Three-year anniversary dinner at Manresa!
Yesterday, Eugene and I celebrated our three year anniversary at Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos, CA. We decided to splurge a little bit to experience dining at a two Michelin star restaurant and molecular gastronomy at its best. For those of you in the Bay Area with a special occasion to celebrate, we highly recommend Manresa! All their ingredients are seasonal and local. Everything was top notch, from food quality to service to decor!
Our experience at Manresa through pictures:
We had the option of getting the five-course meal or the "seasonal and spontaneous" menu. We decided to go all out and try the seasonal and spontaneous menu.
We had the option of getting the five-course meal or the "seasonal and spontaneous" menu. We decided to go all out and try the seasonal and spontaneous menu.
And of course we had to get a bottle of wine! Pinot Noir is my favorite.
3. Pinot Noir from Ken Wright, Willamette Valley.
Our meal started with a series of amuse bouches and bread. My favorite were the garden beignets with crispy kale and the egg thing with maple syrup. The bread was also delicious. I cannot remember the last time I ate so much bread... or even bread at a restaurant. The circle Crossant-like one was my favorite. Eugene got some different teasers with seafood in them. I am allergic to seafood.
4. Amuse bouche and bread.
The seasonal and spontaneous menu consisted of eight "presentations," two of which were desserts. Eugene and I had different entrees three times. We had a hard time remembering exactly what was in each plate, probably from intoxication and the "presentations" having super long names.
5. Entree 1.
6. My second presentation. Idk what this is but it was absolutely delicious!
7. Eugene's second entree. Looked like a shrimp washed up from the sea with the foam.
8. Presentation 3: the best tasting salar ever. There is no salad dressing on this, just natural juices from the veggies. Literally every bite tasted different. They had a nice play with temperature too. One part of the salad was really warm, while another part was ice cold. We both got this.
9. My 4th entree: suckling pig with something.
10. Eugene's 4th entree: Foie gras.
11. Presentation 5: a Veal dish.
11. Presentation 6: steak with crispy potatoes, mushrooms, and some other stuff, our FAVORITE. This one is hands down the best!!!! Probably the best tasting potatoes and steak I ever had.
12. SO GOOD. Enjoying every bite of this dish. This entree was not part of the 5-course option!
Entrees from here onwards were the same for both of us.
Dessert time! They asked us if we wanted to add cheese to our dinner. At first we said no, but after we saw the cheese and overhead its bio, we decided we had to try it. Super good. Had so much flavors in it, like caramel.
13. Fresh delicious unique cheese from France. the only block that exists.
14. A lottttt of waiting after this so we took tons of pictures.
15. Some weird ice cream with carrots and raisins.
16. I completely forgot what was in this dessert.
17. French press.
18. and just to mess with your mind the last amuse bouche looked just like the first one except it was sweet-dessert like. The first one tasted like the complete opposite. The beauty and dangers of molecular gastronomy.
19. Eugene and I after dinner.
4.5 hours later, we are done with dinner! The first three hours went by quickly because of the food teasers and continuous bread service, but after that it got really slow. Definitely one of the most unique dining experiences! Food was really good, with a few exceptional tasting dishes. There were some crazy form factors of food here, like chicken puree, and lots of foam. Make reservations early since they fill up fast. I would love to come back again, probably in the summer for the summer truffles!
