Edit: I have since revisited Bouchon.

The Keller-thon continues. After I’d heard that it was supposed to rain all day Saturday, I thought that nothing would be better than to be tucked into a cozy French bistro with some wine and a casual lunch. After buying the Bouchon cookbook last week, Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Yountville was the logical choice, although I am still eager to try Bistro Jeanty, just down the street.

Part of this idyllic image involved just breezing in for a table at lunchtime, but we thought better of that and made a reservation on OpenTable Friday night. Good thing we did b/c everything but 11:30am (which is when they open) was booked. Upon entering, and being greeted by the friendly hostess who let us pick any table we wanted (we chose a window table, with a view of Bouchon Bakery next door), I was ready to spend the entire day there. The decor is like that of a classical Parisian cafe, in the fancy-yet-familiar style. Zinc and copper, partial lace curtains for the windows, a mosaic floor, handsomely glittery, roomy and yet bustling. There is also a comfortable bar area, with an oyster bar installed.

As Keller explains in the cookbook, Bouchon is about maintaining classic traditions, while attempting to perfect them. In contrast, the French Laundry is about using the imagination to create new dishes. So, the menu here is full of such things as steak frites, boudin blanc, roasted chicken, mussels, salads, rillettes, pate, and even a croque madame.

The menu is wrapped around the napkin, and upon opening it, I was astounded that I recognized the majority of it from the cookbook. There’s a certain satisfaction to go into a Keller restaurant, and think, “I can make this stuff at home.” For all the celebrity chef cookbooks that I have, I’ve never had that experience before. So, I went about choosing things that I probably wouldn’t tackle myself anytime soon. I also factored in that Keller is exacting about sources, so maybe I wouldn’t have access to all that he does.

Speaking of sources, the bread and butter deserve their own picture because they were amazing. Baked at Bouchon Bakery next door, the still-warm bread (an epi) was perfectly crusty on the outside and chewy in the inside; Chad even compared it to eating a crab, it was so crispy. Plus, it had flavor…. Good, true bread flavor. It’s baguette dough, but usually scissors are used to cut into the bread to make it look like a shaft of wheat; I like it as a compromise between a loaf and rolls. I should have asked for the source of the butter, because I’ve read that Keller is very particular about his butter (see the 3rd entry from bottom). I doubt that Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery are able to subsist on the small amount of butter from those 5 cows in Vermont in the link, so perhaps it was Plugra, or something similar. Rich and creamy, it was perfect, especially with the bread.

This was my Dungeness Crab Salad with Mache and Citrus Vinaigrette with Toasted Brioche, a special for the day. The sweet crab melted into the creme fraiche so nicely, and the vinagrette was so intensely orange, and the mache gently swung the dish back into a savory composition. According to the cookbook, the vinaigrette is simply 3/4 c OJ reduced to 3 Tbs, sherry vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and salt and pepper. And the brioche was so light and crispy and buttery. To pile the crab and mache onto it was superb.

Chad got the Chilled Asparagus with Vinaigrette and Eggs Mimosa. This dish highlights the quintessential “technique and fresh ingredients” cooking philosophy. What you see is what you get. The asparagus is blanched and iced (and some of it pureed with the cooking liquid for a sauce), the egg yolks are hard-boiled and sieved for the mimosa, and it is rounded out with house vinaigrette, radishes, and chives. It is a soothing combination, the soft yet crisp asparagus offset by the smooth yolks. I don’t care for asparagus much, so a bite was just perfect for me. It’s tasty, but if anything, I would have been hard-pressed to eat the entire thing… Even objectively, that’s a lot of yolk and asparagus on one plate.

I had the Monkfish Stew, full of monkfish, squid, mussels, manila clams, and potatoes. It involves shellfish broth, garlic confit, aioli, and shelled creatures, so I preferred to order it rather than make it at home. A sort of seafood comfort stew, I was pleased with it. Tasty, but not overpowering, and each bite is a little different. The broth was excellent for dipping into with the epi, which had been refreshed for us. I wished that some aioli was served on the side, to further punch up some bites because I thought that it could use a little more garlic, but it’s all already whisked in. I did appreciate the taste benefits of the parsley, though.

It’s perfect for a rainy day, but as you’ll notice, the sun had came out with force–it wasn’t until we finished our meal and stepped outside that it poured.

Chad got the Leg of Lamb with Flageolets in a Thyme Jus. Tender and tasty, the lamb was prepared very well, as were the beans and jus. This is an example of the Bouchon strategy of “perfecting” bistro dishes. Instead of preparing and serving a whole leg of lamb, they remove the connective tissue by hand and separate the muscles so that it becomes more like a loin… And more elegant.

I would also like to mention that I have only recently discovered what a wonderful combination meat and thyme make. After this lamb, the roast chicken sprinkled with thyme, and the French burger laced with thyme, I only regret that I haven’t discovered this sooner, and I look forward to playing around with it. In general, Keller uses a lot of herbs for the Bouchon recipes, so those will probably be guides…

We shared the profiteroles for dessert. Crispy and airy pate a choux surrounding vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce. I ended up eating the sauce straight from the, er, chocolate boat, it was so good; he suggests using Valhrona Equatorials for it in the cookbook. I liked that the vanilla ice cream had a clean vanilla taste and a clean texture–no lingering film of cream in the mouth.

I also want to direct your attention to that flat-spoon-like utensil on the left of the pic. I usually shy away from ordering profiteroles for the sole reason that they usually skitter all over the plate when encountered with a utensil, and said utensil usually clank into the plate at some point(s). But this utensil was very helpful in gracefully extracting a bite of profiterole at a time.

So, we enjoyed Bouchon, but there were regrets and negatives. One regret was that, after we ordered wine, we noticed a fantastic cocktail menu. I know I can only drink so much wine, so why not mix things up in the Napa Valley with such things as a Blood Orange Negroni or a Champagne Mojito? One negative was that a random server swooped in to take a wine glass that clearly had one healthy sip left in it.

I keep debating over the price. Main courses are about $16-25, and appetizers btw $8-13. I guess that this has become average and there is clearly superior craftsmanship at work, stemmed from the genius that is Thomas Keller, but when I daydream about France and its bistros, I couldn’t imagine spending that much for these dishes. $8.50 for onion soup? $19.95 for gnocchi? I could very well be wrong about this, but I guess it falls between an expensive French bistro and a reasonable Thomas Keller restaurant. I do like that there are relatively cheaper options, such as the $15.95 Croque Madame and Ice Cream/Sorbet for $2.50/scoop, but still, almost $20 for a sandwich and a scoop of ice cream?

I’m developing a criteria for restaurants and bakeries based on a rather subjective “Would I Crave This?” standard. From this meal, I’d crave the bread and butter, the Dungeness Crab Salad, and mmmaybe the Profiteroles and mmmaybe the lamb. What I’m dancing around is that I can’t highly recommend Bouchon yet from this one visit, but it’s quite good.

By the way, for the curious:

# of photos in this post: 8
# of times at least part of the word “Bouchon” is visible in the photos: 8

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Napa Valley, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.