Birthday dinner at Chez TJ

Tonight, my boyfriend took me out for a dinner at Chez TJ in Mountain View, CA. It's a French restaurant in a old Victorian house. It was pricy, but I must say, I really enjoyed it. The service was pleasant, and the food was really really good. I had seared foie gras, steamed fluke, kobe beef shortrib, and "carrot cake" which was thinly-baked carrot cake sheet with mascarpone cheese and sorbet. Each dish comes in small portion, but it was just right for me. I was able to enjoy every dish without feeling stuffed and trying to stuff some more! I liked how, while sauce on each dish was pretty rich, main ingredient, whether fish, meat, or vegetable, itself didn't have much seasoning taste so that the sauce really accentuated the real flavor of the main ingredient. I think overall I was actually most impressed by their consomme. They served us matsutake mushroom consomme at the beginning as chef's compliment, which I thought was really good. The fluke dish I had also had kind of like consomme jelly in it, and both consomme was very flavorful. It made me want to try and make consomme at home!

---

Technorati Tags:chez tj