8.0 L'Axel in Fontainebleau was another place recommended to us by dear friends who've trekked out here twice in as many months they loved it so. They have "menus" at 33, 52 and 90 E and we went for the middle one which must have thrown 20 dishes at us, all with different ingredients that worked together.
I'll do my best to describe them, but Chef Kunihisa Goto kept the beat right on, from start to finish, flooding us with tastes and textures and temptations. First - as amuses - we had a tomato tart with cucumber puree; then a potato (I swear - potato) ice cream in a mini-ice cream cone; then a vichyssoise of potato and leeks, foie gras and haddock (that can't be right, but my notes don't lie, only my memory of the sequences) that hung together with the density of a semifreddo - my oh my.
Then came what were advertised as firsts: tuna 3 ways (one with foie gras, one as a "sandwich" and one as a tataki) and white asparagus with quail eggs and teeny-tiny crispy-crunchy shrimp and leaves of various root veggies.
Then for mains we had the Breton carrelet and the mosttender, lovely and delicious filet mignons of pork ever seen on earth; both with requisite veggies and herbs and sauces (don't ask!).
Oy! We all got the 1,000 day old Gouda (which I churlishly couldn't resist asking how it was different from 999 and 1,001 days, but our charming wait-guy let it pass - the staff BTW was sometimes clueless but superb); then strawberries and an ice and a coffee, chocolate, caramel concoction; and then outrageously expensive coffees (7 E each) forgiven because of the cleverly stacked sugar disguised as macaroons.
So you're asking me - "John, was it full of pesky Yankees?" "Well, yes, everyone was speaking English," but that's because it was the Graduation lunch for the INSEAD Program (a school, the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires founded ironically by a buddy of my Dad's at Harvard - George Doriot) and these "kids'" parents from all the continents had clearly given them carte blanche for a 1-star lunch. But because of the baffled ceiling, we could talk easily (dB level 77.4).
Our bill, with 2 bottles of wine, no bottled water, OK bread and the rest, was 156.66 E a couple.
Go? If you don't I will.
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