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Home from Montreal
Aug. 11th, 2009 08:53 pmThank you for all the birthday wishes! I had a great evening. The organ concert included several of those big thundering moments that are so marvelous in stone cathedrals, and cathedral itself (basilica, actually, if you want to be precise) was magnificent to see as well.
Dinner at Bonaparte was delightful, to my pleasure (and relief -- I checked reviews, but still, one never knows). It was fairly straightforward fine French cuisine with occasional contemporary touches. So not experimental, but expertly cooked and beautifully presented. We chose the 6-course tasting menu, a bargain at $62. For the record (and my memory, so feel free to skip), our courses were:
1. Lobster bisque -- a surprisingly robust and flavorful version, not the delicate, creamy soup I expected.
2. K: Warm goat-cheese and almonds in fyllo dough, M - Duck foie gras cooked terrine style
3. K: Shrimp and scallops with vanilla sauce, M - quail confit with Provençale vegetables
4. Pear sorbet in red wine
5. K - Fillet of beef seasoned with five peppers and cognac, M - Lamb cutlets in demi-glace sauce
6. Symphonie de desserts: Sampler portions of chocolate mousse cake with hazelnut crust, strawberry mousse, cheesecake, and creme brulee. Maybe there was one more, or maybe I'm just thinking of the patisserie cream garnish.
The dishes all included more than is named, like beautiful garnishes and darling little vegetables. The only food fail was the sorbet, which was too sweet to be a good palate cleanser. Their very limited wine-by-the-glass selection (3 whites, 3 reds, named as varietals but not by winery) was disappointing, but we ordered a bottle of Chateau Pesquié Quintessence (a Rhône red) instead and were quite pleased with it. In sum, it was a delicious and beautiful meal, quite suitable for a birthday celebration.
Our flight today was uneventful, getting us in early even, unlike planes later in the day that were apparently quite delayed on take off. We had a fine fannish group gather at the gate to get those last few drops of convention conversation in. The flight was a non-stop to SF, after which we took AirTrain to BART to CalTrain, then wheeled our luggage home that last 1/2 mile (hooray for packing light and only having carry-on).
Maybe I'll post about the convention itself tomorrow. The short summary: a good convention. The programming topics were excellent, though there were too many panels. Even though there weren't very many attendees for a worldcon (fewer than 4000), it was easy to miss people all weekend because there was no focal gathering point. We had dinner with John & Eileen the first night and I never saw them again. Similarly, if we hadn't made a point of having dinner with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
peake , we would hardly have seen him except when he was in front of the room. All in all, though, we still really enjoyed the convention.
Dinner at Bonaparte was delightful, to my pleasure (and relief -- I checked reviews, but still, one never knows). It was fairly straightforward fine French cuisine with occasional contemporary touches. So not experimental, but expertly cooked and beautifully presented. We chose the 6-course tasting menu, a bargain at $62. For the record (and my memory, so feel free to skip), our courses were:
1. Lobster bisque -- a surprisingly robust and flavorful version, not the delicate, creamy soup I expected.
2. K: Warm goat-cheese and almonds in fyllo dough, M - Duck foie gras cooked terrine style
3. K: Shrimp and scallops with vanilla sauce, M - quail confit with Provençale vegetables
4. Pear sorbet in red wine
5. K - Fillet of beef seasoned with five peppers and cognac, M - Lamb cutlets in demi-glace sauce
6. Symphonie de desserts: Sampler portions of chocolate mousse cake with hazelnut crust, strawberry mousse, cheesecake, and creme brulee. Maybe there was one more, or maybe I'm just thinking of the patisserie cream garnish.
The dishes all included more than is named, like beautiful garnishes and darling little vegetables. The only food fail was the sorbet, which was too sweet to be a good palate cleanser. Their very limited wine-by-the-glass selection (3 whites, 3 reds, named as varietals but not by winery) was disappointing, but we ordered a bottle of Chateau Pesquié Quintessence (a Rhône red) instead and were quite pleased with it. In sum, it was a delicious and beautiful meal, quite suitable for a birthday celebration.
Our flight today was uneventful, getting us in early even, unlike planes later in the day that were apparently quite delayed on take off. We had a fine fannish group gather at the gate to get those last few drops of convention conversation in. The flight was a non-stop to SF, after which we took AirTrain to BART to CalTrain, then wheeled our luggage home that last 1/2 mile (hooray for packing light and only having carry-on).
Maybe I'll post about the convention itself tomorrow. The short summary: a good convention. The programming topics were excellent, though there were too many panels. Even though there weren't very many attendees for a worldcon (fewer than 4000), it was easy to miss people all weekend because there was no focal gathering point. We had dinner with John & Eileen the first night and I never saw them again. Similarly, if we hadn't made a point of having dinner with
peake , we would hardly have seen him except when he was in front of the room. All in all, though, we still really enjoyed the convention.
