A few weeks ago, we signed up to potentially attend a lunch at the Basque Culinary Center that would showcase the talents of the first-year class. Last week we got a call giving us the details of the lunch, which we barely remembered signing up for. Oops!
The lunch took place this past Wednesday. It was a contest among teams made up of the first-year students, and was indeed completely free (even including wine pairings). We were overall very impressed with the food prepared by the students.
It was a beautiful day as we made our way up to the Basque Culinary Center, and noticed a new statue that had been installed since our last visit.
When we entered, we were directed to a particular table, which had the menu prepared by "our" team. It was a four-course meal consisting of a cold appetizer, a hot appetizer, an entree and dessert. As I said, we were impressed by the dishes overall, as well as the bread. The cold appertizer was a tomato tartare in an agridulce salsa; the hot appetizer a choux filled with liver (essentially a pate), which I thought was fantastic; the entree was an impressive entrecote with a demiglace; and the dessert was a combination of apple, brioche soaked in cider (yummy) and a soft cheese (somehow we failed to take a picture of dessert). As you can see, even the platings were impressive.
As for the wine pairings, they were interesting, and included a good local Txaikoli, a Basque orange wine and a white wine pairing with the steak. We felt the last was a bold choice that worked, but we would have preferred red.
Unfortunately, our team did not win any of the four awards that were given out, and we were feeling a bit of FOMO wondering about the meals prepared by the other teams. Nonetheless, it was hard to feel too bad about a free four-course lunch.
Hasta pronto,
Jeff and Shana
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