Fancy Shmancy dining

3/11/06

the other day was caryn’s and my anniversary. believe it or not, we’ve been together for 3 years now. pretty awesome, eh? we tried to think of something special that we could do to celebrate and in the end decided to go to Restaurant Gary Danko. we’ve always wanted to try that place out, but it’s crazy expensive, so we were always kind of waiting for a special enough occasion to come along. we got a hotel room up in SF and made sure to eat only a light meal earlier in the day since we knew it would be an extremely filling meal. when we got to the hotel, it turned out that we arrived right during free beer and wine hour! really, complementary beer and wine? well, unfortunately we wanted to preserve our appetites, so we didnt have any.

the hotel room we stayed in was small, but i really liked the funky way that it was decorated. we got dressed for dinner, and for some bizarre reason the pants that i had bought in Indonesia didn’t fit at all. uh-oh. 30 minutes till dinner, and my pants are completely jacked. ugh. in the end, i had no choice but to wear my regular cargo pants with my dress shirt and tie. sheez, what a winner… thank god the place was dimly lit. it’s crazy how well known this restaurant is. the place is super famous and usually is booked solid a month in advance. the people at the hotel, the cab driver, and basically everyone we spoke to was all “Gary Danko? oh wow, nice!”. going there isn’t just going to dinner, it’s practically an event.

At the restaurant, we decided to get the five course meal… it was going to be a ton of food, but we wanted to try as much different stuff as possible. the meal started out with this tiny sample of Fois Gras Mousse with dried fruits. holy crap… this was seriously one of the best things i’ve ever tasted. i’ve always been a fan of Fois Gras, and this stuff was fantastic. wow, if the free pre-dinner snack was this good, i could only imagine what the rest of the night would be like.

As predicted, the food was amazing. really, really, really good. delicious grilled scallops, mini lobsters, seared ahi, lamb, etc etc… everything was crazy delicious and drizzled with amazing sauces. the foods were also paired with wine so we got a glass of wine with each course that perfectly matched our food. the service was super good as well. the waiter would explain everything that we were being served in detail and give us a lot of information about the wines that we were drinking. each course smoothly melted into the next and there was no pressure to eat fast, yet we never had to wait long in between dishes… everything just happened perfectly on time.

after the first three courses, we each got to pick 4 different types of cheeses from the cheese cart. for variety, i tried goat cheese, sheep’s cheese, and two different cow cheeses. all the cheese was delicious. and since we each had 4 different kinds, there was tons of variety to choose from. by this point, we were starting to get pretty full. when desert came, it was almost difficult to eat anymore even though each course had been fairly small. my soufflé was just ok, but caryn’s trio of crème brullees was the bomb… coffee, almond, and chocolate flavored. YUM. wow, what an incredible dinner. of course, such things dont come cheap, and when we got the bill it was a whopping $400. ouch!! oh well, it was totally worth it to do this kind of thing on a special occasion… and our meal lasted almost 4 hours!

*v