Dennis & Aimee's Big Gay Paris Adventure

Last night, Mark, Jill, Dennis and I went to the Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. It is rated by Michelin (which puts it among the world’s most highly respected restaurants) and has an outstanding view over Paris. It was very expensive. It was very awesome, too. Here’s the menu – the actual menu words are in bold, and my comments about each item are underneath.

You can see more about the restaurant, including a 360 degree view, by clicking here.

Our meal started with 4 glasses of pink Veuve Cliquot champagne, which was outstanding. They brought a bowl with strips of savory flatbread coated with hazelnuts or pistachios (two kinds of bread).We were offered an amuse-bouche to begin, which was a small cup layered with what seemed like minced root vegetable on the bottom, a crème fraiche dollop that may have been scented with seafood, topped with olive oil and what seemed to me to be dried red caviar. Oh, and the butter was outstanding, as you’d imagine it should be.

TODAY
A menu of discovery:

Pressed Duck Liver, Leeks, Dublin Bay Prawns and Truffles
Salted Cake with Truffles
Well, you know I’m a sucker for the foie gras, but what I found really great about this dish was the combination of the foie gras with the “cake” which was more like salty, coarse cornbread to me. The silky texture of the foie paired with the grainy cornbread was really outstanding.

Creamy Shellfish Jelly, Marinated Dublin Bay Prawns
Caviar from Aquitaine
This was a very interesting dish of mostly raw chopped shrimp on a bed of opaque beige buttery gel, with a healthy scoop of caviar on top. The caviar by itself was my favorite, though the combination of flavors was great. The caviar taste got lost for me in with everything else.

Warm Poppy Seed Bread Stuffed with Crab Meat
Cream of Shrimp
Jill pretty much started giggling when they brought this. It was about the size of a ping pong ball, perfectly browned on the top, sitting in a small lake of frothy beige sauce. Breaking it open revealed delicious crab that had a consistent texture throughout. Soaking a piece in the sauce made for an outstanding taste.

Opened Ravioli with Sea Scallops
Green vegetables in “Blanquette”
I had to laugh at “open ravioli” since what this seemed like to me was one flat noodle over scallops, but Dennis pointed out that noodle doesn’t sound half as good as “open ravioli.” The scallops were good, and extra good with the noodle, but the star of this for me were the petite green vegetables: slices of peapod, asparagus, whole peas, and beans. They were perfectly crisp and fluorescent green. So tasty.

Sorbet with Avocado and Mild Spices
Now this was a real show-stopper. Some kind of crazy, but also really good. It was avocado sorbet, scooped into a shape just like you would get if you scooped an avocado – kind of egg shaped but pointed on the ends. The color was the same as avocado, but the texture was cold and creamy. It was incredible. It was drizzled with this transparent brown sauce that the table believes contained nutmeg and celery salt – a little spicy, a little sweet. So so weird, and yet, it worked.

Degustation of Bresse Chicken
Thinly Shredded Truffle
This was the least interesting course. It was, well, chicken in brown sauce. It was good, but, after all of that, it was hard not to say “is that it?” I ate a piece of shredded truffle by itself, and it didn’t taste like much. The star of this for me was the roasted root vegetables under the chicken – bits of yam and turnip that were just awesome.

Thin Slices of Black Caraibes Chocolate
Quince Reduction
Everyone loved this, but I’m not a huge chocolate fan. There was a candied pecan half on top that was spectacular – even more so because Jill gave me hers. In between the slices of chocolate were poofs of chocolate mousse.

Crème Brûlée with Mild Spices
I’m not sure I spotted the spices, but this was very, very fine crème brûlée, and just a tiny bit, which is all you want.

So, six or seven changes of silverware later, we arrive at the end. But not quite, really. After this, they brought a plate of petits-fours, followed by another covered dish of anisette marshmallows and fruit gels with intense apricot flavor.

We also had a fantastic wine which the sommelier wrote down for me. It was: Chorey – Les Beaune, Bourgogne, 2001, Domaine Tollot. Beaut. It was an Alsatian wine, pinot grape, medium body. It just opened up so softly and tasted so smooth and good, it was hard to stop drinking it.

We came home, had a bit of eau de vie that Dennis’ dad brought from Germany (a friend of the family made it himself, and boy was it tasty) and lolled about for a while. I went to bed at about 12:30 – I’m not sure what time the other kids turned in. Maybe Dennis will post more about how he enjoyed it.

--Aimee

P.S. Here are a few pics we found on the camera left over from this dinner.