Chez Panisse

I'm in the middle of writing up a hellish real estate investment case (case study, for non-MBAs), but just wanted to post the menu I had with some friends at Chez Panisse on Friday. Liz and I drove up from LA straight to Berkeley, where Alice Waters' famous restaurant is located.

Friday, April 27 David's favorites

An apéritif (This was fruity, light and chilled... or am I confusing it with the dessert wine that the nice staff treated us to after the meal?)

King salmon paillard with fava beans and herb salsa (I thought a paillard was a flattened piece of meat that is then fried - chicken paillard, non? This was actually a most delicious salmon carpaccio. Fresh fava beans = awesome)

Handcut pasta with green garlic and morel mushrooms (This turned out to be a risotto. Very delicate. Some of my friends found it bland. Fresh English peas dotted the dish. I wish I'd kept the printed menu! Now it occurs to me there were lots of substitutions.)

Warm Paine Fram squab salad with Banyuls vinegar sauce, squab liver toast, roasted celery root, carrots, and artichokes (I was wild about this one. Though I could have had the squab a bit more well-done. Basically it was an entire squab, in lovely deboned slices; each of our plates came with 2 squab hearts, for some reason)

Rhubarb-strawberry coupe with ginger parfait (A nice ending: Sweet rhubarb paired with lovely local strawberries, including one tiny one with a stem left on. But even nicer was the aforementioned dessert wine on the house and the tour of the kitchen and chatting with one of the assistant chefs who was extremely wired, and maybe even on speed.)