A Very Special Meal

Last week I went with my family to Sea Island, which is a resort in Georgia. My grandparents and my aunt and uncle and cousins went too. It was very fun! We ate at lots of restaurants, but the best one was called the Georgian Room. It is very fancy, so my little sister couldn't go. My aunt and uncle were really nice and took care of her, so that my brother and I could go with my parents and my grandparents.

The dining room and service are very formal. They even brought little stools for my mom and grandmother's purses! I thought that was very creative and that they were pretty.

This is my grandmother's bag resting on its special stool!

We ordered the tasting menu and our meal started with two canapes. The first one was the Perfect Egg and was a poached egg with sherry cream, spinach and celery root espuma. Espuma is the Spanish word for foam. This was my dad's favorite dish and one of mine. I thought that the sherry cream was great.

The egg came resting on little stones. My mom warned me not to eat them!!! That would have been a disaster and very silly!

Next we had Melon Murabba with lime syrup, cured egg, and Ossabaw ham. Murabba is a sweet fruit preserve that is popular in Asia and the Middle East. I liked this dish but it was probably my least favorite. I actually liked the melon itself more than I usually like melon, but I thought that the murabba was too sweet with it.

I liked how the cured egg on top looked like gold!

After that we added on a caviar service, because my brother and I really wanted it and my parents love caviar! The caviar came with blini, creme fraiche, chopped egg and onion. The server poured dry ice in the middle which looked very cool. The caviar was delicious. I liked it on blini with creme fraiche and egg. Blini are small Russian pancakes, usually made with buckwheat flour. We ran out of blini and they make them to order, so our new ones came out fresh and hot.

Next we had Creek Nation Clam Crudo with sesame ponzu pearls, and Canewater farm scallions. The servers poured dry ice over the scallops, and it was supposed to remind you of the ocean. Ponzu is a citrus sauce used in Japanese cooking. My mom thought that the ponzu was too strong, but my Papa loved this dish.

After that, we had Corn Veloute with day boat Georgia shrimp, bonito aioli and smoked almond. Veloute is a classic French sauce, but it also means "velvety". This soup was my mom's favorite dish and my second favorite. It was delicious! The solid ingredients came underneath a glass cover, and then the servers lifted the covers and poured the liquid part of the soup over the shrimp and herbs. The soup really tasted like sweet corn.

The glass cover had smoke underneath it when it was lifted.

After the soup course, we had Hand Rolled Golden Garganelli, with morel mushroom, English peas and Broadfield Bacon. I really liked the pasta because it had a buttery flavor and was chewy.

I thought that the peas looked very pretty on this and they were delicious!

For the fish course, we had Georgia Coast B-liner Red Snapper with white asparagus, rhubarb and sauce Bearnaise. Bearnaise is a French sauce made from clarified butter, egg yolks, vinegar and herbs. I really liked dipping the fish into the Bearnaise sauce. My mom loved the rhubarb. My grandparents grow rhubarb in their garden and we make great rhubarb sauce for salmon at home!

I liked how the white strawberry looked.

By the time we were done with fish, we were getting VERY full. My mom doesn't eat red meat and so she was very happy to skip the next course and get a break! But the rest of us had Prime Beef with potato puree, Georgia scarlet, Hakari turnip and sauce Perigueux. This is another French sauce that is flavored with Madeira and truffles. I really liked the beef because the outside was seared crisp but the inside was chewy.

Next was the cheese course, which was very different and unusual. Usually a cheese course is a few kinds of cheese on a plate with accompaniments. But this was completely different. The cheese was Sottocenere, which is a mild Italian cheese with truffles. It was served with a warm crepe, compressed Georgia peaches, and Canewater Farms lettuce. The server brought out a special machine to make a raclette, which is a Swiss dish where the cheese is melted and then scraped onto the crepe. I liked the crepe itself and how the melted cheese was crispy.

This is the server melting the cheese to put on top of the crepes.

Finally we were at dessert, but they actually brought out a pre-dessert, before the real dessert! This was Lemon Mousse with Champagne Espuma. Do you remember what Espuma is?? If not you better go back to the beginning of the post!! This dish was another one of my mom's favorites. It was very light and refreshing and would have been fine as the only dessert.

But then came the real dessert, which was Grand Marnier Mousse Cake with berry compote, peppered meringue and strawberry sorbet. We all LOVED this dish. My brother said it was the best dessert he'd ever had and I thought that too. The meringue cookies on top were very good, but had a bit of heat from the pepper. The sorbet really tasted like strawberries and the cake was delicious.

Doesn't this look beautiful?!

We still weren't done though and had Mignardise, which are little treats from the kitchen at the end of the meal. We each got a chocolate egg with passion fruit puree, and a canale. Remember canales from Dominique Ansel?! I loved the passion fruit egg. It was both sweet and tart. The canale was very good too.

I absolutely LOVED the Georgian Room. The meal lasted almost five hours, and with all the extras ended up being way more food than we needed. But everything was delicious and it was a very special night with my family.