Tru Dat...A Dinner at Tru

Monday I had my last Jimbo Sweetness class from 1-4. I then met up with my parents at the Hancock Signature Lounge for a drink before dinner at Tru. Tru is fancy. Very fancy. I think it may be the fanciest restaurant and meal I've ever had.
Very fancy. Men required to wear jackets, women not slumming it either. Fancy like fancy. And here's what we had...First off there was a 'canape' of Buffalo mozarella dumpling with green olive emulsion and black olive powder. It was a strange consistency and served on fancy spoons.
We had kir royales (is that even close to how one would spell it) at my father's behest...some kind of French political joke. A very tasty, champagney joke.
There was bread and butter as well. The butter on the right was salted, the left unsalted both from Vermont.
We had the choice of three kinds of bread served to us by a bread man. I went with chapeaux.
Then an amuse bouche of zucchini pea gelèe, Crunchy Zucchini, Orange, Ginger, Spring Vegetable Cream. My parents were interested by the cup this was served in...they'd never seen anything like it. So they asked the woman whose job it was to come to our table each time a course was served and tell us what it was. So one or the other of my parents said something like 'oh is this cup inspired by flying buttresses?' the woman looked very miffed and replied 'they're Versace?' I laughed a little on the inside. She also prounounced gelèe gel-eee as opposed to what I had assumed was the correct form of gel-ay.
My father and I both had their Chef's Collection while my mother had the Spring Collection. Each collection consisted of eleven courses. Below is course number one for me. A selection of sashimi grade fish (fluke, snapper and tuna) served with miso salt, a white soy sauce and a more traditional soy sauce. Fish was good. Very petite.
That shaped thing is daikon and I forget what the other garnish is...the little red sliver on the lime is rhubarb.
Next up was the roasted white asparagus with shallots, parmesan and some sort of foam (the menu they gave us to take home doesn't specify the foam's flavor...it was my first experience with up-scale, flavored foam.
After that was the 'soup course'. The photograph below is before it became soup.
This is after. The liquid is rabbit consommé and then there is a morel mushroom, pea and lavender emulsion and, shit, I think the last thing, the circular sucker is rabbit...pretty sure. It was so rich and the emulsion was surprising in both its pea flavorfullness and consistency.
After that was whipped salt cod, creamy potato, smoked gelèe and a bit of caviar. This was one of my favorite courses. The smoked gelèe combined with the potato and salt cod noodles was really just lovely. All the textures were surprising and the intesity of the smokiness and saltiness and oh my.
Next up was Tagliolini pasta topped with Peeky toe crab in a uni sauce. Very strong flavors in this one. Or perhaps it was just that the uni had a strong flavor.
After that was the British Columbian King Salmon with red white bouillon and white bean. The thing on top, if I recall correctly, is a red wine crisp...
This next one was another of my favorites. Braised veal shank, sweetbread cappeli, carrots and veal bouillon. I realized that I can only remember one other time in my life that I've had veal and it was in Poughkeepsie, New York at a Spanish restaurant...and it was gross...this veal (center of the plate) was another story entirely. So, so, so, so, so very tender. Oh my goodness!
Then there was the cheese cart. Oh MY GOD the cheese cart. There were four sheep's, cow's and goat's cheeses. We were encouraged to pick three of four to try. Honestly I would go back and just eat all of their cheese. That's if they let me.
I went with a true roquefort, a goat cheese injected with the roquefort strain of penicillin (mold?), a triple creme cow's cheese (name of which I don't remember) and the dirtiest sheep cheese I've ever had in my life (in a really, really awesome way). Apricots, figs, honey and chutney were also served.
Along with fruit nut bread. The dirty sheeps' cheese. Oh my god. I could taste the sheep. Aged and sheepy, it was incredible. It tasted like cheese and dirt and sheep and holiness.
Then we moved into the sweet portion. This is a lemon smoothie with mango drops. The mango drops, which I have no idea how they made them, were like salmon roe...little gelatin like shell with liquidy goodness inside it. Mmm, liquidy goodness.
Dessert was chocolate hazelnut mousse, orange sherbert, cardamom-scented oranges. See that chocoloate shell? Inside it was hazelnutty goodness. The sweet was perfectly pared with the slightly more tart sherbert. The orange slice was very dry but if you allowed it to soak a little in either the sherbert or the mousse it became slightly more pleasurable to eat.

Lastly there was a selection of mignardises and lollipops. I had a caramelized lollipop, toffee and blackberry truffle.

The dining room had very, very high ceilings. It was generally dim but each table had a strong light directed on the center of the tables. Good enough light to not use a flash...which made me very happy. I hate flash. I really do. Even with the tall ceilings it was very quiet. I did feel like our table was an island, the plush carpet between the tables some sort of ocean. If you got up to go to the bathroom, two times out of three any ways, someone would insist on escorting you to it. I tried to walk back to my table at a still-respectable clip to avoid someone feeling the obligation of pulling the seat out for me...usually they still got there, now that's some service.

It was an amazing meal. Thanks to my daddy-o for the experience.