Working, playing and eating well in North Carolina.

After a wonderful time in Indiana, cooking for a bride and groom who have to have the best attitude I have ever encountered – even with an epic thunderstorm that took down the wedding tent they were able to smile – I made my annual summer trek to North Carolina.

This year’s work-cation, cooking for a former employer while he and his family vacation at a Duck beach house, is extended a little this year and I will be away from home over a month. Hopefully I will get some blogging done and some recipe’s posted for everyone.

Each year when I come to North Carolina I am told to cook-whatever sounds good and I have a blast re-inspiring my culinary creativity. I also have the opportunity to go out and have a fabulous meal or two prepared for me. This year’s ‘dinner out’ blew my socks off, well it would have had I been wearing socks instead of cute sandals–we are at the beach.

The whole vacationing gang (20 of us) went to The Leftbank, a four-diamond rated restaurant in Sanderling, North Carolina just north of Duck. In a word–WOW. I’ll do my best to describe what I had and will try to post the menu so you can see what was available. I need to mention the sweetbreads that I did not order, but someone at the table did and allowed me to have a taste. When done right, these are amazing and the glaze on them with the garlic scape soubise was incredible.

1st course

I started my meal out with Sonoma Artisan Foie Gras Two Ways. The two preparations; a pâté with a salted caramel corn dust and passion fruit vinegar then seared on a Georgia peach compote. Both were served with brown butter madelines, incredible flavors and melt in your mouth textures.

2nd course

Being a chef, I suppose I should be an adventuresome eater and I do try, but I have a wee bit of a hang-up if my food looks back at me or actually resembles the animal itself. So I was very excited the Ashley Farms North Carolina Rabbit had been deconstructed. When the plate came out I wasn’t sure where to start it all looked amazing – there was a small loin with coffee “crumbs”, a lumpia wrapped ragout little ribs with a rabbit jus all accompanied with sunchoke, pickled cherries, baby heirloom carrots and watercress gelée “buttons”. Each bite was a unique treat for the taste buds.

3^rd course

We were down to the wire now, as some of our party were going to try to make The Green Lantern showing so we scrambled and ordered quickly and now my brain kicks in and I remembered to get some photos. I ordered the “Potted” Berries served rather whimsically in a little terra cotta pot. This desert might have been “cute”, but it certainly delivered layers of serious flavor. The base was an almond cake that didn’t mess around and was willing to let you taste the almond flavor, topped with a light vanilla mousse–real vanilla beans were used to make this beauty–sprinkled with “chocolate earth”. These were no crumbled Oreo’s, but light, crunchy cookies of yummy dark chocolate. All this topped with fresh berries and a quenelle of homemade berries sorbet and you have your own little pot of heaven – must be eaten by inserting spoon all the way to the bottom lifting up and getting a bit of each layer.

A few at our table had the Dark Chocolate Cremeux – a caramelized white chocolate ganache, vanilla ice cream, toasted hazelnuts. This dessert melted in your mouth then danced across the taste buds as the dark chocolate quenelle preceded the ice cream and white chocolate ganache.

Hats off to Chef de Cuisine Travis Lee Robinson and his team at The Leftbank and no need to worry those in our party going to The Green Lantern made it no problem, though they didn’t order any popcorn!