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Nov. 15th, 2009 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo Heather and I spent seventy bucks on lunch today. We went to the Springs and had lunch in The Crystal Room.
The Springs been outside of Bedford for the last two hundred years. It was originally a "spa" destination favored by the rich and powerful of DC because it wasn't the malaria-ridden fetid swamp that DC turns into in the summer months. The rich and powerful, to get their peeps out of the DC summer miasma, sent 'em up to the mountains, a respectable distance from the sausage being made in DC. The sons and daughters of money and power, then, spent their summers relaxing in the cool ('healthy') mountain air of Pennsylvania with others of their kind. When more acceptable weather returned to DC in the fall, so too did the sons and daughters of money and power. That role for the Springs worked until the development of air conditioning, whereupon the Springs didn't have much of a purpose anymore.
The Springs is a hotel/spa/golf course at this point. The primary notable feature of the thing is a huge-ass building, all white balconies for as far as the eye can. Srsly. Damn thing is enormous. For most of my life, it's been run down. It closed in the eighties and sat vacant and in major need of restoration until about 1998. The last company that had it before the Bedford Resort Partners Limited allegedly just pried off all the solid oak trim and stole the plumbing out of the place in the name of "renovating" it. Along with the renovation was a massive road cut to bypass around the Springs, which was (I have no doubt) paid for by our tax dollars.
Funding (according to the Ferchill Group, who had a hand in the redevelopment, website here) for the renovation was as follows:
* $19.5 million (tax credits and easement equity) from Chevron Corp subsidiary Chevron TCI
* $27 million from Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in development grant and infrastructure assistance <-- infrastructure assistance may be the road thing. It's a huge road cut, lots of rock removed.
* $40 million in senior financing, Marshall Investments Corporation, Minneapolis, MN
* $4 million private developer equity
(for a total of 90.5 million)
Anyway, along about 2007, they finished restoring the thing to the tune of a hundred and twenty million dollars, so just about thirty million over budget. That's not so bad, now, is it? (Thirty million dollars would mean I never had to work again. Ever.) The Springs has been open for business since it reopened, assuming you have the scratch to stay there. Omni bought it in 2008 and is currently running it. The Springs is not a cheap place to stay but it is pretty. They had free tours of it when it reopened but the lines were hideous and I didn't go.
They also serve food in several eatery type options. You don't have to stay there to eat there, which is nice. I can't drop two hundred a night on a hotel room twenty miles from my freaking house. Actually, I could. But I'm not going to do so. I just want the foodie experience while they still have a foodie experience.
The fact that the Springs is on owner #2 after a year of operating under owner #1 following the renovation suggests to me that they are having some trouble finding people who want to stay in BFE for several hundred dollars a night. I may be wrong on this, but my personal view on the subject is that there's not a lot of market for a hotel/resort/spa/golf course in the middle of BFE when you can just as easily have a hotel/resort/spa/golf course somewhere that is warm and sunny and has beaches and perhaps a large-ish city with culture and whatnot to entertain guests when they'd like to go out on the town. Bedford does not have a whole lot of "town" to go out on and it's not near anywhere else. A 216-room hotel seems like a bit much, y'know?
Anyway. Sunday lunch. Dress is casual, they require reservations, you are obligated to use valet parking (which means I am not going to tip for it), and it starts at 11:30 am. The menu for lunch is here if you'd like to play the home version while I discuss my lunch date with Heather until I feel I've used up eighty-five dollars (including tip) of entertainment value. It might be a while...
The tables had cloth tablecloths and cloth napkins, both in white. The tablecloth and napkins were spotless and nice quality. Napkins were attractively folded, but not in origami shapes. I'm not up for cutesy shapes of napkins at lunch, so that was a plus. The chairs were upholstered and very comfy. The tables had a layer of underlayment padding on the surfaces that made them just slightly soft -- when the plates were set down, they made no noise. This was a nice touch and added to the luxury look-n-feel of the place.
