Stayin' alive for a third year

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It's official! I made it through a third year of marriage, and still alive and (somewhat) kicking! To celebrate the occasion, Foursheets and I were happy to return to Caprice - where our marriage ceremony took place. We could not celebrate here last year as the restaurant was not open on the day, but we are back.

Hairy Legs knows the significance of the date to us, and rose to the challenge to ensure a memorable evening for us. As it turned out, a couple of dishes were kinda repeated from our wedding day, with some upgrades.

We started with the usual trio of amuses bouches:

Tomato concassé tart - that basil on top is always so fragrant.

Obsiblue prawn tart - they've prepared this for Foursheets because they forgot that, like me, she doesn't like beetroot. I didn't mind to have the tasty prawns and the beetroot flavors aren't heavy here, anyway... so I took this. Loved the sweet and fruity flavors of the pickles on top.

Fig tart - for those who don't tolerate beetroot.

Pita with curry chicken mousse

Carpaccio of scallops from Brittany, seafood and saffron gelée, kumquat gelée, celeriac, and Alba white truffle - OK, so our first course came covered in white truffle. Not a bad way to start!

Most of the ingredients were fairly mild in terms of flavor, but the strips of kelp offered up some umami and the kumquat gelée gave us a little sweetness along with some fragrance.

Japanese squid carbonara, culatello - we had the previous version of the carbonara at our wedding, made with abalone as it had been up to that time. Nowadays Hairy Legs uses Japanese squid and it's more noodle-like. Once it's mixed up with the culatello di zibello from Massimo Spigaroli and the egg yolk, the old familiar flavors all came back.

Perfect with white truffle shaved on top. So happy to have this again.

Blue lobster from Brittany, ceps, and sauce vin jaune - having homard bleu here for the second time in 2 weeks, but this time with ceps, girolles, and a vin jauce sauce. The ceps were pan-fried with clarified butter, and have soaked up so much of it that they started to taste like roasted bone marrow.

Next came zee duck for our main course, looking as pretty as the other one on our wedding night. Hairy Legs wanted to give Foursheets a preview of the dish he would be presenting in a month at Château d'Yquem.

Le canard «Lur Saluces» - a new presentation sees the duck come in very thin slices, served with different purée of carrot, saffron, and mandarin, as well as small carrots with saffron strands. The duck was very, very tender, but I also felt that the thin slices perhaps meant the meat didn't retain heat as well, and the duck got cold a little too quickly. The sauce was made with vanilla, and that was just sooo fragrant. Looking forward to having this again next month.

I didn't want to overdo it with the cheese selection, so I just picked two:

Saint Felicien, from La Mère Richard in Lyon - sooo ripe and very salty.

Moelleux de Revard

This is the honey gathered in Sauternes from around Château d'Yquem and used for the duck. I asked for a little bit to go with my cheese.

Mirabelles, pistachio, tonka bean ice cream - the pistachios were toasted so nicely that the flavors were practically like an explosion in my mouth.

Grand Cru chocolate with chocolate crisps, Reunion Island blue vanilla ice cream and mint - the chocolate was really rich and fluffy, and the vanilla was really fragrant.

Blue Bourbon vanilla from Réunion, both flower and pods.

As Foursheets doesn't eat chocolate, she got a selection of fruits like figs, mirabelles, and blueberries. Oh and she got the gold foil on top, too! Finally we have the mignardises:

Lemon choux

Raspberry tart

Chocolate with hazelnut and liquid chocolate caramel

I brought along the usual anniversary wines:

Krug Grande Cuvée, en demi-bouteille - a previous bottle from the same lot was almost flat, so I wasn't surprised to find very few bubbles here. Lots of orange marmalade, very savory now like Chinese preserved plum, which was as I would expect. Still got the acidity on the finish, so that was nice.

2020 Ygrec - decanted for more than an hour before serving. The first sip was so alcoholic and ripe, and the wine has obviously matured further from the bottle we tasted last year. A little acetone on the nose, along with muscat grapes.

Very grateful as always to Hairy Legs, Victor, and the rest of the team for always making us feel special whenever we are here. And of course, Caprice will forever be special to us.