So after Pat being sick for our anniversary week, me getting sick the following week, and then our reservation for the following week being cancelled because the restaurant was having a private party, we FINALLY got to celebrate our anniversary. Our celebratory dinner took place at RM Seafood inside of Mandalay Bay. The RM stands for Rick Moonen(yes the one that was on Top Chef Masters).
We arrived a little early and decided that we would explore Mandalay Bay to kill some time. Next to RM Seafood is a Peter Lik gallery that you can walk through, and buy artwork at. Peter Lik is a local to Vegas photographer. He photographs nature and there were some awesome prints. As a matter of fact there was one picture called Solace of the underneath of a pier in La Jolla, CA. It was gorgeous. Pat and I both could have stood there and looked at it for a long time. And if it hadn't have been a couple thousand dollars for the print alone it would be hanging above our couch right now as I type this. So if you are in Mandalay Bay you should check it out. It was amazing, all misty and the waves were rolling in under the pier...just breathtaking.
So after the gallery and some other window shopping we arrived at RM Seafood. They have an upstairs and downstairs. The downstairs restaurant is more relaxed and casual. The upstairs is more formal. We had chosen to dine in the upstairs restaurant so we could do one of the tasting menus.
The meal started with a delicious pretzel roll along with a whitefish dip. The roll was exactly what you would want in a pretzel roll. Crusty pretzel outside, soft and chewy inside. I'm not a huge fan of salt on pretzels so I was super happy that there was just a tiny sprinkling on the top. The dip had a really nice flavor. Not too fishy and complemented the roll perfectly. It was even served in a cute tin with a custom label made to say RM caviar(the artist in me appreciates these touches). Then we had the first of two amuse bouche appetizers. The first was a duck pate with a purple mustard on top. It was pretty good. This amuse bouche was given to all dinners at the restaurant. Since we we ordered one of the tasting menus we got a second special amuse bouche. It was an oyster on the half shell. It was topped with a lemon juice and shaved coconut. It had this really nice clean, ocean taste to it and was a great start to the meal.
The first course was tuna. It was lightly seared, on top of a bed of lentils with a bacon foam...yes you read that right, bacon foam. The tuna had that melt in your mouth consistency, the lentils were good(even though lentils aren't my favorite), and who wouldn't love bacon foam? A great start to the courses. The tuna was followed by a grilled octopus dish. This was some of the best octopus I have ever had. It was not chewy at all. Just perfectly cooked. The grill gave a perfect char. On the plate was also some chorizo, which was also good, although may have competed some with the flavor of the octopus. The third course was a cobia, a fish similar to swordfish. A good dish but writing this a week after having it nothing memorable stands out about the dish. Following the cobia was both mine and Pat's favorite dish of the night. The scallop was perfectly cooked. It was served with a seared pork belly, which while very tasty was probably not needed, and a frisee salad, which helped cut through the fat of the pork belly. Not only was the scallop great tasting it was the best presentation as well. The plates were these upside down wide u shapes. They were just really cool looking and helped elevate(literally) an already fabulous dish.
The scallop/pork belly was the perfect bridge between the fish courses and the meat courses. The next course was a trio of duck. It had crispy duck confit, duck breast on red wine braised cabbage, and a duck sausage. Pat and I first dug into the sausage and were both disappointed that it was not as flavorful as we thought it would be. The duck confit was very good but the star of the dish for me was the duck breast over the red wine braised cabbage. The duck breast was tender and not at all greasy. The cabbage was the perfect sweet/sour addition to the plate. It was a very solid dish. The final course before dessert was a lamb osso bucco, on top of a celery root puree. The lamb was fall off the bone delicious. The celery root puree was creamy and sweet and perfect. At this point we were both glad that the main dishes of the meal were done. As amazing as they all were, we were getting rather full.
Next out came the pre-dessert palate cleanser. It was a vanilla ice cream with some mango or passion fruit little frozen balls...think dippin dots...they were delicious. And then out came the main dessert. I bet you were wondering when I was getting to the bubblegum sorbet. So the main dessert was a marscapone cheesecake, with a bubblegum sorbet, caramel sauce, and graham cracker crumbles. When the plate was first put in front of me I tasted the bubblegum sorbet. And it was bubblegum tasting alright. Like a frozen hubba bubba super sweet sugary sorbet. I who love sweets, who have not met a dessert I don't like was not sure I would be able to finish the sorbet. So I tasted the rest of the dish. The cheesecake and caramel sauce were delicious. They were rich and dense and went great with the graham cracker crumbles. But before I gave up on the bubblegum sorbet I thought I should really try one bite of everything all together. After all the chef put all the elements on the plate. And when I took that bite the most amazing thing happened. The bubblegum flavor disappeared. That bubblegum sweet flavor cut through the rich dense cheesecake part. And you just got sweet. Everything meshed perfectly. I never thought it would work. It shouldn't have worked and yet it did. It was the perfect ending to a great dinner.
And yet the meal didn't end there. After our server cleared the table Pat asked me what I thought about a vessel on our table. He thought it was a modern decoration and I looked at it and really thought it was a carafe to hold some type of liquid. Well score one for Jen because I won. Not more than five minutes after our conversation the waiter came out and poured some red liquid into the vessel and said he would be back. A couple minutes later he reappeared with two small glasses and what looked to be a stainless steel water jug, except it wasn't a water jug but a liquid nitrogen jug. The waiter poured the liquid nitrogen into the red liquid, causing the surface to freeze and lots of cool smoke to come spilling out of the vessel and crawl all over our table. It was very cool. The red liquid was actually an after dinner digestive tea that they cooled down table side with the liquid nitrogen. Very cool. The tea was very fruity and as such I enjoyed it a lot. It was a great ending to a nice two and a half hour long dinner experience.
So if you are in Mandalay bay, I definitely recommend RM Seafood. It did not disappoint.
No comments:
Post a Comment