Staff presence for service was tolerable but not the level of invisible ninja service that I expect for thirty-five bucks a head on a lunch menu. I should not have to sit there for a while before I am offered bread, butter, water, and a beverage ordering experience. I agree with the management that these things should not be on the table before I sit down, but they should arrive at the table *very* shortly after I do.
Also, I should not EVER have to wonder if I'm going to get a refill on my coffee. Similarly, I should not have to request extra cream/sugar if it's obvious from the cafe-au-lait color of my coffee that I'm a staunch member of the "blonde and sweet" cohort of coffee drinkers. Yes, we took three refills on coffee but they were small (tasteful, elegant, cute) cups with demitasse spoons provided and it was excellent coffee. That shit practically begged to be consumed until I vibrated with caffeinated joyfulness.
Not a service complaint but confusing -- we did not understand why there were coffee cups on the table (as part of the place setting) and our server still brought us new coffee cups on saucers with demitasse spoons for our coffee. We remain mystified on that front b/c asking for an explanation would probably have been rude.
On the plus side, the server did get us an extra plate for Heather's kid (who eats grown-up food, just less of it -- she's three and a half), asked if we needed a booster seat (no), and didn't blink an eye when Heather and I swapped entrees halfway through eating 'em.
I tipped twenty percent (fifteen dollars), which I thought was in line with the service we received. It's probably wrong of me to expect ninja diner-like coffee service at stylin' eateries with tablecloths and stuff. Maybe they feel their hallmark service should be more leisurely and sedate. Maybe they think that prompt coffee refills would be pressuring the diners or something. Maybe. However, SOME OF US like to be leisurely and sedate while we're enjoying your fine fucking coffee, all right? If you're going to serve very good coffee in eensy little cups, then your staff had better be prepared to silently, efficiently, tastefully schlep a lot of coffee.
At this juncture, I'd like to mention that the nice lady at the OIP (local pizza joint) refills our tea without much effort on our part twice or three times a meal, especially if it's clear (from the grass clippings in our hair) that we've been mowing and are thirsty. She also does not just DUMP tea in our glasses. She always asks if we would like some more first and she listens to what we say. (I do not always want more tea because I dope it to specifications and don't like more added unexpectedly because then it's *wrong* and I have to re-dope it.) The nice lady at the OIP, who is twice the server that the lady at The Crystal Room was, gets a two dollar tip on a twelve dollar check.
We had food as follows:
Water. Coffee. Bread and butter.
Water was plain, no chlorine, with square ice cubes in it. The ice was normal ice, like you'd get from an ice machine. (Some places have different shape ice cubes, is why I am mentioning this.)
Bread was two choices of bread -- one a square roll with seeds on it and an open, rustic crumb. It was a lean dough, slightly wet, the better of the two offerings. The other bread was shaped like mini baguettes but it wasn't baguette bread at all -- not crusty, not a lean dough. The mini baguette shaped bread was slashed on the top, had a rich brown color, a soft crust, and a soft crumb. It was inoffensive in flavor but not remarkable.
The butter was served in a small ceramic cup (chilled). It had an Omni-logo paper covering on it and had been whipped to a fare-thee-well so that it would spread well. It was unsalted butter, which I thought was an odd choice, but high quality butter just the same.
Coffee, I've already been over. It was good coffee, just should have arrived more frequently. Heather wanted the long, thin sugar packets instead of the usual rectangular ones but that isn't an aesthetic that I worry about much. The sweetener choices were white sugar, sugar in the raw, the pink stuff, the blue stuff, and the yellow stuff. (Large variety of sweetener options meant that only three packets of real sugar fit in the sweetener packet holder thing, which was a sugar bowl with a lid, not a metal packet holder thing.)
