One.day.late.

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The last time I had lunch at Caprice, I missed out on having an interesting dish.  My friend ordered this shellfish paella, but instead of rice it was made with these little coquillettes.  We joked about her having the kiddie menu, but deep down I wanted to have some.  I needed to have some.  So I rounded up a couple of friends and booked for another lunch.  The restaurant couldn't fit me in last Friday, so we made do with a table today.

Jeremy spotted us and came over to greet us.  I told him that I was "on a diet" and needed to cut down on food intake.  Like ILoveLubutin, he pooh-poohed the idea and suggested that I start dieting tomorrow.  Morever, he suggested that I go on a diet of only cheese and wine, as he had just received a new shipment from France...

After we had all arrived, menus were passed out and I flipped open the front cover.  My heart sank.  Where are my coquillettes?!  I had made the reservation specifically to come and have this dish, but it was nowhere to be found on the menu!

As it turns out, Caprice changes their set lunch menu monthly, and the new menu just started today.   So I missed the dish by one.lousy.day.  I suppose I could have asked the kitchen to make it anyway, but I actually spotted something else I wanted to have…

We started with a trio of amuse bouches:

Tomato ravioli with anchovy - a little molecular version.  Pretty yummy.

Mackerel and tuna mousse with olive, on squid ink toast - pretty good, too.  Flavors all worked well together.

Watercress mousse with smoked herring emulsion - not bad at all… loved the smoky flavors with the herring.

The second round of amuse was what I had last time - a cube of deep-fried pork knuckle with sea urchin and lentils, sitting on a bed of lentil mousse and topped with fresh sea urchin.  Not as tasty as last time… The smoky flavors seemed to be missing from the lentil mousse.

Chilled tomato consommé, Mozzarella and tomato cocktail - Jeremy suggested this as it's "light", and it was!

The consommé came with a bunch of tiny little baby tomatoes, and a couple of baby basil sprouts.  Soooo refreshing and light on a summer day!

The mozzarella and tomato "cocktail" was kinda interesting, featuring tiny cubes of mozzarella, tomato and I think crunchy celery.  The little basil grissini didn't give off a strong basil taste, I must say…

Pot au feu of beef shoulder, ox tongue and veal shank - this was the one item on the menu that caught my eye.  Finding a homey dish such as pot au feu at a 3-macaron restaurant is pretty cool, and I was eager to try it.  This was beautiful.  The cubes of beef were very tender and yielded easily to the knife.  The tongue was… exactly what I had wanted.  The accompanying veggies like carrots, radish and fennel were classic, and provided great balance to all the meat.

I found the stock slightly on the salty side for me to drink as "soup", but someone had no trouble lapping it up.  Perhaps she was - following her compatriots' footsteps 2 years ago - trying to take in enough salt in the hope that the idione contained within would prevent radiation sickness.  Or perhaps she was turning herself into one of those hundreds of salted fish found hanging around the village of Tai O (大澳)?

We were also served with fresh strips of veggies on the side.  Very refreshing.  Many thanks to Jeremy for thinking of my well-being.

We had informed the staff that we didn't want any dessert and would be ready for our coffee order.  However Jeremy still very kindly insisted on serving us a pre-dessert…

Tarragon sorbet with cherries and cherry purée - not bad… at least it is deceivingly light.

I skipped the mignardises today, as they were exactly the same as what I had last time, and I don't need the extra calories.

This was a delicious lunch, but I'm still bummed about missing the coquillettes by one day… Pout.