New American Style Restaurant Experience

We tried a new restaurant Eden Hill (http://www.edenhillrestaurant.com/#about) last night. It got good reviews from Seattle Times, and excellent Google reviews – with one reviewer saying that it is somewhat fru-fru. It is true; but the food was totally worth it. We are considering their ten course texture chef menu coming up in a couple weeks.  

We opted for the blind chef 5-course tasting menu. The server asked us to trust the chef if we told him what we wouldn’t eat. I said rabbit (too cute to eat), and forgot to say lamb (also too cute) – more on that later. The pre-first-course (i.e. it didn’t count as one of the 5 courses) were two oysters in the half shell with champagne vinaigrette, decorated with edible petals from the local farmer’s market.

The first course was fresh tomatoes salad; the “cute” presentation included a fake egg-yolk. It looked like a yolk but was filled with tomato puree (or juice), enclosed in a skin just like a real egg yolk; and when I pierced it the inside ran out just like a real egg yolk. Since I forgot to turn my recorder on I don’t remember how it was done – maybe some sort of molecular gastronomy. In the picture the “yolk” is sitting under the shaved radish. And it was very tasty – excellently done. It came with a piece of bread to soak up all the juices.

Next was a shrimp and veggie dish. The baby potatoes were sauced with fermented cider vinegar and escolar pepper vinegar. The black olive-looking orbs were the height of fru-fru-ness – they were cucumbers compressed with olive oil and tossed with sweet vinegar. The base had wine chili oil and tarragon aioli, with grilled local shrimp, topped with a sorrel leaf for the acidity.

Then it was halibut cheek, with little “black” currents (which were red in color), fried peppers, grilled sun chokes, agar based brown-butter-anchovy-caramel sauce (I think something like that), and topped with pea sprouts and edible flowers. Very yummy halibut cheeks!

This was followed by lamb chops, which I hadn’t had in years since I swore off eating cute animals.  It came with halved grilled sweet cherries, roasted red onion, first-of-the-season baby button chanterelles, sprouts, and lovage sauce. And I remembered how I used to love lamb chops. (Of course Steve would order lamb when he was eating out without me present).

The palate cleanser was a half ball of peach jelly, that tasted like fresh peach.

The dessert was rose and wild berry ice cream, with saffron caramel, sesame seed crumbles, brown butter sponge cake, with an edible gold leaf. I have never had gold leaf but I don’t think it tasted like much. But the rest was great.

So quite an experience - and every dish was exceptional! And one of the best meals we’ve had for a long time – with all the ingredients locally sourced and artistically arranged. If we decide to go for the texture tasting menu I will certainly blog about it also.

Here are a couple pictures of the restaurant (non-food) related - it is a 16-seat restaurant, plus about a dozen bar seatings.