For an appetizer, we ordered Warm Local Goat Cheese Fondue with Pickled Beet Salad and Rustic Bread. This was served with the goat cheese / beet thing in a small ceramic cup off-center on the plate, with a selection (about eight) of toasted rustic bread rounds to the emptier side. When it arrived, the goat cheese was warm and nicely melty. The bread rounds were warm and crispy. I liked the goat cheese thing but I think it could have used more Pickled Beet Salad on top of the melted goat cheese. (There was enough to provide a splash of color but not more than that. Seriously, it was about a teaspoon. I would have liked more.) There was ample melty goat cheese to go with the bread pieces. No shortage of dip there and possibly they could cut back on it a bit. I'm not sure that the container the goat cheese was served in was the best choice available. It was a narrow, high container -- this does minimize surface area for a dip thing that needs to stay warm, but it makes dipping the bread bits kind of annoying. A shallower bowl would have been nicer, with a somewhat bigger (tablespoon, maybe) amount of beet stuff. Still, I'm scoring the appetizer a solid 7 on the 1-to-10 scale of food goodness.
For actual food, Heather had Lemon Parpadelle Pasta with Baby Spinach, Sweet Peas, Cherry tomatoes Fondue, and Matured Parmesan. I had The Crystal's Rotisserie Chicken with Roasted Asparagus and Shallot-Red Wine Sauce.
The entree plates were sizeable, but apparently that's the done thing these days. At least they were white without excessive decoration. Silverwear was unornamented but heavy, of good quality, with a nice hand to it.
The food nicely filled the plates and was attractively presented. It arrived hot and done through. Portions were fairly reasonable, though Heather got more pasta than we could finish. It's easy to overdo on pasta dishes, so they get a bye on that front.
Heather's Lemon Parpadelle Pasta was good, but not very lemony. I did not notice Sweet Peas like the menu says, but maybe she ate them all before I got it. It was dressed with olive oil that had had things cooked in it, among them basil and red peppers (hot, not sweet). I liked the heat in the dish. I understand that some oil is required to keep half-inch ribbons of pasta from congealing into a solid lump, but this dish tasted a little too oily to me. I tasted some lemon notes in the pasta, but they were subtle and Heather didn't think it was very lemony at all. Were it my dish, I'd have incorporated some fresh lemon juice into the sauce and cut back on the oil a bit. Chef should not be afraid of the tart, damn it. On the plus side, the pasta was perfectly done to al dente and suited the sauce well. Pasta gets a 6... better than average, but probably not your best value for eighteen dollars.
The rotisserie chicken was done, a bit dry in parts, but very tasty. The skin was delightfully crisp. I got a leg/thigh and a wing in my portion, both served cut off of the chicken like real meat, with bones in 'em. (I am a big girl. I can eat my chicken meat with bones in it and use utensils to do so and *everything*.) The shallot-red wine sauce was quite nice but there could have been more of it and I wouldn't have complained. Chicken was a solid 5.
More interesting than the chicken itself was what it came with -- the chicken parts were arranged prettily on top of six spears of asparagus, which was dressed with a rich, buttery sauce that was probably hollendaise. It was a white sauce, thick, and just on the edge of flour-y. Were it my sauce, it would have been cooked just a hair longer to kill the raw-flour flavor. This did not stop me from licking every bit of the sauce up (tastefully, by putting it on my fork and then putting my fork in my mouth, so that it *looked* like I was eating food, only there was nothing on the fork but sauce.) with enthusiasm. The asparagus spears were "roasted", a preparation I am not sure I really like for asparagus. It's a fucking vegetable. What's wrong with steaming? But anyway, they roasted it. Point in their favor: Not overdone. Lovely and perfect for the stem part. Point against: Roasting makes the tippy tops kind of dry. Boo! Point in their favor: Peeled stems with vegetable peeler so that they cut easily with a fork. Nice attention to detail, there. Asparagus gets a 7 for the peeled stems and the damn sauce, which was that good even though kind of flour-y. (I really like asparagus.)
