New Year's Eve at Chez Panisse...

Honestly, I can’t tell you that this entire experience was magical. I can’t tell you that this entire dining encounter filled me with glee as a fantastical haze spread across the dining room swept me off my feet. That would only be partly true. The other part of me felt an enormous guilt from the moment I stepped off the once blighted street pre-gentrification, handed a glass of Prosecco, warm walnuts and walked into the predominately-warm wood tri-leveled restaurant for my specially expensive priced New Year’s Eve dinner.

Guilt is an understatement from what I felt. I felt like a reincarnated fat aristocrat of Paris, or the Rockefeller’s, dining on decadently rich foods and throwing expensive champagne down the goblet while those with depression era dust covered faces sat in the window, drooling at the mere crumbs on my table, watching me lick pastry cream off my derogatory Picaninny-esque greasy lips. It didn’t help that my shirt included black lace and silk, and I had costume jewelry on with sapphire and pearls. Even my own mother couldn’t imagine the bill that came at the end of this meal. It was probably my nana’s food budget for a month, on which she fed her seven children and husband.

Then I turned around, stared into the kitchen and there she was…Alice Waters. I pretty much forgot about all that Mother Teresa bullshit and started on my champagne.





Duck terrine with pistachios and black truffles: A terrine tastes like a fancy hot dog without the casing. It’s not for the weak at heart with its strong taste and odor, but rich texture that seems to make sense only when accompanied with the accoutrements on the plate: aspic, cornichons, and pickled chanterelles.

Celery root and Jerusalem artichoke soup with new olive oil: The only other thing more appropriate for a chilly bay area night would be a crack rock or a bottle of cheap vodka. Basically a warm vichyssoise topped with shaved black truffles, super smooth textured goodness. No flavor overpowering another, the celery root and J-artichoke presented themselves as the most delicate tubers on the planet.

Potato and green garlic ravioli with wild mushrooms: The creamiest ravioli filling I’ve ever come across, inside of tender pasta packages floating in a broth that tastes of fresh chicken, the dense earth and foraged mushrooms.

Dungeness crab feuillete with spinach and lemon: I never knew my body was capable of having the same reaction to food as sex, that automatic sigh of relief and the apparent relaxation of shoulders. However, when I picked the freshest of fresh Dungeness crab out of its puff pastry tuxedo and placed it into my mouth and that sparkle of lemon hit my taste buds, it was an immediate Zen.




Grilled grass-fed beef filet Rossini, pommes Anna and mache: I read about this dish, originally called Tournedos Rossini by Escoffier, in Larousse Gastronomique and it's straight up old school. I’m surprised there weren’t any tournee’d potatoes on my plate. A filet mignon topped with a slab of foie gras and drizzled with Madeira demi-glace. I’m not a fan of foie gras without it being crusted up in a pan. Nonetheless, I appreciated this shot out to Escoffier and the incredibly heart stopping (physically and metaphorically) dish.




Baked Alaska with blood orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream: If you ever liked 50/50 creamsicles, you’d have loved this dessert. The sharp, sour and luscious blood orange sorbet against the creamy ice cream and room temp caramelized meringue, is pretty damn shocking to the system.



And for the finale, Hazelnut Marjolaine with bittersweet chocolate: A tiny square of dacquoise layers of crunchy almond and hazelnut meringue with chocolate buttercream filling with a glossy ganache and whipped cream. Oh, and topped with a sterling silver leaf to end the New Year with good fortune.

I couldn’t possibly have good fortune. It just cost too damn much for this dinner.



1517 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 548-5525