Breaking Bread

Last night, I had what will go down as one of the most incredible and fun meal experiences of my life.  It definitely ranks in the top 2 so far (along with this experience in Philly).  I got to go to Stone Barns at Blue Hill Farms up in Westchester County (specifically Tarrytown, NY) with Lucy, her sister Anne, and their mom.  I am so blessed to not only have wonderful friends, but friends with wonderful families, too!  It all began 3 weeks ago when Lucy and I were in Charlottesville and she got a text from her mom:

Text from Lucy's mom:  "Lucy, I was thinking about making a reservation for us to eat at a place called Blue Hill Farms when I come visit in a few weeks.  Have you heard anything about it?"
Lucy turns to me and asks:  "Have you heard of Blue Hill Farm?"
Me to Lucy:  "Yeah, it is supposed to be amazing!  I've been dying to go out there and see it and eat."
Lucy to me:  "So, we should go?"
Me to Lucy:  "Yes. Definitely."
Lucy texts her mom back and about 30 minutes later her mom texts back and says "If we can get reservations, tell Susan to come with us!"
Me back to Lucy: "If I'm around that week, I would LOVE to go!"

And that is how I ended up spending an incredibly fun evening with the Bradshaw girls.

It was nearly dark by the time we arrived and we didn't have much time to wonder around, but this is a place Lucy and I want to go back to and explore some Saturday afternoon.  The original Blue Hill Farm is located in Massachusetts.  This is the second location and is built on what used to be the Rockefeller's farm.  The Stone Barns were the Rockefeller's barns that have been updated beautifully.  The restaurant is located within the old barns.

When we exited our taxi (we took a train to Tarrytown, then a cab to Blue Hill), we did catch a glimpse of the sheep's hill...there must have been hundreds of sheep out there Baaaaa-ing...it was so cute.

There are supposed to be excellent walking paths and lots to see on the land.  We will go back one day to see it all.  Last night, however, we went straight into the beautiful castle-like building to begin our farm-to-table experience.

I didn't take my camera - boo.  Any pictures on here I ripped off from other write-ups about this amazing restaurant so they do not represent exactly what we had, but are very, very close to what we had, at least in the way they look.

This place is fancy, folks.  They give you the cutest menu, that really isn't a menu at all.  It's just a list of the ingredients they currently have to work with - the list is extremely extensive.

You can tell by the date, this isn't our

menu, but ours looked just like it.

Your only choices to make are 1) to do either the 5-course meal (4 savory, 1 sweet) or the 8-course meal (6 savory, 2 sweet), 2) to have them pair wines with each course or not and 3) to let them know if you have any food restrictions.  We all agreed that the 5-course meal would be plenty and that we would just order our own wine (the wine pairing cost $75 extra/person and since it was already one of the most expensive meals of my life, we agreed it was not necessary).  The sommelier was sent over to help us choose a wine based on the food we would be served.  It came down to 2 white wines and we ended up getting both.  They were some of the best white wines I've ever had (I prefer red, but the sommelier said white was really the only way to go with our meal-I was not disappointed).

After making our decisions, a waiter came over to inform us that we would be getting some "starters" (or amuse bouche) before our first course.  Let me explain to you the wait-staff situation.  It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.  We did not have 1 waiter for our table, but many, many waiters.  They each seemed to have different jobs, but I couldn't tell how they were coordinating with each other so flawlessly.  It was amazing to watch them.  Lucy commented that it was like they were doing a dance - and it really was just like that.  Whenever they brought food to our table, there were always 2 or 4 people setting things down and they would set down the plates at the exact same moment.  You could watch this little "dance" going on all across the room at the other tables as well.  There were waiters everywhere.  It made the experience all the more interesting.

The starters seemed to never end!  We kept asking each other "is this now the first course"??  And the presentation was amazing.  It was a great way to start us off as we were beyond "wow'd" before the first course ever came.  I probably cannot remember all the starters, but it was something like this:

-- a citrus spritzer w/ raw snow peas (LOVED the citrus spritzer)

Our spritzers were served just like this

soup was served to another customer.

-- raw veggies, presented just like these

these are different veggies than what we were served,

but ours were served on spikes just like this.

-- mini pea burgers (smashed up peas on a tiny sweet-bread bun - SO surprisingly delicious).

Loved these little pea burgers!

-- Asparagus wrapped in panceta with a sesame seed coating

Our asparagus was served similarly to this

-- thinly sliced meats (one pork and and one beef) with a thin cracker like bread thing

-- bread with butter (such goooood butter) and veggie salts...asparagus salt, carrot salt, and a beet/radish salt.  The salts were really interesting.  You mixed the salt up with your butter and spread it on your bread - very yummy!

