Girls’ Night Out

I spent Saturday evening with a fabulous group of women, eating amazing food, and having some great laughs. Our dear friend M was having her bachelorette party and I was happy to be along for the ride. Also, it was my first limo ride — I know, I’m such a peasant. We headed up to the city and had a gorgeous 5 course meal at one of Hubert Keller’s restaurants, Fleur de Lys.

To my surprise, there was some Peruvian flavor to be found at this French restaurant:

A lovely gazpacho on the left, it was so good and refreshing; on the right, a quinoa salad topped with prosciutto and aji amarillo, a typical Peruvian hot pepper.

The Appetizer Symphony included — clockwise from top left — tuna fondant with caviar, caesar salad with spätzle, foie gras, smoked duck crostini and a parmesan mousse. I loved all of them except for the foie gras, which I don’t like, and the parmesan mousse.

A lovely seared swordfish was next, it was perfectly cooked, and the asparagus, topping and sauce were delicious. I cleaned this plate for sure.

I chose the filet mignon with a lobster mac-n-cheese en croute – holy crackers, this was the best mac-n-cheese I’ve ever had. The filet was cooked and sauced to perfection.

Last, but definitely not least, was the dessert plate. So good!!! Chocolate and praline parfait with a marshmallow napoleon on the left, very light and crunchy, and to the right a chocolate tuile with lucuma ice cream. Lucuma ice cream is a traditional Peruvian dessert, and in fact, we make it at home in the summer, it has the texture of vanilla and a taste like vanilla and sweet potato. Sort of. It’s difficult to describe exactly, but it’s so good, I think most of the ladies liked it. The blackberry was perfect as well.

We also enjoyed several bottles of Cabernet with dinner, courtesy of the bride-to-be, and then it was time to leave. We had about an hour until the limo took us home so we went to the Waterbar. We chatted for a while and ordered another round of drinks — mine was a “grown up” hot chocolate made with Ghirardelli chocolate, of course, then some Kahlua added along with something else I forget. It was SO good.

The ride home was filled with more laughter and conversation, I had met a couple of the ladies before but it was nice to get to chat with them. We are all so excited about the wedding, the bride and groom are so dear to us and we can’t wait to see them saying “I Do”.