Then, along came Michelin. I trust the Michelin guide in several areas, mainly French, Italian, Mediterranean, etc...The European cuisines, so to speak. (On a side note: NEVER trust Michelin for Chinese/Asian cuisine if you have some basic understanding of what these things should taste like.) While their 2 star choices sometimes left me baffled – I didn’t really enjoy my Guy Savoy visit – I found their 1 star and 3 star choices to be more than satisfactory. So, when the occasion rose, I planned the trip to Bouchon. Booking 2 weeks ahead of time scored me a table at 5:45. I’m pretty certain this is the first round of seating for the evening. So be warned: book early!
Yountville is this quaint little town that is imbibed with flavorful smells, either from the kitchens or from the sun-baked grape leaves. There are several delightful hotels there, like the Villagio, and a bunch of Michelin stars clustered around. Not too far from its 1-star mate - Bistro Jeanty – sits Bouchon, unassuming red canvas with a nice little patio area, kind of like the bistro that you’d walk into for a quick bite down in the Provence.
Not so for the interior décor – alabaster white high ceilings with fresco, golden gilded mirrors, discreet golden lamp fixtures, it looked just like a poster Parisian café, like le Grand Café or Café des Fleurs. The only part that baffled me a lot was the indoor plant. I still cannot understand the need for the tall, green, leafy thing in there. Maybe that’s where Paris meets California.
This is how they provide you with the menu there – around the napkin.
I personally think it is cute, hope they use biodegradable paper. The menu presents a very nice round of popular Parisien café food, though of different…categories, shall we say. Normally you don’t find Plat de Fruits de la Mer appearing on the same menu with Croque Madam AND ris de veau. But again, you normally don’t find a $16 Croque Madam either. All in all, I’d say that the menu at Bouchon tries to collect as many French café/bistro favorites in one menu as possible. A true something-for-everybody. Which of course, tempted us to order beyond our normal capacity.
Fanny Bay Oysters from British Columbia ($16 approx)
Do you see how clean the shells are? How even the sizes are? This is what you get when you pay $16/half dozen vs $8/half dozen – the handpick process. Normally I wouldn’t go for Fanny Bay, because they are too “fat” for my taste, but I make an exception in summer. I wasn’t disappointed. Slightly briny in taste, but the sweetness flowing out from the white bulbous body more than make up for the brininess, esp. coupled with the wine vinegar. Bouchon’s recipe departs from the original of red wine vinegar + raw onion by adding a lot of black pepper. I won’t know how it would work on the lighter variety of Pacific oysters, like Sweetwater or Kumamoto, but it works well with Fanny Bay.
Ris de Veau ($15 approx)
Or sweetbread, as it is known. I won’t go into specifics about where that came from, you can find out more here, but it’s perfectly okay if you don’t read up about it. The only thing that one needs to know about sweetbread, is that it can either be great or horrible, depending on how talented the chef is. In this case, Bouchon scored a 100 in my score card. It is soft, but not mushy, offering that essential resistance to your bite which is the mark of fresh and healthy organs. I’d compare it with a nice, silky tofu, only the tofu dissolves more cleanly, while the sweetbread tends to linger and curl around your taste buds. The mustard sauce is lightly sweet, flavorful enough to enhance the natural sweetness of the sweetbread, removing any trace of gaminess, but does not take away its earthy undertone. Amazing cherry tomatoes, exquisite bundle of tartness and sweetness. Perfect for refreshing the palate. I thought I would’ve hated the lettuce leaves, because they looked so forlorn and squishy, but to my great surprise, it was crunchy!! Almost like a salad!! I personally prefer cooked lettuce, because it removes the grassy taste, leaving only the nice sweet juices, but it’s so hard to do it well. Bouchon excelled right here. A fabulous start of a meal.
Soup of the day – Corn with fresh cream and fried onion strings
Drinking the soup is like drinking liquefied organic corn, fully ripened to its prime maturity, all starchiness gone, offering up a clarity bright as sunshine. Fresh cream adds a bit more smoothness to the liquid with sauteed onion strings to add a crunchy texture to the soup. This is when I realized why I loved the dishes here so much – somehow, they manage to extract that elixir of taste from every ingredient and magnified it to encompass the entire plate. Just like parfum is the most exquisite nuance of flower fragrance, devoid of any impurity that distorts it essence, so are Bouchon’s dishes, yet the flavor and texture profile is distinctly French. The perfect, perfect marriage of French cuisine with the Californian cuisine spirit.
