Lunch chez Panisse

Berkeley, August 5, 2009—

GARDEN LETTUCE SALAD and then, since it's rare we get the chance to eat good fish, grilled California sea bass with Indian spices, eggplant, watercress, and mint raita, Odd to have so Indian-tasting a thing in the café, but reassuring, too: it's nice to see this kind of accommodation, a form of cultural generosity. It's precisely this kind of interest, inspired by food but going beyond it, that lends dignity to this obsessive contemplation of the table. (Ah there, Curtis, I'm beginning a response to your challenge.)

The fish was dusted with those spices: they lay on the surface, in a way, rather than infiltrating the meat itself, just as the ethnicity of the cuisine they represent entered but did not merge with the kitchen that prepared this dish.

Dessert: chocolate pavé, chocolate sauce, and espresso cream. J'adore le chocolat.

Txakolina Bizkaiko, Uriondo, 2008