Le Yum: Dinner at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

So what happens when two foodies each win a couple of hundred dollars at roulette? Does mama buy a new pair of shoes?  Or something sparkly? No. They spend it all on a fabulous meal at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, bien sûr!

Every time I go to the MGM in Las Vegas I drool over the menu, but we have never been able to justify spending the very hefty price for a French meal when we know we can have great French food in France or at home.  But with a little win fall at the tables and no real plans for dinner, we said why the hell not?

We chose the Menu Decouverte (Discovery Menu) because it would allow us to taste a wider variety of dishes.

We started our meal with a glass of champagne from Gosset. We had never tried this brand and it was lovely, slightly fruity and not too dry.  It went perfectly with the start of the meal – the l’amuse bouche – which was a foie gras parfait with port wine and parmesan foam (crémeux de foie gras au Porto et son émulsion au parmesan) – this turned out to be my favorite “dish” of the entire meal.  I am not fond of warm or hot foie gras, I prefer it cold or room temperature, so it was surprising that I liked this dish but the saltiness of the parmesan and the tangy sweetness of the port wine with the foie gras were unbelievable together.

The rest of the courses were:

• Le Crabe Royal – King crab on a turnip disc with a sweet and sour sauce (aux fines lamelles de raves à l’aigre-doux) – the crab was super fresh another yummy course
• La Cebette – White onion tart with smoked bacon and asparagus (blanche sur une flamiche au lard fumé et aux asperges) – this is known as a migraine sandwich to me, I had a bite and gave the rest to my husband. It was tasty but my husband thought it was too oily.
• La Saint-Jacques – Scallop cooked with truffle butter (la noix cuite au beurre de truffles dans sa coquille) – this was exquisitely cooked, a little raw in the inside, the butter was to die for.
• Le Foie Gras – Duck foie gras steamed in a cocotte with ginger and vegetables (de canard relevé de gingembre en petite marmite aux primeurs) – this was warm so not good to me.
• La Sole – Dover Sole with a warm leek salad and crispy potato (dorée sur l’arête avec une croustille de jeunes poireaux verjutés) – the best sole I have ever had in my life. This is Parisian brasserie classic, one of my husband favorites, so I have had it quite often, but never of this caliber, it melted in your mouth. In fact, sole menieure was the first dish that Julia Child had when she landed in France, and it was the dish that made her fall in love with French food for the rest of her life.
• La Caille – Foie gras stuffed free-range quail with truffled-mashed potatoes (au foie gras, caramélisée avec une pomme purée truffée) – this was the main dish, even though it was the same size as all the previous dishes. There were two small pieces of quail one with foie gras in it and one without, I preferred the one without.
• Peach sorbet floating in a peach milkshake with fresh abricot
• Le Parfait Arabica – Light coffee cream served with coconut milk and lemon from Corsica (Crème onctueuse au lait de coco et au citron « Corsica »)

This was finished off with coffee. Now all that sounds like a lot, but I was not stuffed at all, I was pleasantly full and in heaven!

My only critiques:

• Beautiful knives are pretty, but if they are not functional they are useless.  Some things were impossible to cut!
• You can not have a French meal, even a discovery one without a cheese course.  This is a huge faux-pas in my opinion.
• Get rid of the planters blocking some of the diner’s view of the kitchen.  We weren’t sitting in front of one, but it would have sucked if we had.

It was a wonderful meal and well worth the price which we were all to happy to have MGM pay for (via our winnings!)

Have you ever had a memorable meal like this?  I’d love to hear about it!

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Tagged as: french food, Gosset Champagne, Joel Robuchon, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, MGM Las Vegas