Here are the impressions of yesterdays dining out.
We met the cook and owner of the little place on a job training fair this spring and immediately liked him. He recently closed his downtown restaurant because he was "pissed off by the elitist cooking" he did before and opened a new one in an old cottage in the middle of nowhere, where he practises a more down-to-earth style of cooking. Twice a month, he organises a crossover event between literature and cooking. Such an event was yesterday night and the wife invited me to celebrate our wedding day.
The literature part was covered by works of
Wilhelm Busch, the menu was the following:
-Consommee with funghi porcini
-Corn fed spring chicken breast served on sauteed Hokkaido pumpkin, with peppered noodles and a grilled king prawn
-Assortment of desserts
The dining started around 8pm. We arrived a little bit early and enjoyed the sunset with a latte macchiato. The accompanying cookie was a hazelnut macaroon, made by the cousin of the cook (Christmas is approaching!):
As a little amuse-gueule, we were served a small fried quails egg on bread:
Next was the soup, a clear and strong beef bouillon with a good amount of funghi porcini:
After the soup, we recieved a small piece of buffalo mozzarella spiced with salt and vanilla and decorated with a hint of pomegranate:
The first of two Wilhelm Busch recitals followed and was mildly amusing.
The main course in contrast was spectacular:
The spring chicken breast was fried and then oven-baked on the bone and served only with a hint of poultry essence. The pasta was cooked with peppercorns and then just glazed with a hint of butter (not my hints) and again spiced with some pepper.
I usually am not a friend of the common pumpkin as a side dish, but this one had a very smooth, nut-like and buttery taste which was mostly left as-is, only accentuated by some salt and pepper. It was served on a nasturtium leaf with a piece of wine-and-cinnamon-cooked pear accompanying it. The king prawn was kinda surplus imho, but gave a nice change of taste to the dish. It was grilled and served with a sherry/red wine sauce.
After the main dish came the second helping of Busch recitals, which was a bit hard to follow with the digestion setting in. Afterwards, as a "starter" for the desserts, we got a small cup made from bitter chocolate filled with a slice of banana which was marinated with some cointreau and buttermilk and sprinkled with some hazelnut brittle:
The dessert itself consisted of an aossortment of (from left to right):
a slightly cinnamon-marinated plum, hazelnut cream, parfait of elderberries, homemade vanilla ice served on rice pudding and a spoonful of a russian chocolate/cherry/cheesecake mix which I do not know the correct English term of ("Zupfkuchen" in German).
All dishes made me realize how amateurish of a cook I am.:lol
The cook himself, Mr. Christian Potthoff (friendly and funny as hell and swears even more than me):
You can see him in action
here (I hope the link works for you).
The evening ended around 11.45pm. When we returned to the parking lot, we had the first night frost on our car. This means that the Autumn is coming and I will put out the real hearty dishes for the near future:lol
I hop you liked this humble post. Feedback, your own recipes and your comments are always welcome!