salmon tartare – with green onion crème fraiche in a cone; the amuse bouche, their version of lox and cream cheese to whet the palette with a bit of savory – the creaminess of the crème fraiche paired with the crunch of the cone offset the buttery texture of the salmon nicely

gougeres – traditionally stuffed with gruyere cheese, but these were much runnier than normal gruyere, they had almost a cream inside of them that I might be able to distinguish if I had more than two bites of it to figure out, but these gougeres will be the gougeres you compare all gougeres against in your lifetime

Oysters and Pearls – “sabayon” of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters and white sturgeon caviar.
This is their signature dish that never changes on the menu and I can see why. It’s playful with bubbles of tapioca, caviar, and a bauble of poached oyster. The brininess of the caviar combines smoothly with the creamy sabayon and you never know if if’s tapioca or caviar that’s exploding in your mouth, but the crown jewel here are the two oysters – sweet and not chewy at all; I had eaten both of mine and neglected to share one of them with Noblesse D’Couer, which is uncommon for me

Royal Ossetra Caviar – with Maine lobster en gelee, garden dill bavarois, and oyster crackers. (+$60)
Noblesse D’Coeur ordered the supplement so we could try everything on the menu, and you can taste the difference between the two types of caviar when you have them side by side. The Royal Ossetra is a little more mellow with larger beads. Tucked inside were small chunks of lobster making it an extremely decadent dish. Despite such bold flavors, none of them overwhelmed the other. If you’re a caviar fan, this is a must splurge.

Only at the French Laundry would I have to take a picture of the salt and butter. There were 6 salts of varying textures and salinity: Hawaiian clay salt, Hawaiian lava salt, fleur de sel, a salt from Montana, and two others I don’t remember. As for the butters, the circular disc is salted from Vermont and some of the finest butter you’ll taste and the egg shaped one is local from Petaluma, which is lighter and cleaner in flavor. Kipnik is a butter connoisseur – we were trying to figure out how to take the butter home with us…

duck foie gras terrine – with preserved green strawberries, pistachio pain de genes, garden nasturtiums, and young fennel gastrique (+$30).
You do not go to French restaurant without trying their foie gras, and for a foie gras nut like me, $30 is a normal price for a foie gras, though I prefer it seared rather than in a terrine form. They brought us a hot brioche to spread the terrine on, along with the salt and butter, but who wants to spread salt and butter on a brioche when it could be smothered with foie gras? Foie is interesting because if you don’t balance it correctly, it can become too rich, but they found a way to combine all these flavors without using a purely tart or sweet item, leaning heavily on the preserved strawberries and tangy fennel gastrique to do most of the legwork. The nasturtium would have been the bitter crunch this dish is normally paired with, but the leaflets of nasturtiums barely made an impact on this dish. The balance was subtle, but it was still there. The pistachio crust around the foie gras was also notable too, as it took a while to figure out the flavors, but it is certainly a compliment to the richness of foie rather than a contrast. The best part perhaps, was when another piping hot brioche magically appeared on my plate just as I was wishing that I had more bread to go with my terrine. Thoughts read, brioche magically delivered. So amazing!

broccoli salad – with Hawaiian hearts of peach palm, toasted marcona almonds, crispy chickpea panisse, and sauce romesco.
This is hardly what I’d call a salad, and it definitely wasn’t a broccoli salad, as there are only two florets of broccoli in it, but this is what you get if you don’t order the foie gras. Not quite as exciting, but a nice palate cleanser with plenty of crunch from the nuts, peas, and palm hearts.

Rouget en ecailles de pommes terre – fork crushed La Ratte potatoes, Spanish capers, globe artichokes, and crème de cresson
This was another wonderfully playful dish from the kitchen. The potatoes were thinly sliced, fried, and layered on the rouget to simulate the fish skin without any of the unpleasant inedible scales, but with all the crispness that a fish skin should have. Kipnik thought it tasted like the sea, and the brininess of the fish was enhanced by the salinity of the fried potatoes, but the fish itself didn’t taste “fishy”. The watercress also contributed to the brininess of the fish by adding a bit of umami.

Stonington Maine sea scallop boudin – pearl barley, garden celery, arrowleaf spinach, and double mushroom bouillon
That perfect little round package has the sweetest scallop that I’ve ever eaten inside of it. Normal restaurants wrap scallops in bacon, but that overwhelms the delicate flavor of a scallop, so The French Laundry wraps it spinach so that a subtle taste of the garden lingers behind. Add in umami flavors from the mushroom broth and you have a bit of the sea and earth complimented in a dish without making surf and turf.

