The Hunting & Fishing Club

So, this week I was strong-armed into a business development trip that involved 8 hours of travel time and 5 hours of dining. (To give you a sense of the scale of the operation, six attorneys undertook this same journey to meet with nine clients.) The dining experience was interesting, to say the least.

We were at the "Hunting and Fishing Club," which turns out to be a small, recently opened restaurant on an obscure street of the Old City. It is, I understand, a very expensive place. Luckily I wasn't paying ("Um, bread and water please? And don't hold back on the water!").

Theoretically, this spot was once the site of a hunting and fishing club, although there are no signs of such a rustic past - no trout or boar's head, traps or lines, bedeck the starkly black walls. Instead, the decorations are modern abstract works (i.e., you or I could have painted and framed them ourselves for a fraction of the price the restaurant paid). During the pre-dinner cocktails, I noticed a twittering sound coming over the speakers. It was a little difficult to hear over conversation, but I believe it was bird calls - a much more subtle means of invoking the rugged outdoors.

Once we sat down to eat -- I was at the "kids' table" (meaning the under-40 crowd) -- I saw what I took for a menu. I was pleased to see there were several items that I would enjoy out of the 10 or so items listed. But they never asked us to order. Instead they just started bringing us food and wine.

Turns out it is a tasting menu, so we had 10 courses, each with a different type of wine. I couldn't keep up with the wine; probably I sent half of it back untasted.
The food was excellent (except dessert), but I had to endure three courses of fish and seafood dishes. I do not eat fish or seafood if I can possibly avoid it - I don't enjoy the taste, smell or texture. I'm not complaining, though, because it builds character to overcome one's natural revulsion and swallow an oyster with caviar. And the meat dishes which followed were amazing.

Check out the braised pork risotto, which was especially good. (Except that the picture has been infused with a warm, golden glow, it accurately reflects the scene.)