My meal at Menton

with Barbara Lynch and Kendrin

I started this post almost a year ago, and I finally decided to finish it. Some meals are just that memorable. Or more importantly, sometimes the company you keep deserves to be extolled, especially if said company is moving back to her home state in a few days. While she deserves more than just a silly little blog post, this one goes out to my fabulous friend Kendrin who had a temporary opening for a plus one for this event last August, which was a four course dinner with wine pairings for select American Express card members. She apparently has mad AmEx skills. 

For many of us here in Boston, we’ve been in denial that she is actually moving away. But sadly for us, it’s true. Kendrin and I moved to Boston as wide-eyed twenty-somethings more than a decade ago and we met as part of the “elite eight” who were matched to Tufts for a dietetic internship. It is hard to describe all that we’ve experienced together…from the traumatic (9/11/2001 and the Boston Marathon bombings last year) to sharing birthday celebrations, starting our Restaurant Club, taking up running, and traveling the world. Not to mention some pretty fantastic professional accomplishments along the way (hello ScD from Harvard!). Through love and loss and everything in between, those bonds have some serious strength.

Corn veloute

I’d also like to give a shout out to our lovely table companions, and of course the one and only Barbara Lynch. Even with a full restaurant she was gracious enough to speak to the group, take photos, and personalize the copy of her cookbook (Stir) that we all received. The Barbara Lynch Gruppo also includes No. 9 Park, B&G Oysters, The Butcher Shop, Stir, Drink, Sportello, and 9 at Home (catering). A not-so-small empire.

Beef

The wine and bubbles were flowing from the time we were greeted at the door. They were also serving a “paper plane” cocktail which involved bourbon. I will pretty much always choose bubbles over almost anything else. Then there were many many rounds of passed hors d’oeuvres, even though most people took their seats during the cocktail hour. There were teeny tiny onion baguettes with goat cheese, teeny tiny zucchini rolls with ricotta (which I actually really liked), oysters with caviar, lobster BLT with avocado, and a fish one that I can’t remember the specifics on. The lobster BLT was my least favorite, even though I love the full-size version at B&G.

Creme brulee

Devil’s food cake

Then began a four-course dinner with wine pairings. Since Kendrin and I are good sharers, we got to try everything. The food was beautiful…almost too pretty to eat. Our first course was a roasted carrot salad with yogurt, date, vadouvan (an Indian spice blend) which was paired with a 2012 Leitz Riesling “Dragonstone” . The second course was a corn velouté with littleneck clam, brioche, and smoked bacon or an east coast halibut with coriander, orange, and carrot. I liked the corn velouté better than the halibut, barely. This was paired with a 2011 Guillot-Broux Macon-Cruzilles “La Croix”. For the main course, I preferred the beef (roasted prime strip loin of beef with bone marrow-crusted onion, frisée, and chanterelle) over the chicken (Giannone Farms chicken with hen of the woods, brioche, and Swiss chard). The chicken was paired with a 2010 Rion Bourgogne Rouge and the beef was paired with a 2009 Chateau Landat Haut Médoc Bordeaux. 

Dessert was a toss-up…I was also so full that I couldn’t finish my half! There was a mascarpone creme brulee with peach, thyme, and cinnamon, which was paired with a 2012 Saracco Moscato d’Asti. The other dessert was devil’s food cake with coca nib, blackberry, and almond, which was paired with a 2012 Cascina Garitina Brachetto d’Acqui “Niades.” Even though I couldn’t pick a favorite, they were both so pretty I had to include their photos here!