Bay Area Series 1: Cyrus Restaurant.HEALDSBURG, CA

Cyrus is a restaurant in California's sonoma wine country. Ran by chef owner Doug Keane. It received two stars from Michelin, and was featured by the prominent Relais & Chateaux. Situated inside Hotel Les Mars, the dining room was not overwhelmingly large but it exudes a certain calm gradeur. upon greeting by the staff and the champagne and caviar cart. Our night began.
Dinner: Dr. T, Dweeb, Dweeb's lady friend (as in many other posts, we are the usual suspects)
Dinner selection: 5 course a la carte. we ate most of the a la carte menu.

Amuse Bouche

Two types of butter, two different variety of salt

Thai marinated lobster, avocado, mango, heart of palm
this seemed to be a popular dish. Lobster was done perfectly. With the surprisingly firm mango(probably marinated as well) and the overall acidity, the dish was coherent. Bravo.

Chicken consume, chorizo, green garlic, sherry
unanimously considered the best dish of the meal(at our table). Just when one thinks no one would take the time to do a good consume, there it is. Served at perfect temperature, it tasted heavenly light, with a overwhelming sense of refinement. the chorizo was a nice little treasure in the bottom of the bowl, but it doesn't have to be there. They could have served me a bucket of this and called it a night.
oh, Note to self and others: soups are difficult to share. remember that.

Roasted beets, arugula, goat cheese and pistachios
Highly recommended by the captain over our other option, the asperagus tasting. It was nicely done. Goat cheese and the vinegar based sauce gave much the beets something to bounce its flavors off. nicely done.

Terrine of Foie, Rhubarb, crumpets
Perfect dish for sharing at the table. Great texture.

Seared Foie, cherry almond donut
Well, it's foie. it's nicely done. the donuts feels a bit out of place though.

Risotto with pancetta, pea, parmesan foam
Heavily flavored. the rice in the risotto is giving but it retains its structure. Cheese is omnipresent in this dish. would love to see some counterplay on flavor and texture here.

Seabass, corn and green onion. morel and saffron sauce
Cook perfectly. Otherwise not notible.

Papardelle, braised rabbit, red cabbage, mustard foam.
Getting into the meat and potato part of the meal. Things here started to get a bit bored.

Lamb loin, swiss chard, black rice, capers and rasin
It tasted the way it looks. dark, earthy.

Soft shell crab, soba noodle, oolong broth
Nice and clean. quite a contrast to the heavier dish presented in the last round. Would have liked a bit more noodle.

Wagyu beef loin, gnocchi, porcini
Perfectly executed, very heavy sauce. Best meat eaten that day.

Poussin, haricots verts, morel, cream potato puree


Deserts
I don't quite remember what the desert was. If u care to know, you can read the menu scan at the end of the post, I think they are called the "circus" deserts. as the name, they taste a bit odd. The best description I can come up with here would be "spikey". It has rather strange set of flavors, ranging from very ripe fruit to cough syrup, that would send my pallete into a tail spin, not know what to make of it. It's been a long meal. I am seeking the last bit of comfort for my taste buds to settle. Instead I got a raging baby dinosaur in my mouth. Hell of a surprise ending.


Summary
It was an interesting meal outside the norm of large cities. The early dishes brought much excitement, but the later dishes failed to sustain that. However, this could in part be my own problem. We had a late reservation. We had spend the 2 hours prior to the meal driving there. So we were already tired when the meal started. We were jetlagged. Flying in from the east coast, we dealt with a 3 hour time difference. Try write a review for a 15 course tasting goes from 11PM to 2AM and u will see what I mean. Lastly, in order to make our schedule the next day, we had to drive 3 more hours after the meal. That meant no alcohol consumption. This being the wine country, not drinking with a meal like this is practically a crime. Though the meal had a rocky ending, I believe it could be better. I will definitely be there again for another tasting at another time. I just have to have better circumstances. As the governator said: " I will be BAAACK." This won't be my last visit to Cyrus.

- The Trading Dweeb