The United Steaks

Blogging power couple, Meg Hourihan and Jason Kottke are back from their trip to Asia, where they ate (and blogged about) some wonderful food.

Here’s a selection from Meg’s report on their Thanksgiving dinner in Vietnam:

For our Thanksgiving the other evening, we headed to Le Bordeaux in Ho Chi Minh Ville (I love that ville, all the French restaurants say that on their menu) for a special dinner. Once our taxi driver actually located the restaurant, things were very nice, if a bit more than I’d anticipated.

We started with a Champagne aperitif and enjoyed some kind of crab amuse in a spoon with dill and a mayonnaise-life creaminess holding the chunks of firm crab together. For my appetizer, I ordered a “Foie Gras Three Ways” (which Jason, ha ha ha, called “ménage à foie”). There was a slice of terrine, a poached sliver, and then a crisply seared chunk. Each was nearly the size of a typical order of foie gras, so when they put the plate down before me, I was both overjoyed and a bit overwhelmed. It was a lot of foie, but it was delicious!

I love foie gras but it’s so rich. Moreover, it’s so special. For me it’s a few-times-a-year indulgence, and something I really look forward to. Each bite is a nibble of magic. Eating that much at once caused some of its magic to diminish, as if I’d exceeded the foie gras limit. Because I believe for everything, even the yummiest most delicious amazing foods, there is a limit. Six oysters is perfect for me. 18 would not be. Two glass of Champagne is about enough. Three or four glasses and something is lost. A nice chunk of foie gras is just right, and I don’t need three.

It reminds me of Thomas Keller’s philosophy and the diminishing returns one gets upon successive bites of the same food. The tongue fails to distinguish; the Champagne’s bubbles blur or a BBQ pork’s tang recedes. Eventually it’s just another sip of liquid or bite of liver. And I don’t ever want to feel that jaded about anything I eat, be it foie gras or liverwurst. There’s a magic that happens when we put tasty food in our mouths, and I don’t intend to lose it.