Rouelle de tete de cochon – servi avec lentilles au vin rouge
Roughly translated, pig’s head with lentils in red wine. Of course if you wrote that on the menu, most people would automatically choose quail. This makes it more like sweetbreads – the people who don’t know better, don’t know what they’re eating, which is just fine, because it’s still delicious. It tastes like the most flavorful sausage in a delicate pastry shell, though the red wine sauce was a little bit on the salty side and you needed to balance the two appropriately.

Wolfe Ranch White Quail – creamed fava beans, cherry belle radishes, roasted pine nuts, and Holland white asparagus veloute
This is probably the largest piece of quail I’ve seen, and it’s sitting in the best tasting asparagus that I’ve had. Both quail and asparagus are rather bold flavors, so they compliment each other quite nicely, especially with the cream to blend the two flavors. Add in the fava beans and pine nuts to balance out the dish from being too creamy.

Charcoal grilled Japanese Waygu – green asparagus remoulad, tomato confit, wild miners lettuce, and salade béarnaise
Noblesse D’Coeur is a steak guy, and if you’re going to the French Laundry for a once in a lifetime meal, then you might as well get the once in a lifetime Waygu supplement (+$100). I didn’t quite get the full effect of this dish as I only had a small bite of the steak as it was only 4 ounces, but I can say that it melts in your mouth with an unparalleled sweetness while still retaining a distinct beef flavor without tasting fatty.

Slow roasted Elysian Fields Farm lamb – preserved green tomato relish, marinated Persian cucumbers, garden turnips, and white grain mustard jus.
I love lamb chops, and would choose lamb chops over a steak most any day, so I was quite happy that this was the meat entrée of the night. That little lamp chop has no hint of lambiness and had a thinly crisped crust that melded beautifully with the jus. The adorable little salad was there to prevent the dish from being too heavy and added a nice crunch and contrast to the meat. The mustard helped bridge the two items together. Both Kipnik and I had to resist the urge to pick up the bone and gnaw on it to get every little bit of meat off the bone. Any other day, we probably would have, but there were too many people and wait staff to be able to get away with doing it surreptitiously.

Andante Dairy Contralto – cauliflower barbajuan, Hadley Orchards medjool dates, and sweet curry-carrot puree.
This is actually a local goat cheese, that I didn’t recognize as a goat cheese, though it did have a bit of a tang to it. It’s creamy and semi-soft and paired well with the date and curry-carrot puree. They gave us a piece of coriander seed bread to go with it, which was wonderful since the coriander stood up well to the cheese. The most confusing thing on this dish was that cute little barbajuan, which is a cute little cauliflower shaped pastry stuffed with cauliflower and cheese. It was warm and sadly, didn’t seem like it belonged on a cheese plate, but it went well with the carrot-curry paste.

banana crème fraiche – I have no idea what else is in this dish, but I remember it being a tart remoulade of some sort as crème fraiche needs something to spice it up. I’m guessing it was strawberry and a shortbread cookie. This is one of many desserts and they call came at once, so I forgot what was in it in my excitement to see so many dessert courses!

rhubarb over meringue – with candied ginger. A nice light palate cleanser that helped with the digestion of all the food we had eaten previously. The meringue provided all the sweetness and it was nice to see a seasonal vegetable highlighted for dessert.

Birthday cake – chocolate ganche, meringue, and cake with chocolate ice cream on top
This is probably the best birthday cake that I’ve ever had. The slight crunch from the meringue, with the chocolaty ganache, and fluffy cake was so amazing to bite into, that we were all completely blown away. The brought out a whole cake to me and then took it away after I had blown out the candle to cut it an serve it. I’m pretty sure this was only half the cake, and I wish I had been able to take the other half home, but this was undoubtedly my favorite dessert. Thomas Keller knows his pastries, obviously.

pistachio macarons – baby macarons, colored to look like spring.
We were so full of dessert, Kipnik and I opted to pack ours up to go home with us as we knew they would keep. Sadly, they got lost and never made it to our to-go baggy. Noblesse D’Coeur ate his as he was determined to eat all the things on the table before leaving, and he said it was quite tasty. We’ll have to take his word for it, but I’ve had Bouchon’s macarons, and they usually pretty good.

chocolate covered almonds – well, at least that’s what Noblesse D’Coeur said they were. At least something nutty, and most reviews have said they were almonds. Again, Kipnik and I opted to pack these to go, but they got lost somewhere in the kitchen. Sad face!

donuts – they were served with the “coffee”. Piping hot, fluffy donuts – I wish I could have these for breakfast when I was less full. They were amazing for just a small mouthful.

cappuccino semi-freddo – part of the signature coffee and donuts dessert; don’t try drinking this like Kipnik did. It was like a slightly more liquidly and foamy pudding, think airy pudding, though I think semi-freddo is technically closer to ice cream. It tasted just like coffee, and was perhaps overkill next to the real cappuccinos we ordered.