Sweets & Savories current tasting menu?

It'll be my first time to Sweets & Savories this weekend. Can anyone comment on their current tasting menu? I sent them an email asking for details (since the info doesn't seem to be on their website) but haven't heard back yet.

Give 'em a call - the number's on the website. Chef Richards is a sweet and chatty guy, and I'm sure you'll get the info you need. Do keep in mind that Valentine's week is pretty wild, so be kind.

Lots of S&S action in the Bonsoiree thread - hopefully we can get this started as a separate, dedicated discussion.

Went to S&S last Friday night, had the 8 course tasting menu - delicious

Started with the "complimentary" foie gras with grilled banana and chocolate rediction. It was quite the starter, thought we were being served dessert first. Very flavorful.

Chilled soup, think it was potato and leek with a drizzle of truffle oil on top - wow, loved that one, creamy goodness.

Scallop on top of heirloom tomato salad. My favorite of the courses. Just perfectly cooked and the salad was the perfect compliment. The fiance doesn't eat tomatoes and couldn't get enough of it.

Lamb chop with a Morocoan chick pea salad. Served medium rare, there was some mint in there as well. Just tasty, had to pick up the chop to eat it clean.

Short ribs on a bed of goat cheese grits. Tasty, kind of heavy, the apricot chutney on top made the dish.

Black truffle risotto - Yum - bit of a more wintery dish but perfectly prepared.

Raspberry and cardomon sorbet

Salad, quite acidic, with a truffle oil dressing.

Dessert was a very dense chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

Each had one glass of wine as well

We were beyond stuffed (or at least I was) at the end. Service was good, had a newish waiter, hadn't tasted a lot of the menu apparently. It seemed that it was a bit heavy for the summer, would have probably preferred more vegetables. Not many other than in the heirloom salad and salad course. It was our second time there, had an truly amazing meal and service the first time back in January '07. You always remember your first time...

See my post in the Bonsoiree thread for current pricing on S&S tasting menu.

This is Bster's post on the Bonsoiree thread. I thought it was important information to have in this thread.

Bster wrote:OK, just called S&S, here's the current deal on their tasting menu:

Mondays:
5-course for $50
8-course for $65

NO CORKAGE FEE

Tuesdays:
CLOSED

Wednesdays to Sundays:
5-course for $60
8-course for $75

REGULAR $15/per bottle CORKAGE

Chef makes courses up on day of service with regard to what he has that day which looks good.

Bster

So I had just posted something about limited opportunities to go fine dine during GNR season when the opportunity to go out sans kids narrowly offered itself on Friday night. Was there time to rush to Vie? There was not. In fact there was no GNR candidate close enough to get to that I hadn't been to. But there was a place we'd been talking about a lot lately in the context of the GNRs, which I hadn't been to in a while-- Sweets and Savories. 11 minutes later, we were seated and had told the waiter we wanted the five-course tasting and needed to be out the door in under 90 minutes.

They did it in 80, without ever making us feel rushed. So regard this as the first post of the GNR renewal process of 2008.

The five courses were:

• Cold vichysoisse cream soup with lobster and truffle oil
• Some kind of white fish, fried, with an olive oil and something else sauce Jackson Pollack'd around the plate
• A blue cheese and corn risotto, dotted with bits of bacon
• Lamb chops with a mustardy demiglace and a balsamic glaze
• Chocolate cake, raspberry sauce, and chocolate-banana gelato

I'll say specific things about specific courses but the overall point is that, once again, we see what Chef Dave Richards' thing is in a menu like this-- lushness on a budget, basically. When other chefs are going Asian minimalist, he wants you to have a meal that gives off airs of classical French poshness and richness and creaminess, while adjusting it down to appetites and price levels that aren't looking to gorge and get gouged. The blue cheese and corn risotto-- the simplest and best thing we had-- is a perfect example, it's actually rather light except for the fact that the blue cheese and bits of bacon push it into another realm where it seems decadent. A similar effect was achieved in the vichysoisse, which was simple and small, but seemed luxurious because the few hunks of lobster were all good-sized, and because of the truffle oil.

But it would be easy to throw a few deluxe items at us; Richards also is very good at balancing a dish, bringing it to a high point of refinement. Like me, you've had approximately 1,345,000 chocolate and raspberry deserts by now, but the choice of chocolate-banana for the gelato, whether housemade or not (I don't know), burst the cliche and made the combination fresh again. And it goes without saying, but it really doesn't, that the technical skills in the kitchen delivered everything perfectly-- the lamb chops a beautiful red-rare with savory burnt edges, for instance.

Service is warm and genuine, though I wish service people would just avail themselves of a cheat sheet when rattling off tonight's dishes; I'd rather you looked at a card than stared up at the heavens, hoping to remember. But that's a very small point, as before S&S is truly a neighborly place, happy to share what it has with you, intimate, welcoming, generous-- I asked for wine by the glass, we were offered tastes of a couple of wines, and then, when I'd finished mine before dessert, another half glass's worth made its way into my glass courtesy of the house.

Anyway, in light of our recent discussion on high end restaurants and the Great Neighborhood Restaurant awards, I continue to agree that Sweets and Savories offers at least one version of what we hope to see in a fairly expensive fine-dining establishment-- a real philosophy, coherent and technically accomplished, in the dishes served; a vibe that is welcoming and genuine; the sense that you should come back, and sooner rather than later, and rather than trying the newest place that just opened, because this is a gem worth a dozen new hot spots that will mostly bloom and vanish.