Casual night with some bar food

Foursheets was having drinks with a friend and somehow ended up at Caprice Bar. She didn't think she would finish a whole bottle of wine with her friend, so she asked me to join them. It's the night before we fly off on another trip, and we had wanted to take things easy with some casual eats. After some initial confusion, we finally settled on a bottle of German riesling that would suit Foursheets' palate.

2020 Karl Haidle Stettener Pulvermächer Riesling Großes Gewächs - very flinty with lots of toast, fragrant and nice nose with fruity notes. A little grippy on the palate with good acidity.

Hairy Legs came over to greet us, and soon we had a plate of cold cuts and cooked ham in front of us. Culatello is always a good idea, as was the rest of the plate. I even relished in chomping on cornichons tonight. I was happily just nibbling on these and taking in the delicious assortment of bread with Bordier butter, when my friend reappeared bearing more plates...

Mashed potatoes with Kristal Caviar, vintage Champagne sauce - an unexpected treat. This is a dish that appears often on social media, although I have only been allowed to taste it once. The king of sauce's Champagne sauce is always nice, and either there was a smaller mound of mashed potatoes tonight, or that's a pretty big quenelle of caviar!

Foursheets' friend happens to be vegetarian, so she was going to offload her caviar to me. I suddenly had the idea of asking her to spoon it on the bread instead of putting it on the bread plate. Yes, it does look insane. And honestly just a tad too much caviar...

Another dish appeared, and this time it was asparagus with morels and culatello. Always wonderful to have a taste of spring.

Raisin pudding, orange caramel sauce and coffee bean ice cream - unfortunately just a tiny bit of gold for me... but I love this combination.

1929 Toro Albalá Don PX Convento Selección, bottled November 2014 - lots of prunes, soooo lovely on the nose, a little woodsy and almost a little savory. Unfortunately the intensity on the nose wasn't quite there, as this bottle was almost done and had probably been opened for some time. Nevertheless this was still very, very, very rich on the palate. Soooo sweet, soooo viscous, with a long finish. Would have been better if this was served colder.

Many thanks to my friend for the pampering. It was a lot more than we had planned for a casual night out!