A Funkaoshi Production

George

   2 December 2005, lunch time

My friends and I celebrated Carvill’s birthday last year at Starfish. That was quite the meal. The goal for this year was to eat at a place even more ridiculous—which we did. Last Friday, Mezan, Dave, Carvill and I went to George.

Your dining options at George, as we were informed by our waiter, were a three course a-la carte menu, a six course tasting menu, or an eight course tasting menu. Everyone needs to pick the same type of dinner, so that the number of courses being served matched; that was an important part of the service. Now, the three course a-la carte would have been cheaper then what we ended up going with, the six course tasting menu, but it was Carvill’s birthday so we most definitely had to go all out. We ordered some drinks and so the night began.

We started things off with a long rectangular plate which featured a tiny piece of beetroot jello, some diced octopus, and some type of relish. If you’ve seen a television show or commercial making fun of fine-dining or French cuisine, then you will have a faint idea of what this dish looked like. I was worried all our courses would be this small. Carvill, queen of fine-dining, informed us that the dish wasn’t a course, it was like ‘free-bread’. (We also got real ‘free bread’ mind you, which was quite tasty.) The beetroot jello was surprisingly good. The octopus and relish were both a bit spicy, and complemented to sweet jello well.

My next dish, which Carvill also had, was a crab salad served on a wafer. The wafer was circular, and all the other food stuffs was piled on top so as to form a cylinder of food. (I wish I had actually written down what we were getting. I also wish I was an actual food critic, as I am quite sure the dishes I had tasted, and looked better, than what I just described, and what I will describe later on.) Everytime a dish was served, two waiters would bring them to our table and set them out in front of us. One of the waiters would explain to us what we were eating. For the first course, Mezan and Dave had a salad with some sort of fish served Tataki style. I had a little bite; it was also quite good.

For the second course, Carvill and I both got tuna served Tataki style. There were other embellishments which I don’t recall. Suffice it to say it was damn good tuna. Dave and Mezan had a duck filled pastry. Mezan had requested that none of his meals contain pork—because he is a Muslim and he will explode if he eats pork. Our waiter came out and told us, “There is absolutely no pork in this dish.” He said it with authority. Everytime we finished a course, someone would come by and take our cutlery and plates away. No one was hovering around us while we were eating, but the wait staff was attentive enough to notice when you were done with something.

For the third course, we were all served foie gras. Mezan and I had it served one way, and Carvill and Dave had it served another. I’m not a big fan of foie gras, it’s too rich. The few times I’ve had it, it feels like I am eating cholesterol. Now I did enjoy the dish, but it hasn’t changed my opinion on the stuff. My forth course was lamb, served rare, with some vegetables and potatoes done up all fancy-like. It was very good. Dave and Mezan can confirm as much, since they probably had half of that course; I was getting pretty full by this point in the meal.

The last two courses were a cheese plate, followed by a desert. We all were given soft cheeses from Quebec. Dave had a blue cheese, Carvill and I had a creamy mild cheese. Mezan, who is not tolerant of lactose, had a sorbet. The deserts that followed were all really good. I had a chocolate cake like thing, Carvill and Dave had these fancy shot glasses of rum and chocolate, served with some fruits, and Mezan had a chocolate and almond tart. The melted chocolate and rum was really good.

I was full by the end of the meal. I don’t eat much, so Dave who does eat a healthy amount of food will need to weigh in on how filling the meal was.

The irony is that we choose George over Carvill’s other choice for the evening, Scaramouche, because George was to be a more affordable alternative to fine dining. This was the impression we had reached from reading reviews of the place. Upon arriving at the George, we quickly realized that things weren’t so simple. Rishi had actually warned me the place was expensive; his boss dines out at George. After I had showed him reviews of the place, he and I came to the conclusion we were talking about different places. So, in the end the bill was $490 for 4 people, with taxes and tip and everything else included. If you do that math, that’s a lot of money for 4 people to eat. Hover, the meal was amazing. I wasn’t let down by any dish. It’s hard to say whether the food was $120 good, but the experience certainly was. (Of course, we all could have got Gameboy Micros for that amount of money. Something to think about for next year.

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