Just got back from a week in San Francisco. What a great city. Wow, though, do I not miss needing at least an hour to get anywhere you’re going. Wow. I think I can safely say we did the hell out of our time there – I’m exhausted.
The main reason for the trip was dinner at the French Laundry, one of the top restaurants in the country. I was excited, but also a little skeptical – how good can it be? I mean, of course it’d be very, very good, and elegant, but perhaps I was worried that it would require a palate more refined than mine. Wrong. Incredible. Beyond our expectations. A five hour dinner, every bite it’s own experience. Certain elements were more incredible than others, but nothing could really qualify as a low. I feel really lucky that I got to experience a meal like that. It’s hard to imagine knowing food so well that you could construct things whose flavors create a multi-stage, evolving, transcendent sensation. The best points were foods that were familiar, yet had somehow become heightened, their essence revealed. Tomato, butter, things like that.
I don’t know which is harder to imagine – going back, or not going back.
Joel Clements 