Terragusto tasting menu

My wife, I, and four friends ate at Terragusto last Saturday. We all ordered the tasting menu, which was not listed on their printed menu but "offered" (in a bit of a showy way, if you ask me) to us by our waiter once he "got permission from chef" to do so. Anyway, most everything we had was terrific. But there was no meat dish. What's up with that? Am I wrong in expecting that a special, off-the-menu tasting menu should cover a bit of everything that comes out of the kitchen, including at least one meat dish?

To be honest, though, the tagliatelle was so phenomenal that I kept thinking about it throughout the meal and didn't care too much about not having any meat dishes. I thought about it more today when describing the meal to a friend and realized how odd it was.

Dan

Could you elaborate on what you mean that it was offered after getting permission from the chef? It isn't uncommon for a restaurant to only serve a tasting menu before a certain time in the evening, to ensure that diners have time to finish the meal before closing time. It's also fairly common in restaurants that don't normally serve the tasting menu for the waiter to check with the chef to be sure he/she has enough food to serve it. In your case, what was the context when the waiter said he/she would check with the chef?

Should you have expected meat? I don't know. How much did the tasting menu cost? Did they tell you before you ordered it what would be included? Did you get only antipasti, pasta, and dessert?

The context was that the waiter handed us our menus and told us he would check with the chef to see if he could offer a tasting menu. He came back ten minutes later and said he could. I was happy to have the option. What I mean by "showy" is that if the option was available, he could have just told us that (we didn't know to ask in the first instance) instead of saying he would check and then telling it was available. Not a big deal, but it all seemed staged to make it seem as if the restaurant was doing us a favor, which is odd because everything else about that restaurant is not pretentious.

Tasting menu was $70/person, I think. The description in advance was that the tasting menu would allow us to taste all of what the kitchen had to offer. We had several antipasti, three pastas, a fish, and dessert. My view is that a kitchen's presentation of fish is not the same as meat and a tasting menu should cover both. I could be wrong.

Dan

DanInLakeview wrote:The description in advance was that the tasting menu would allow us to taste all of what the kitchen had to offer. We had several antipasti, three pastas, a fish, and dessert. My view is that a kitchen's presentation of fish is not the same as meat and a tasting menu should cover both. I could be wrong.

Dan

So, Terragusto doesn't serve meat?

No, it does. And delicious-sounding meat dishes at that. http://terragustocafe.com/menu/

That's my point. My tasting menu didn't include any of that meat.

OP's description actually sounds like a visit to the car dealership where the sales guy says he's going to go ask the manager if he can give you this special, special price because he likes you so much. I think I would have giggled.

DanInLakeview wrote:What I mean by "showy" is that if the option was available, he could have just told us that (we didn't know to ask in the first instance) instead of saying he would check and then telling it was available. Not a big deal, but it all seemed staged to make it seem as if the restaurant was doing us a favor, which is odd because everything else about that restaurant is not pretentious.

Another explanation is that the waiter didn't know if the tasting menu was available when he first came to the table. While at the table he realized he should check with the chef. This seems more likely to me than the whole thing being staged. Remember, this isn't a restaurant that's doing tasting menus all the time and it's perfectly reasonable that the tasting menu isn't always available.

DanInLakeview wrote:Tasting menu was $70/person, I think. The description in advance was that the tasting menu would allow us to taste all of what the kitchen had to offer. We had several antipasti, three pastas, a fish, and dessert. My view is that a kitchen's presentation of fish is not the same as meat and a tasting menu should cover both. I could be wrong.

I went to a Paul Simon concert some years ago and he didn't play "Bridge over Troubled Waters". I was somewhat surprised and disappointed. But the overall concert was simply amazing when judged on what was played, rather than on what was not played.

The point of a tasting menu is that you put yourself in the chef's hands and let him or her choose what to serve. There is no reason to assume you'll get a little of everything. Perhaps there's a good reason for the omission of certain dishes.

I can certainly understand your disappointment in not getting one particular dish as part of your dinner, but that's the nature of these things. Next time, if there's something you'd especially like, ask if it can be incorporated into the menu.

The issue for me would be-were you satisfied with what you were served, and was the cost in line? $70 is a healthy price-were there other components of the meal that brought value to it? Of course the other point is it didn't give you "all the kitchen has to offer" if there was not a meat-centered dish.

As far as I know, there are no rules to a tasting menu. What you projected and did not receive is just that, and the reason for your disappointment. Like life. If this bothers you, in the future just ask what the menu will consist of. If the chef is just freestyling in the moment with out a printed menu, most ask if there are any issues with food allergies or dislikes prior to cooking. This would be the time to ask to insure your hopefully well balanced meal will include meat.

A friend of mine in Toronto, Chef Susser Lee does his degustation menu in what most would consider a backward manner. Heavy to light. Surprising to most, but it works quite well that way.

DanInLakeview wrote:The description in advance was that the tasting menu would allow us to taste all of what the kitchen had to offer.

I think this is the real issue. If the restaurant promised a taste of all of what's on the menu, and then, at the chef's discretion, was served only what the chef chose to send out, then the restaurant didn't deliver on what it promised.

Clearly, though, a tasting menu including everything on the regular menu is rare, at most.

The context was that the waiter handed us our menus and told us he would check with the chef to see if he could offer a tasting menu. He came back ten minutes later and said he could.

Sounds like the chef was preparing something special for your table, and under those circumstances, I would think you're going to get served pretty much what he/she wants to serve you. This, by the way, is not that uncommon in Italy. Tell a chef/owner to "Faccia come vuole" ("Do as you wish") and you'll get pretty much what he/she wants to give you at his/her price. It's not a promise to give you everything on the menu just the best of what the restaurant has to offer. In general, it won't be cheap, but it will be a memorable experience.

By the way, this is the first I've heard of such an off-the-menu tasting menu being available at Terragusto. Usually we find that the $36.50 3 course special is quite sufficient, as it was for us tonight. The pastas (in this case, the trout stuffed ravioli and and a truffle-enhanced pasta verde in forno) continue to be superb.