Napa: La Toque

Our first dinner in Napa was at La Toque (http://latoque.com/). This restaurant came very highly recommended from friends, so we were looking forward to it. I have to admit that I was a bit green from our first day of tasting so I skipped the wine pairing.

La Toque offers a choice of either three or four savory dishes and then dessert. Naturally, we went with the four savory dishes which, looking back, three probably would have been just fine.

To start off the meal was a mushroom soup, a rich creamy slightly-too-think deeply-flavored mushroom soup. It was definitely a good way to whet the appetite and get me hungry though for such a rich soup, I'm surprised they gave us as much as they did.

I started off with the hamachi tartare which was delicious. The flavor profile was something right out of Taka, actually, and I'm not sure if that's a compliment to Taka or La Toque but I think it's too the latter. In the tartare were nice-sized chunks of hamachi, avocado, asian pear, and some tobiko with a tangy, citrus-spiked vinegary sauce. This was a winner.

Josh started off with the beef carpaccio which was topped with mushroom chips plus a mushroom mixture in the middle. The outside pieces of beef were fine but they lacked flavor. Once he got to the oily mushroomy pieces, he said the flavor was much better, but of course, the dish was more than half gone at that point. I'm not really sure about the mushroom chips. I assume it was done for contrast, but I thought they were weird.

My second course was the lobster salad. A mixture of lobster and sweet potato chunks sat under piles of frisee and fried sweet potato straw. I really did not like this dish. The lobster was tasty on its own, but I found the dish to not go together at all. I ended up switching dishes with Josh halfway through. He said you needed to really mix the whole thing together which he said did end up going well together. I tend to eat things one bit at a time. And well, he likes frisee and I don't.

Josh's second course was the foie gras served on top of quince with a pomegranate gastrique and some strewn pomegranate seeds. It's pretty shocking that 1) there was foie gras on the menu and I didn't order it; and 2) Josh ordered it. It was pretty good. But it's hard not to love the foie. I mean really.

Our third course was chickpea ravioli with the white truffle supplement. It came served in a slightly thick, incredibly rich mushroom broth. Josh really liked this dish a lot. He is a huge fan of chickpeas. He also thought the mushrooms, the mushroom broth, and the truffles all went well together. I am not sure if it's because I was a little green or if the chickpeas didn't quite work for me but I thought it was all a bit much. I thought all the different mushrooms were too much on one plate.

For my last savory course, I got the ribeye served rare. This beef was impressive with an incredibly consistent sear around the outside with a very nice rare center. The puree (I wish I could remember what kind) was good. The carrots were cooked well, but the taste of butter was so strong that I suffered through eating them. The haricot verts were delicious.

Josh's last savory course was the veal cheek. They were braised beautifully and it really brought on the love of autumn. I can't remember much about it but I asked him and his answer was, "well, I ate it all". That's a good endorsement if I ever heard one.

My dessert course was a fromage blanc from Cowgirl Creamery fresh cheese. It was delicious. Once I got closer to the center, it was a frozen berry-compote of some kind. I avoided it.

Josh's dessert course was some kind of chocolate gateau. I don't have much to say about this except it was hard to eat and he didn't finish it.

La Toque was a good experience and I'm glad we went, but I can't say we will be back when there are so many other good places to go.