A vegetarian lunch at French Laundry
For the uninitiated, French Laundry is one of the best restaurants in the world. I got a chance to try the tasting menu. I had a vegetarian, or to be precise, a lacto-vegetarian (milk and cheese but not eggs) meal here.
The restaurant looks nondescript from the outside, and it is easy to miss it while driving.
French Laundry
It was an 8-10 course meal, depending on how you count a course. Portion sizes were small but delicious. And there was a gap of about 15-20 mins before each serving. So, a commitment of 3-4 hours for the full course.
Course 1 begins
Crispy Chickpea Panisse (at least that’s what I remember)
Fennel Gastrique
Course 2 – Toasted Quinoa Tabbouleh
Course 3 – Holland White Asparagus En Persillade
Course 4 – Sacramento Delta Green Asparagus
Course 5 – Bread and Butter
Course 6 – Morel Mushroom Farci – did not taste like a mushroom at all but was still pretty delicious
Course 7 – Spring Vegetable Navarin – I was starting to feel full by now
Course 8 – Bleu D’auvergne “French Blue cheese” – never tasted such cheese before
The meal ended with a mouthful of deserts
It would be a wrong question to ask whether the food was worth the time and money. The right question would be “Was the experience worth the time and money?”, I would say, “definitely”. Being vegetarian, I was skeptical but was delighted beyond my expectations.