Monday, June 19, 2006

Per Se

This weekend was fantastic with the exception of a few minor hiccups. I surprised D with a hot air balloon ride on Saturday and a dinner at Per Se on Sunday for his birthday. I'm not sure that he was as excited about the hot air balloon ride as he was about our dinner at Per Se. But that is why I usually line up more than one gift - to make sure that there is at least something D likes as he is really picky.

I had reserved a car through Liberty Car Rental for D to drive to the hot air balloon site. I printed out the confirmation from the online website and everything! Unfortunately, we went to the garage to pick up the car on Saturday and found that Liberty Car Rental no longer exists. !!!!!! The guy at the garage told us that Liberty Car Rental went out of business three months ago! The bastards still have their website up and operating and accepting reservations. I was so MAD! This had happened before to other people who had reserved with this car rental company so the nice guy at the garage gave us directions to another car rental place on Astor Place, Action Rental.

If you are trying to rent a car on a beatiful Saturday in June in New York City without any advance notice, you are pretty much screwed. Every New Yorker is just itching to get out of the city to get to the Hamptons, Fire Island, New Jersey, or any place where there is fresh air. I was panicking because I had already put down money on the hot air balloon ride and the money was noonrefundable. Action Rental had cars available but had only Lincoln Navigators and Escalades left over. I hate SUVs with a passion and I especially loathe gigantic hulking mini monster trucks such as the Navigators and the Escalades. I was willing to give up my trip and forgo all the money as long as I didn't have to ride in those shitty cars. How would you even get through tiny Manhattan streets in those things? It's a wonder that the car rental place even stocked those things.

Luckily after many taxi rides and calls, we managed to get a much smaller SUV at a Budget car rental. I think it was a Ford Rav4 which is infinitely better. I'm willing to compromise on a smaller SUV as long as it gets me to where I need to go without scraping through streets and being in danger of having our wheels slashed by SUV haters like me. We had a lovely time at a Bed & Breakfast in Stewartsville. The B&B was a mini farm with lots of rabbits, chickens, sheep and even a llama! But the ground was covered with poo! =( I guess that is to be expected with a farm but it just solidified the fact that I am a city girl through and through. I was ew-ing all over the place. We ate at a fairly average restaurant: Spain II and had a hot air balloon ride afterwards. We had a balloon all to ourselves with the exception of the guide handling the balloon and the views were beautiful! I was terrified. I was hundreds of feet up in the air holding onto nothing but a flimsy wicker basket. But D seemed to enjoy it and that was all that mattered.

One of the couples in another balloon got engaged that day! The balloon guys had set up a "will you marry me" sign directly under the couple's balloon. I secretly thanked my lucky stars that they took the sign off in time so that D didn't see it. How weird would it be to have D think I was proposing to him in a hot air balloon ride? It would be really confusing. Especially if he said no!

We drove back to New York on Sunday and got lost in Jersey City searching for a gas station. We finally managed to make it home and collapsed into the sofa for a good 10 hours in time for our dinner reservation at Per Se! Per Se was fabulous in every way. It was the best meal I have ever had. Of course, D and I had starved ourselves all Sunday as I had warned him that we should save our appetites for something special. We ate nothing except for a few pancakes at breakfast. We desperately snacked on 5 cheesy Pepperidge Farm goldfish a few hours before dinner but we pretty much came with empty stomachs. The meal began with mini cheeseballs which tasted amazingly like the cheesy goldfish we had just eaten. The amuse bouche was a buttery salmon tartar with creme fraiche in a sesame cracker cone which was very tasty. We scarfed these down and waited for the feast to roll onto the table and into our tummies. We started with what was my favorite part of the meal, Oyster and Pearls. I only wish I could make this at home! It was two oysters with lots of black cavier on top of a buttery broth and tapioca. There was no skimping on the cavier unlike some places (ahem! Tribeca Grill.). We sat there for ages scraping our dishes. It took every ounce of decorum not to lick the bowl.

The courses after that arrived in a whirl. I think we had Belgian Endives with Kumquats as a salad dish. We opted not to go with the Foie Gras (I know! I know! Everyone loves the foie gras dish here!) because we hate foie gras. We are not big liver fans. We ate a fish with a crispy crust and white asparagus and wild asparagus. We moved onto a succulently tender quail. I had never had a poulty dish that was so tender! The tidbits just melted in the mouth! We had lamb in au jus with lamb sauce. I was not a huge fan of this as I normally hate lamb, but it was good enough that I actually did eat it and enjoy it. For a hater of lamb, that's a big step! I went a little foggy after the lamb course because I was SO FULL!!!! I think we had a cheese course with a delightfully light and fresh buffalo cheese that almost tasted like a buffalo mozzerella ricotta. It was on paired with a poached cherry tomato and a fresh cherry tomato on top of a toasted bread and drizzled lightly with olive oil.

We had a sorbet dish after that and a chocolate kind of dessert for an end. We were stuffed! It was amazing that we stumbled out of the restaurant at all as I was sure that we would explode in our seats. This dinner was such a pleasure after the terrible food at Daniel's. *Sniff* Thomas Keller has renewed my trust in fancy restaurants. I must advise that if you do want to eat at Per Se, you must be persistent! Call 2 months in advance of the reservation date and keep on redialing until you get through. It was totally worth it!!!!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home