There is a reason why Thomas Keller's other Yountville spot is costs $240 a person. Thomas Keller is a culinary god. The attention to detail is obvious in every aspect of every dish that goes out the door at his restaurants. It seems like each item on the plate is cooked and perfected separately and assembled into a single course.
Our menu fixe started with an blanched Alaskan salmon salad with fingerling potatoes asparagus and a sorrel dressing. The salmon was at the peak of freshness and I think calling it "blanched" is an overstatement. If while the cook sliced it he thought the word "heat" it was overdone. The texture perfectly matched the softened fingerling potatoes, and the subtly bitter sorrel dressing tied the dish together.
Next was lamb shoulder sous vide and roasted yellow squash. Almost every meal at Thomas Keller's restaurant has at least one item cooked sous vide. Basically the food is simmered at very cold temperatures ~160F in a sealed vacuum packed plastic bag usually for many many hours. The lamb was cooked at very low temperatures while under a vacuum for 20 hours. This left style of cooking leaves the most succulent and subtle flavored meat can be. The low temperatures allows the volatile aromatic compounds not to dissipate and shine through after the long simmer.
There are 2 types of dry: lack of water dry and lack of fat dry. Boil a chicken breast for an hour and you'll see what lack of fat dry tastes like. Simmer it in warm oil and you'll taste a "thickness" which is lack of water dryness. Soux vide doesn't cook at a temperature that will boil off most of the water, nor at a temperature that renders the fat into the pan, everything just redistributes through the meat the bag seals in all the flavors that would have escaped as scent.
Back to the meal. The next course was a cheese from the cowgirl creamery. It was a slightly stinky soft spreadable cheese reminiscent of limberger. However the cheese was very traditionally paired with almonds and cherries. I thought this lacked a certain daring that I was coming to expect in the meal. I thought this was the weakest point in the meal.
They finished strong with a classic brownie. Perfectly cooked with just the slightest sliver of uncooked batter in the middle giving a layered effect from crunchy right through to gooey.