We wanted dessert because once you've done an appetizer and two twenty-dollar entrees it's a bit late to contain costs or waistlines. There were three choices for dessert -- note to management: explain to servers that "We don't have a dessert menu" is not the best way to handle the statement "Can we see a dessert menu, please?" when there *are* desserts and you would like the server to give an oral recitation of the dessert options.
Option 1: Peanut butter bomb
Option 2: Coconut cheesecake with pineapple
Option 3: Raspberry creme brulee.
Heather had Option 2, I had Option 3. Both of us felt Option 1 sounded like it would taste like ass.
The coconut cheesecake with pineapple was absolutely spectacular. It was a 7. It probably could have been an 8 but didn't have a sufficient amount of graham cracker crust to make Heather entirely happy. The pineapples were spiced and looked like apple pie filling pieces but they were stunningly good. The cheesecake was a neat little mound shape and it was coconut-flavored in a good way. There was real whipped cream.
The creme brulee was tolerable but not perfect. Adding raspberry to creme brulee (real raspberries, with some sauce, placed in the creme part) is not the world's best idea. I understand that raspberries are one of the darlings of the food world, but there are some times when they are not indicated. Creme brulee is one of those times. Creme brulee should be a firm-ish, heavy custard. When I eat creme brulee, I want thick and I want rich. I do not want slightly runny or poorly set because raspberries have bled all over the poor thing and fucked up the setting. The crunchy brown crackly topping on the creme brulee was very nice, though, and mad propz to them for serving it in a long, shallow dish so that the diner got a maximal carmelized-sugar-crust experience. The custard itself was a 5, redeemed by a 7 on the crackly topping and good-choice-of-container fronts. Call it a 6.
And that concludes our lunch at the Springs. I'm kind of wanting to try their evening dining place, the one that serves stuff like "Sweetbreads, chanterelle mushrooms, whole grain mustard" and "Crisp pork belly, pickled heirloom melon, local greens, pumpkin seed oil" and so forth. Damn dinner there would run about ninety dollars a plate, but I bet it would be *interesting* food.
The Springs been outside of Bedford for the last two hundred years. It was originally a "spa" destination favored by the rich and powerful of DC because it wasn't the malaria-ridden fetid swamp that DC turns into in the summer months. The rich and powerful, to get their peeps out of the DC summer miasma, sent 'em up to the mountains, a respectable distance from the sausage being made in DC. The sons and daughters of money and power, then, spent their summers relaxing in the cool ('healthy') mountain air of Pennsylvania with others of their kind. When more acceptable weather returned to DC in the fall, so too did the sons and daughters of money and power. That role for the Springs worked until the development of air conditioning, whereupon the Springs didn't have much of a purpose anymore.
The Springs is a hotel/spa/golf course at this point. The primary notable feature of the thing is a huge-ass building, all white balconies for as far as the eye can. Srsly. Damn thing is enormous. For most of my life, it's been run down. It closed in the eighties and sat vacant and in major need of restoration until about 1998. The last company that had it before the Bedford Resort Partners Limited allegedly just pried off all the solid oak trim and stole the plumbing out of the place in the name of "renovating" it. Along with the renovation was a massive road cut to bypass around the Springs, which was (I have no doubt) paid for by our tax dollars.
Funding (according to the Ferchill Group, who had a hand in the redevelopment, website here) for the renovation was as follows:
* $19.5 million (tax credits and easement equity) from Chevron Corp subsidiary Chevron TCI
* $27 million from Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in development grant and infrastructure assistance <-- infrastructure assistance may be the road thing. It's a huge road cut, lots of rock removed.
* $40 million in senior financing, Marshall Investments Corporation, Minneapolis, MN
* $4 million private developer equity
(for a total of 90.5 million)
Anyway, along about 2007, they finished restoring the thing to the tune of a hundred and twenty million dollars, so just about thirty million over budget. That's not so bad, now, is it? (Thirty million dollars would mean I never had to work again. Ever.) The Springs has been open for business since it reopened, assuming you have the scratch to stay there. Omni bought it in 2008 and is currently running it. The Springs is not a cheap place to stay but it is pretty. They had free tours of it when it reopened but the lines were hideous and I didn't go.
