Last Restaurant Service At Ferrandi

This week’s Restaurant Service was the last one in the program but the best one for me because I really liked our group’s dish and had a really nice time working on it and serving it. We had a saddle of Chevreuil which is a young deer meat (in other words: a bambi) wild and caught  by legal hunting. Cleaning the pieces of meat we could find bullets holes and parts of the bullets as well. We already had chevreuil before in one of our regional menu. This recipe was very long and had a complected sauce and an interesting presentation. The meat, unfortunately for the bambi, was so delicious that trimmings cut from sides of the steaks were instantly eaten by people passing by in the kitchen. I had the chance to contribute in the cooking of the potatoes, the celery puree and the cooking of the meat, so it was really balanced.

The menu:

Amuse Bouche:

Entree:

Poissons:

Viend

Gaufre – It was like a Belgium waffle made from potatoes so very much like Hanukkah’s levivot. Served with cream, yolk and egg white crumbs and Avruga which is a cheap caviar and some chopped chives. I never got a chance to taste the gaufre because the reserved tastings for us were gone until we finished with the meat service.

Saint Jacques – I liked how it looked like but again I couldn’t taste it, the reason this time is that when Manuella came and offered us some of her dish I was so full from other stuff, reached my hand to grab one but gave up last minute admitting I can’t eat anything at that moment.

Carpaccio de veau and foie gras – What was funny about this dish is that Chef pictured it completely different in our minds. It was supposed to be mainly a carpaccio, over a thin thin layer of foie gras and then all the condiments: feta cheese, green apples and honey perfumed with white truffle oil. When the merchandise arrived there were very fresh and beautiful 14 lobes of foie gras in paper (best quality) what made Chef change his plans and the proportions of the dish to a very big chunk of foie gras and just a symbolic reminder of all the rest. The result was a dish of foie gras. It was a good foie gras but a rather bad dish of carpaccio because the meat was overpowered. No one complained, french love their foie gras anyway.

Cromesquis d’escargot – Was an interesting dish, started out with black bread with squid ink for the bread crumbs. finding this bread in the oven one morning made us all think someone burned his toasts to charcoal. But no, Zeina came and was pleased with the result. We were amazed but they did use it. They coated the escatrot (snails) with it and in the middle there was a fried frog leg. It was an interesting black ball. Ze brought me a frog leg to try but I was in the middle of things, stuck the leg wrapped in paper towel in my pocket. When the service was done, in the locker room I noticed it again, and ate it in the locker room to the amazement of some of the girls there. Was a bit squishy but very tender and tasty meat. I want more frogs!

Bar vapeur was a steamed sea bass (not sure it was actually a sea bass or something similar), served with cream of lettuce and buttered lettuce heart, and parsley culi. As a last minute call they put some Saint Jacques foam on top.

Tartare de dorade – Sea bream tartar with avocado and mango underneath and citrus carpaccio, served with coconut ice-cream. Weird to have ice-cream there but I can see it all come together. The icecream was not too sweet and had a gentle smoothness, didn’t get to try the rest.

Chevreuil- Young deer (game meat) frosted with almond praline, game sauce, celery puree and potato roses.

 

 

 

Canard – was a dish with duck three ways: duck burger, duck tartar and heart of duck. Served with a quail fried egg, fat french fries and ketchup “of the house”. I tried the tartar which was very tasty and kept one raw duck burger in my freezer for another time to try because I was too full by then 🙂

Those were fun two days and now it’s exams times so a whole other phase to go through.