Anniversary Dinner at Journeyman

This year She Who Must Be Obeyed and I decided to try something a bit more casual for our anniversary dinner, which naturally led to our booking a table at Journeyman. It’s not to often that we go out for dinner on a Thursday, so it still felt like a special occasion. Again, this will be more of a photo essay instead of a review. I didn’t take any notes, so my memory of the dishes might not match the menu descriptions. I attribute the failure to creeping senility.

October Salad

Seen above, we had another variation on the fall salad. This one featured tomato foam and yellow carrot purée, baby beet and turnip, radish, cauliflower, a dried chard chip, and dehydrated caramelized onion (at least I think that’s what the brown crumbly bits are).

Mushroom risotto, corn

Mushroom risotto with sautéed hen of the woods mushrooms, corn foam, and thyme.

Whiting, lettuce

Pan-seared whiting fillet, lettuce emulsion, a lettuce leaf stuffed with smoked bluefish, all topped with a braised lettuce rib.

Foie gras terrine

This was an evening special, a favorite of She Who. The two thick slabs of foie were garnished with radishes – including a thin sheet of daikon – and a beet compote.

Lamb, cauliflower

Lamb three ways augmented with another special, grilled lamb heart. From top to bottom: heart, loin (cooked sous vide), braised shoulder, and flank (lamb belly), accompanied by baby potatoes, cauliflower purée, and sautéed broccolini stems.

Palate cleanser

Much to our surprise, the gin and tonic gel had been replaced with this, a peach and green tea gelée topped with tarragon foam.

Apple, smoke

From right to left: candied apple, torched marshmallow on a homemade graham cracker, apple sorbet, cinnamon panna cotta and smoke panna cotta (both identical, part of the surprise of the dish), pecan biscuit. This was an inspired mashup of s’mores and apple pie.

Mignardises

Chocolate shortbread cookies, espresso pots du créme, and flourless chocolate cake.

The evening ended with a pleasant surprise as we learned that we have friends in common with the general manager, who, in turn had been reading this blog. I need to get used to these connections being made, because they are happening more often.

I like the idea of a laid-back anniversary dinner. I think we’ll save the high-end dining for more portentous intervals like 20 and 25, provided we haven’t vaporized in a matter/antimatter event before then.