They also serve food in several eatery type options. You don't have to stay there to eat there, which is nice. I can't drop two hundred a night on a hotel room twenty miles from my freaking house. Actually, I could. But I'm not going to do so. I just want the foodie experience while they still have a foodie experience.
The fact that the Springs is on owner #2 after a year of operating under owner #1 following the renovation suggests to me that they are having some trouble finding people who want to stay in BFE for several hundred dollars a night. I may be wrong on this, but my personal view on the subject is that there's not a lot of market for a hotel/resort/spa/golf course in the middle of BFE when you can just as easily have a hotel/resort/spa/golf course somewhere that is warm and sunny and has beaches and perhaps a large-ish city with culture and whatnot to entertain guests when they'd like to go out on the town. Bedford does not have a whole lot of "town" to go out on and it's not near anywhere else. A 216-room hotel seems like a bit much, y'know?
Anyway. Sunday lunch. Dress is casual, they require reservations, you are obligated to use valet parking (which means I am not going to tip for it), and it starts at 11:30 am. The menu for lunch is here if you'd like to play the home version while I discuss my lunch date with Heather until I feel I've used up eighty-five dollars (including tip) of entertainment value. It might be a while...
The tables had cloth tablecloths and cloth napkins, both in white. The tablecloth and napkins were spotless and nice quality. Napkins were attractively folded, but not in origami shapes. I'm not up for cutesy shapes of napkins at lunch, so that was a plus. The chairs were upholstered and very comfy. The tables had a layer of underlayment padding on the surfaces that made them just slightly soft -- when the plates were set down, they made no noise. This was a nice touch and added to the luxury look-n-feel of the place.
Staff presence for service was tolerable but not the level of invisible ninja service that I expect for thirty-five bucks a head on a lunch menu. I should not have to sit there for a while before I am offered bread, butter, water, and a beverage ordering experience. I agree with the management that these things should not be on the table before I sit down, but they should arrive at the table *very* shortly after I do.
Also, I should not EVER have to wonder if I'm going to get a refill on my coffee. Similarly, I should not have to request extra cream/sugar if it's obvious from the cafe-au-lait color of my coffee that I'm a staunch member of the "blonde and sweet" cohort of coffee drinkers. Yes, we took three refills on coffee but they were small (tasteful, elegant, cute) cups with demitasse spoons provided and it was excellent coffee. That shit practically begged to be consumed until I vibrated with caffeinated joyfulness.
Not a service complaint but confusing -- we did not understand why there were coffee cups on the table (as part of the place setting) and our server still brought us new coffee cups on saucers with demitasse spoons for our coffee. We remain mystified on that front b/c asking for an explanation would probably have been rude.
On the plus side, the server did get us an extra plate for Heather's kid (who eats grown-up food, just less of it -- she's three and a half), asked if we needed a booster seat (no), and didn't blink an eye when Heather and I swapped entrees halfway through eating 'em.
I tipped twenty percent (fifteen dollars), which I thought was in line with the service we received. It's probably wrong of me to expect ninja diner-like coffee service at stylin' eateries with tablecloths and stuff. Maybe they feel their hallmark service should be more leisurely and sedate. Maybe they think that prompt coffee refills would be pressuring the diners or something. Maybe. However, SOME OF US like to be leisurely and sedate while we're enjoying your fine fucking coffee, all right? If you're going to serve very good coffee in eensy little cups, then your staff had better be prepared to silently, efficiently, tastefully schlep a lot of coffee.