Salade de Chevre Chaud ($9.50)
This is not really the Chevre Chaud I expected, though I have had chevre chaud like this before in Paris. Slightly heated, not quite melted, herb encrusted – mostly rosemary. The salad leaves are only slightly flavored, no more than EVOO, salt, and a bit of vinegar. So the cheese became the dressing for the salad. Nice use of ingredients, but that’s not all. The point of amazement here is the size of the leaves. This is a poster child case of how perfect technique and understanding of the eating action enhances natural flavors. My friend said that eating salad reminds her of being a cow, because you chew and chew. No matter how fresh salad leaves are, they are still a kind of grass, so eventually you would taste that underlying bitterness + rough fibers that make up their leaves before you can swallow. Not so in Bouchon. The size of the individual leaves is just enough so that within 2 quick bites you can swallow, BEFORE you had time to feel the grittiness of the fibers. Truly amazing salad experience.
Aile de Raie ($26?)
Raie = ray. Aile = wings. So: Wing of Ray. Don’t you get the sense that those ray fins should taste really, really good when you go into an aquarium? Yes, they do taste really, really good. Tender and smooth long muscles, good firm texture but never dry because of the glucose from the soft bones, it is just about my favorite fish, but it is not that easy to cook. For some reason, a lot of restaurants over-grill the fin, so it would become a dry and chewy mess. I think it is because they remove the bones before grilling. Bouchon leaves the bone in to grill, then removes the bones at the table. I so wanted to break decorum and ask the server to leave me the soft bones to gnaw for a bit, but I restrained myself. The ray is baked with a slice of lemon with a bunch of thyme balanced on top. That’s not for decoration – I could really taste a slight ting from the lemon, mellowed by the thyme on the skin. Underneath the fish piled caramelized onions. Again, full, strong flavor, nice resisting texture, a really good juxtaposition to the silkiness of the fish. Loved the olive oil + olive tapenade sauce. Just the right balance between saltiness and sweetness, a nice Mediterranean interpretation.
Lamb shank ($32)
It is good. Lamb is not too soft and I like my lean meat to have a bit more of fight remaining in it. Otherwise, all nice juice/flavor would leak out. The interesting thing about the lamb is that it has a hint of smokiness, like…hickory, maybe. Perhaps that’s the wood they used to grill the lamb? In any case, lamb was very good – part easily at the point of the nice, a substantial texture to bit into, very little work required for chewing. The shredded carrots were both sweet and sour, offsetting the nice smokiness of the meat. But all of the above was as expected. I’d be an idiot not to realize by now that Bouchon would serve up a great dish. What took me by surprise was how a component of this dish exceeded great. It was sublime. It was mind-blowing. It was a revelation. The component is: the humble, everyday staple starch – mashed potatoes. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it!!!! You probably wouldn’t believe me, but I really almost cried when I first tasted the mashed potatoes. First was the texture – so silky, so soft, so “melting”…so beyond my imagination of how potatoes could taste. Second was the taste. I thought I had tried all variety of organic potatoes available to me through the major markets, vendors, farmer’s market, you name it. Nothing EVER came close to the cleanness of the gentle and warm potato sweetness presented in this dish. Corn soup realization once again. It might sound melodramatic, but some dishes really could touch your heart deeply because of the amount of care and attention poured into it by the chef, the careful thought and consideration that went into the devising and delivery of the dish, and the idea that someone took so much time and effort in preparing something so simple for your 5 minute enjoyment. I guess this is why cuisine art touches me so much, because it is so very personal.
Shoestring French Fries
I think I saw this on Antony Bourdain’s show in which he declared that Bounchon had the best shoestring French Fries ever. Don't know about that, but definitely very good fries. Crispy exterior fracture with the slightest pressure, potato goodness oozing out from the break. A tad of oregano. Who needs ketchup???
Profiteroles with mint and vanilla ice cream
Even though I couldn’t manage any more, I managed this. Great crispy choux, minty minty mint ice cream and creamy creamy vanilla ice cream. Loved the dark chocolate sauce. A very satisfactory finish to the meal.
All in all, a perfect evening. I’ll be back, most assuredly!
This also gave me a great boost of enthusiasm for French Laundry. I'll make it there yet!
Basic information:
Bouchon
Phone: (707) 944-8037
Hours of Operation: 11:30am - 12:30am daily
