just as great, just less expensive.

Ok, Tom wanted me to make some slight revisions to my post after he read it. He'd like me to mention that the service, pacing and portion sizes at Blue Hill were excellent. He'd also like me to clarify the point that I do not believe that all food in the Bay Area is better than that in NY. I was just making the point that for restaurants doing from farm to table, seasonal or local foods, we definitely have the advantage. However, I will not deny that fact that NY tends to have superior pizza, pastrami, bagels and for Tom, hot dogs. Also, when discussing with my boss, the overall experience at NY restaurants tends to be better - they really have the whole package, though we win in the food cateogry.