Have you ever been asked the question of whether you eat to live or live to eat? I seldom think about this and I can’t decide for sure. The brain wants to choose eating to live while the taste buds definitely want me to opt for living to eat. But let’s keep the brain aside for now and talk about food. This post is for all those who live to eat! I’d like to share reviews of my dining experience at the Plumed Horse, one of Saratoga’s finest restaurants.
Recently for my birthday, the hubster took to me to the Plumed Horse in Saratoga. Thanks to M for the sweet surprise, and for topping it off with good food and even more wonderful memories :). The ambiance of the restaurant is very elegant and sophisticated. When you step in and walk towards the dining room, you know that you are in for a great fine dining experience. Decor is sleek and upscale. The restaurant is huge compared to few of the other fine dining spots I have been to around the bay area. Plumed Horse serves modern Californian cuisine and chef Peter Armellino manages to bring innovation to the dishes served.
We decided to opt for the tasting menu since none of us is a heavy eater and we love to be surprised by the chef’s creativity. Our server also suggested that would be the best bet for vegetarians. Before food was served, we were offered gourmet bread. I always look forward to the amuse bouche. Amuse Bouche at Plumed Horse was Australian truffles with oil cheese over a cracker. Feed me a good truffle dish and I am sold 🙂
After relishing the amuse bouche, we were served basil bread and roasted garlic bread. For some reason, the impression that I have from a lot of “good” places is that you have to chew so hard on the bread that you feel like you are eating rocks. The side of bread at Plumed Horse was so soft that it almost melted in the mouth. Our first course was Portobello mushroom with truffle oil and cheese. I have to admit that this was my least favorite dish. Since the first course was just ordinary, I was skeptical about the entire meal, but what a ride it was for the taste buds after that first course. The salad course was a grilled local peach with smoked almond, goat milk yogurt, fricassee salad. I was hoping to not eat a beet salad and the chef surprised us with the peach salad. Our third course was corn bisque with corn flan. Now for those of you who don’t know me that well, I cherish almost anything and everything that is made out of corn. For me there has never been a bad tasting corn dish EVER! After some delishhhh salad and soup, our next course was mushroom risotto with truffles. This was the tastiest savory dish of the entire meal. Our final dish was lentil cakes with zucchini roles and mini peppers. This was the chef’s most innovative dish because the heat of the peppers blended really well with the lentil cakes. And the peppers were extremely tasty.
After finishing the savory round of dishes, our server asked whether we wanted to opt for a cheese tasting before moving on to the desserts. Both M and I are light eaters, so we decided to skip the cheese tasting because we wanted to save some room for dessert.
We knew it was going to be desserts galore as soon as our server placed 3 spoons on the table. The first dessert course was raspberry sorbet with tapioca. It was very refreshing. The next dish to be served was toasted coconut semifreddo vanilla salt with strawberry soup and micro basil. This was the yummiest dessert I have eaten in a long long time. It had a lot of flavor to it. After that was a familiar peanut butter jello combo with white chocolate mousse and marshmallow fluff crispy. I could eat those crispies all day long :D. We have tried enough of chef’s tasting menus to know that it never ends at the final course. Next to celebrate, there was a toast, and then some chocolate macaroons and then a strawberry ice cream popsicle dipped in dark chocolate and coated with nuts. Wowwww!!! This is one of the finest Michelin stars we have been to so far. I highly recommend it for a special someone!
Who doesn’t love being pampered! A day when I was supporting the motto of “Live to eat”. Indulgence at one more bay area’s finest restaurants and I am all smiles 🙂 🙂 🙂 This place is definitely worthy to make a special occasion memorable.
Memoir's Galore 