I am not sure that I've remembered all the starters here, but you get the idea.  Although the portions were small, we got to taste A LOT before even getting to the first course.  And we were already in love with the place due to the fact that everything we tried was so tasty and presented so creatively.

First Course - Crab Meat with thinly sliced radishes.  These were served kind of like mini sandwiches with the crab meat placed in between two of the radish slices.  None of us loved this.  Probably the least favorite thing we tried.  The crab did not have a whole lot of taste and I'm not a huge fan of radishes.  The highlight of this course were the tiny little bites of strawberries sprinkled over our plates.  I don't know what they did to these strawberries, but they were the best I've ever had!

Second Course - Poached egg served over a pea & pistachio soup.  Blue Hill seems to take pride in their eggs and this seems to be a favorite dish of theirs, although they alter the ingredients in the soup.  I've never been a huge fan of peas, but after the pea burger starter and this soup, I've decided I just don't know how to cook them!

They did a little presentation about the eggs on Blue

Hill Farm using this display brought to our table.

Third Course - Pasta.  I wish I could remember the specifics of this pasta...it was so good and it was made from something out of the ordinary - I just can't remember what.  It was cooked al dente, which I'm learning is really the only way to go.  To top it off, they grated cured egg yolk over it.  None of us had ever seen this before, but as I said, Blue Hill takes pride in their eggs and they've learned how to make what looks like cheese out of the yolks.  So, instead of cheese, they grated this yolk over our pasta.  It was really cool, tasty too.

Fourth Course - This course was the largest and most interesting.  It was a plate full of so many little goodies.  There was slices of pork and a cube of pork belly (Lucy swears by it, I'm still not so sure).  This was accompanied by some greens (kale, possibly?), pine nuts, pesto, radishes, and other little bites I can't remember.  There were so many little things on the plate that all went together so well.

Fifth Course - Dessert - Cheesecake with blueberries and other stuff.  This was served in a tiny little dish (like the ones the spritzer was served in at the beginning).  It was very good, but not great.  This was the coldest thing I've ever eaten, without being frozen.  I wonder how they did that?  I loved the chill to it.

Since we'd chosen the 4-savory, 1-sweet dinner option, we thought our meal experience was over at this point and we were slightly disappointed in the ending.  But, with the way the meal started, we were foolish to think this.  That dessert was only the beginning of the end.

Next thing we know, a quartet of waiters was surrounding our table with another set of plates to place in front of us.  This time, the plate for Anne had a candle.  She was laughing hysterical and I was just plain confused as one of the waiters quietly whispered to her "Happy Birthday".  Was it Anne's birthday and they had not told me?  No, that wasn't it and we're honestly still not sure what happened.  Anne called one of the waiters over and after he said "Happy Birthday", she politely informed him that it actually was not her birthday.  She was worried they had provided this additional dessert to the wrong table and wanted to make sure that the correct person received their birthday treat.  The waiter just winked and told us to enjoy.  So, we're not sure why we got the 2nd dessert.  It was so good though!  In all the confusion, we missed the waiters explanation of what it was, but it was some sort of creamy/cheesey tart with berries on top.  Very yummy and definitely satisfied us more than the first dessert.

Yet it was still not the end of the meal!  Before bringing our bill, they brought one last round of small bites.  We each got a carmel encrusted in flax seed, a delicious strawberry and a yummy cherry to top it all off.

What an excellent meal! It was all so good and although it sounds like a lot of food, most of it was very light and seemed quite healthy. We left with our tummy's quite full, but not feeling super gross like after some heavy meals.

As a final note, I want to add that we did had some food restrictions at our table and they handled these flawlessly.  Anne is a pescatarian (new term I learned last night...she eats fish, but no other meats).  She had a few other restrictions as well and Lucy is slightly lactose intolerant, so she requested that there not be too much dairy.  Lucy was not affected much, but Anne had several substitutions throughout the night.  Her courses were just as tasty and beautifully presented as ours were.

I also need to add that in addition to wonderful foods and a great meal experience, the company could not have been better.  I had been around Lucy's mom before and knew I would enjoy her, but it was my first time to meet Anne and she was such a delight.  We had great conversation and laughed a lot.  What wonderful people to spend an evening with.

Lucy's mom would not let me pay for my meal - wow - how sweet!!  I paid for our cab rides, so that made me feel a little better about letting her treat me to such an amazing meal experience.

We had an hour trek back into the city and it was quite late at this point (the meal lasted close to 3 hours), but it was well worth the commute!  I hope to make it back to Blue Hill soon to tour the grounds and grab a bite at the cafe and even stroll through the adorable downtown Tarrytown.