At this juncture, I'd like to mention that the nice lady at the OIP (local pizza joint) refills our tea without much effort on our part twice or three times a meal, especially if it's clear (from the grass clippings in our hair) that we've been mowing and are thirsty. She also does not just DUMP tea in our glasses. She always asks if we would like some more first and she listens to what we say. (I do not always want more tea because I dope it to specifications and don't like more added unexpectedly because then it's *wrong* and I have to re-dope it.) The nice lady at the OIP, who is twice the server that the lady at The Crystal Room was, gets a two dollar tip on a twelve dollar check.
We had food as follows:
Water. Coffee. Bread and butter.
Water was plain, no chlorine, with square ice cubes in it. The ice was normal ice, like you'd get from an ice machine. (Some places have different shape ice cubes, is why I am mentioning this.)
Bread was two choices of bread -- one a square roll with seeds on it and an open, rustic crumb. It was a lean dough, slightly wet, the better of the two offerings. The other bread was shaped like mini baguettes but it wasn't baguette bread at all -- not crusty, not a lean dough. The mini baguette shaped bread was slashed on the top, had a rich brown color, a soft crust, and a soft crumb. It was inoffensive in flavor but not remarkable.
The butter was served in a small ceramic cup (chilled). It had an Omni-logo paper covering on it and had been whipped to a fare-thee-well so that it would spread well. It was unsalted butter, which I thought was an odd choice, but high quality butter just the same.
Coffee, I've already been over. It was good coffee, just should have arrived more frequently. Heather wanted the long, thin sugar packets instead of the usual rectangular ones but that isn't an aesthetic that I worry about much. The sweetener choices were white sugar, sugar in the raw, the pink stuff, the blue stuff, and the yellow stuff. (Large variety of sweetener options meant that only three packets of real sugar fit in the sweetener packet holder thing, which was a sugar bowl with a lid, not a metal packet holder thing.)
For an appetizer, we ordered Warm Local Goat Cheese Fondue with Pickled Beet Salad and Rustic Bread. This was served with the goat cheese / beet thing in a small ceramic cup off-center on the plate, with a selection (about eight) of toasted rustic bread rounds to the emptier side. When it arrived, the goat cheese was warm and nicely melty. The bread rounds were warm and crispy. I liked the goat cheese thing but I think it could have used more Pickled Beet Salad on top of the melted goat cheese. (There was enough to provide a splash of color but not more than that. Seriously, it was about a teaspoon. I would have liked more.) There was ample melty goat cheese to go with the bread pieces. No shortage of dip there and possibly they could cut back on it a bit. I'm not sure that the container the goat cheese was served in was the best choice available. It was a narrow, high container -- this does minimize surface area for a dip thing that needs to stay warm, but it makes dipping the bread bits kind of annoying. A shallower bowl would have been nicer, with a somewhat bigger (tablespoon, maybe) amount of beet stuff. Still, I'm scoring the appetizer a solid 7 on the 1-to-10 scale of food goodness.
For actual food, Heather had Lemon Parpadelle Pasta with Baby Spinach, Sweet Peas, Cherry tomatoes Fondue, and Matured Parmesan. I had The Crystal's Rotisserie Chicken with Roasted Asparagus and Shallot-Red Wine Sauce.
The entree plates were sizeable, but apparently that's the done thing these days. At least they were white without excessive decoration. Silverwear was unornamented but heavy, of good quality, with a nice hand to it.
The food nicely filled the plates and was attractively presented. It arrived hot and done through. Portions were fairly reasonable, though Heather got more pasta than we could finish. It's easy to overdo on pasta dishes, so they get a bye on that front.
Heather's Lemon Parpadelle Pasta was good, but not very lemony. I did not notice Sweet Peas like the menu says, but maybe she ate them all before I got it. It was dressed with olive oil that had had things cooked in it, among them basil and red peppers (hot, not sweet). I liked the heat in the dish. I understand that some oil is required to keep half-inch ribbons of pasta from congealing into a solid lump, but this dish tasted a little too oily to me. I tasted some lemon notes in the pasta, but they were subtle and Heather didn't think it was very lemony at all. Were it my dish, I'd have incorporated some fresh lemon juice into the sauce and cut back on the oil a bit. Chef should not be afraid of the tart, damn it. On the plus side, the pasta was perfectly done to al dente and suited the sauce well. Pasta gets a 6... better than average, but probably not your best value for eighteen dollars.
