Whenever you're introducing two of your favorites to one another, you always have that concern that they'll be like oil and water. You want them to work but fear the outcome if they don't. I should have known better than to worry. Last night's meal at Gramercy proved to me once again how wonderful the restaurant is. The servers always make me feel like a regular without constantly bothering me throughout my meal. Why do I love Gramercy so much?...read on my friend and learn how my best friend forever met my best restaurant forever...
So, I'm a big proponent of starting a dinner out with a good stiff cocktail and luckily so is my best friend. I opted for the Gin-Ger & Tonic, a wonderful blend of plymouth gin, fresh ginger, lime, tonic and crushed ice...Ahh. Susan selected the Hot Chocolate Martini but the waiter warned that it would result in her having no room for dinner so she changed to a much more appropriate aperitif of the Orange Blossom. Starting with the Orange Blossom gives one a very fancy feeling. This mixture of sparkling wine, elderflower liqueur, and orange bitters with a beautiful curl of orange peel as garnish is just elegance in a glass.
Our amuse bouche was a little potato puff on a bed of black olive tapenade. This had a wonderful crisp exterior, melty interior, and a delicious olive flavor. I love olive and so does Susan so we thoroughly enjoyed this kickoff to our meal. I relaxed a bit as I realized that the introduction of my favorites was going to go swimmingly.
The waiter's description of the first course special of bay scallops in a ginger flecked broth with butternut squash and radish made my mouth water, so I immediately decided on that. Susan flip-flopped between pretty much every first course and ended up choosing the warm maine crab in egg crepe with carrots. I loved both of these. The maine crab was buttery and melted in your mouth...I was overjoyed that Susan gave me more than one bite of this fantastic seafood starter. I adored the crab flakes with the carrot texture and silky crepe and then the butter tone of the entire dish. So simple and flavorful. My starter was also fabulous. The heavenly broth had a nice ginger hint and pieces of perfectly seared scallop throughout...just overall delectable. In both cases, Susan and I wanted more, which is pretty much the highest complement.
Okay, so to go with our meal, Susan and I selected the Unibroue Blanche de Chambly from Gramercy's excellent beer menu. Unibroue is a canadian brewery and produces some of my all time favorite beers (chief among them La Fin Du Monde and Maudite). This was the first time I had this white beer that had wonderful citrus hoppy flavor. I loved and drank every last drop and almost grabbed Susan's when she was drinking too slowly!
For the main course, I had the duck breast with white sweet potato and sherry maple endive. The duck was a lovely rose color with crisp skin and velvety tender meat in a slightly sweet sauce. Oftentimes, I feel that places go a little too sweet with sauce on a duck, but this sauce was perfect in that it was slightly sweet without being overpoweringly so. The endive and sweet potato mash made a lovely base for the dish. Susan had the poached lobster with turnips, radish, and lobster squash sauce. How do you even begin to describe perfection?! The lobster pieces were poached to the ideal al dente texture and that sauce...that sauce was DIVINE. It was pureed squash with a slight hint of the sea that I could eat by the spoonful pretty much everyday...Maybe even spread it on a lobster roll.
After our main course, they brought a palate cleanser of a creamy cheese panna cota (or at least it appeared to be a panna cota) with a small scoop of grapefruit or guava sorbet (I thought grapefruit and Susan thought guava...who was right? we'll never know!). Regardless, it was a "scrape up every last bit" winning flavor combination.
For dessert, I asked that they split the bottle of Brooklyn Brewery's 2005 Chocolate Oatmeal Stout from their vintage beer list for the two of us. They were more than happy to comply. Whats more the manager came over to introduce herself to me and praise my pairing of this beer with two chocolate desserts. She was so excited by our choice and the fact that we also had had the Unibroue with our main course, as it is also one of her favorite breweries.
I was kind to my best friend, this being her first trip to the timeless Gramercy, and I let her have the warm chocolate bread pudding with cocoa nib ice cream. I had my second choice of chocolate coconut tart with amaretto sorbet. The bread pudding was the clear winner. The bread was perfectly moistened in a wonderfully chocolate custard and the cocoa nib ice cream on a bed of what were the equivalent of Carvel crunchies (what a great texture addition) balanced the chocolately denseness of the pudding with a toned down chocolate flavor. The coconut tart was very good but the texture of the coconut was slightly too stringy for me. I wanted it to melt in my mouth a bit more. The amaretto sorbet was fantastic though.
The trio of petit fours to finish off our wonderful meal were caramel macaroons, chocolate spiced pumpkin truffles, and passion fruit tarts. The macaroon was a macaroon - a nice airy little bite. The spiced pumpkin truffle was excellent - the center was a delicious fall-spiced soft pumpkin ganache and the shell was a nice crisp chocolate. The passion fruit tart was a passion fruit curd on a little buttery crust shell.
To send us on our way they gave us a cinnamon muffin. I had this as a breakfast appetizer this morning and was pleasantly surprised with how moist and flavorful this muffin with a nice surprise of cinnamon goodness in the middle was.
At the end of the meal, Susan said "Jennie this might be one of my favorite restaurants too. I think we need to make it a point to come back every season when they change the menu". Nothing could have made me happier than her saying this...well that is except a meal at Gramercy. I should have known Gramercy would never embarrass me in front of my best friend.
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