We arrrived early fo our second dinner at White Barn Inn Restaurant so we could enjoy a drink with the live piano music beforehand. The bar stools had been reserved with people for dinner so we had a choice of some stuffed chairs or a seat at the piano, where we chose to enjoy a nice Negroni. It was a lovely way to start the meal, which tonight was to be the 8 course blind chef’s tasting. There is no printed menu but Executive Sous Chef Liam Gove was nice enough to email me a list of our courses to help with my write up. I find this is often offered and about the half the time they actually do it but kudos to him for promptly following up. My understanding from our server was that the tasting was adjusted since we had the lobster tasting the previous evening and they didn’t want to repeat any courses. We also sat on a different side of the room which was much better for photos, less sun glare and more constant light from an overhead spot. We didn’t ask about wine pairings as we chose to get our own bottle of wine each night. Service was again first rate with the friendly staff anticipating every need and being quite helpful. This was another meal I’d recommend you try, but the lobster was my favorite of the two.
Set-up
Food
We started with a Negroni cocktail and listened to the piano.
The amuse bouche was a lobster and cheese gougere. It was warm and cheesy.
Two kinds of breads were offered, sourdough and brioche rolls with salted and charred shallot butters. The brioche roll was lighter that the sourdough which was dry tonight. Neither was very good tonight, but that sometimes can be a plus as you won’t eat the bread and have room for the meal.
The tasting started with a wild mushroom paté garnished with 50 year old sherry pearls and basil oil. It came with 2 very thin and crsip black garlic crackers. The paté smooth was and mildly flavored. Some basil mint powder was the white stuff at one end and that was a good accent. It was wonderful when spread on the delicious crisp cracker – a fantastic combination.
A Smoked Love Shuck oyster was topped with pickled cucumber pearls, citrus and lime leaf sabayon , lemon verbena dust. The rich sauce was wonderful with the great oyster. Very tasty, I could have eaten several of these.
Maine lobster was on squid ink bucatini(pasta) and garnished with fennel, tomato confit and piment d’ espellette. The perfectly cooked pasta was good with the tasty lobster and other ingredients. This was a nice combination.
A wild mushroom risotto was seasoned with creme fraiche , black truffles, and parmigiano reggiano. The runny risotto was good with a lovely flavor and the truffles had more taste than some, but importantly they didn’t have a cardboard texture. This was a mild flavor dish but good.
Foie gras mousse was layered with strawberry rhubarb gelee, basil, strawberry gelee and toasted brioche and decorated with a strawberry rhubarb tuile. It was a fairly whippy mousse with the brioche being chewy rather than crispy. The tuile gave it some texture but not enough. I’d call this one good, not great.
Pan seared halibut was sitting on vichyssoise and brunois (small chopped) yukon potato and topped with fennel and crispy rice puffs. The halibut coould have been cooked less. Some of the thickest portions were okay but other parts were dry. At least there was the rich sauce underneath however some of those potato chunks could have been cooked a bit more.
A5 wagyu ribeye was sliced beside sunchoke puree, sunchoke chips, roasted enoki mushroom and covered with au jus. Chef wrote ribeye and the menu called it tenderloin but either way this wasn’t Japanese A5 – it didn’t melt in your mouth. It was nicely rare and tender but didn’t have the buttery flavor of Japanese A5 The sunchoke puree was quite good but the enoki didn’t have much flavor, just looked exotic.
Dessert for one of us was strawberry rhubarb vacherin with vanilla mousse, strawberry rhubarb jelly, meringue and basil sorbet. It was a bit like the dessert we had last night without the lobster. I liked the merigue sticks but otherwise would call it just okay.
The other got kiwi mango gateaux with mango mousse, mango coulis, kiwi sauce topped with a vanilla tuile for dessert. This was the better of the two but both were too mushy and less than delicious.
Bonbons tonight were passion fruit squares, chocolate with dulce de leche filling and white chocolate filled with mango. The last 2 were very nice.
A box of 2 sugar cookies was ours to take back to the room. They were good.