The rotisserie chicken was done, a bit dry in parts, but very tasty. The skin was delightfully crisp. I got a leg/thigh and a wing in my portion, both served cut off of the chicken like real meat, with bones in 'em. (I am a big girl. I can eat my chicken meat with bones in it and use utensils to do so and *everything*.) The shallot-red wine sauce was quite nice but there could have been more of it and I wouldn't have complained. Chicken was a solid 5.
More interesting than the chicken itself was what it came with -- the chicken parts were arranged prettily on top of six spears of asparagus, which was dressed with a rich, buttery sauce that was probably hollendaise. It was a white sauce, thick, and just on the edge of flour-y. Were it my sauce, it would have been cooked just a hair longer to kill the raw-flour flavor. This did not stop me from licking every bit of the sauce up (tastefully, by putting it on my fork and then putting my fork in my mouth, so that it *looked* like I was eating food, only there was nothing on the fork but sauce.) with enthusiasm. The asparagus spears were "roasted", a preparation I am not sure I really like for asparagus. It's a fucking vegetable. What's wrong with steaming? But anyway, they roasted it. Point in their favor: Not overdone. Lovely and perfect for the stem part. Point against: Roasting makes the tippy tops kind of dry. Boo! Point in their favor: Peeled stems with vegetable peeler so that they cut easily with a fork. Nice attention to detail, there. Asparagus gets a 7 for the peeled stems and the damn sauce, which was that good even though kind of flour-y. (I really like asparagus.)
We wanted dessert because once you've done an appetizer and two twenty-dollar entrees it's a bit late to contain costs or waistlines. There were three choices for dessert -- note to management: explain to servers that "We don't have a dessert menu" is not the best way to handle the statement "Can we see a dessert menu, please?" when there *are* desserts and you would like the server to give an oral recitation of the dessert options.
Option 1: Peanut butter bomb
Option 2: Coconut cheesecake with pineapple
Option 3: Raspberry creme brulee.
Heather had Option 2, I had Option 3. Both of us felt Option 1 sounded like it would taste like ass.
The coconut cheesecake with pineapple was absolutely spectacular. It was a 7. It probably could have been an 8 but didn't have a sufficient amount of graham cracker crust to make Heather entirely happy. The pineapples were spiced and looked like apple pie filling pieces but they were stunningly good. The cheesecake was a neat little mound shape and it was coconut-flavored in a good way. There was real whipped cream.
The creme brulee was tolerable but not perfect. Adding raspberry to creme brulee (real raspberries, with some sauce, placed in the creme part) is not the world's best idea. I understand that raspberries are one of the darlings of the food world, but there are some times when they are not indicated. Creme brulee is one of those times. Creme brulee should be a firm-ish, heavy custard. When I eat creme brulee, I want thick and I want rich. I do not want slightly runny or poorly set because raspberries have bled all over the poor thing and fucked up the setting. The crunchy brown crackly topping on the creme brulee was very nice, though, and mad propz to them for serving it in a long, shallow dish so that the diner got a maximal carmelized-sugar-crust experience. The custard itself was a 5, redeemed by a 7 on the crackly topping and good-choice-of-container fronts. Call it a 6.
And that concludes our lunch at the Springs. I'm kind of wanting to try their evening dining place, the one that serves stuff like "Sweetbreads, chanterelle mushrooms, whole grain mustard" and "Crisp pork belly, pickled heirloom melon, local greens, pumpkin seed oil" and so forth. Damn dinner there would run about ninety dollars a plate, but I bet it would be *interesting* food.
