A Candle At Saint Pierre

I suppose turning 40 is significant. It's kinda at the halfway milestone on the journey of life, on the assumption that without debilitating illnesses and tragic incidents, our lifespan hits 80 years. We simply ought to celebrate and mark living and all its associated blessings while we can.

While I managed to piece together a belated birthday platter for the man, I didn't get candles. Or a candle. Luckily for me, at a belated dinner celebration, Saint Pierre took care of that. The man didn't mind this late candle. He enjoyed the restaurant's version of carrot cake that was beautifully presented at the end of the meal.

Saint Pierre had just swopped out a new menu, retaining some familiar favorites of beef cheek, black cod and lobster. The man gave in to an appetizer of ris de veau aux morilles. No regrets. He loved it. Fantastic combination of veal sweetbreads with leek confit, white asparagus, capucine, pickled mustard, polenta tuile and morel sauce. Dunno why I bothered with comme des sushis, which was weird, but all right. Its name suggested, "like sushi". Okay lor. Heh. Little separate bites of chutoro tuna, botan sweet prawn, kinome rice ball, bonito crust, dill pearl, cucumber gel, cod tempura, tomato water, scallop mousse. Not inedible. Most interesting, but nothing like sushi. :P

What was impressive, were Saint Pierre's new choices of vegetarian items and especially its mains. They were stellar. We threw out the meats and went for those. Oeuf en meurette- fava bean puree, edamame, organic corn genoise, carrot bouchon, ratte potato confit, savoy cabbage leaf, smoked egg, pinot noir emulsion. So many layers of taste and textures. It was gorgeous. I couldn't resist anything tomato. Took the tomate douce- caramelized momotaro tomato, gomadare hollandaise, sweet cherry tomato, sesame sponge, soy pearl, miso broth. Totally loved that.

Grinned at the names of the dishes. The French names mean little except hint at one of the ingredients within. The English description beneath specified the list of ingredients. However, one would need to be acquainted with both European and Asian cooking to have an inkling of the flavors to expect, otherwise it might be a shock to the tastebuds. The dishes weren't conservative, but nothing over the top either. The man and I appreciated the effort put in by the kitchen to create the vegetarian mains. Tasty vegetarian food isn't difficult to produce, but it isn't easy either. Dinner was thoroughly enjoyable, ending with nibbles of gorgeous aged cheddar. Good selection of whisky. No wonder Saint Pierre remains one of our go-to restaurants.