Fancy Dinner

My Seperated at Birth Twin and I have decided that we're going to go to a fancy/interesting/special restaurant once a month so we can expand our dining horizons and see how the richer half eats.

Our bar was set a few years ago when we went to Morimoto and had the $120 chef's choice tasting menu (omakase) for our birthdays. Holy crap, that was good. I still dream about some of the dishes we had.

A few months ago we went to Pearl, which then promptly changed concept and/or closed (it's now called Akoya). It was great. A bit pretentious, but the food was delicious.

Last night we went to James, which is a high-end local ingredients place. I loved the decor, our waiter was great, and the food was... for the most part good. I had herbed sweetbreads and my friend had sashimi, we shared a stinging nettle tortelli, and then I had the lamb and my friend had the veal. Then we shared a salt caramel semifreddo. The sweetbreads were nicely herbed but could have stood to be a bit crispier. The sashimi (which I got a bite of) was delicious and fresh. The tortelli was wonderful, it was my favourite dish of the night. The lamb, which was cooked medium rare, managed to be dry (I'm not quite sure how that's possible). On the other hand, the veal was perfectly done. The semifreddo was very nice, the perfect end to the meal. So, the food was okay leaning towards very good in my opinion. It was also extremely expensive. My portion, for an appetizer, a shared second course, an entree, and a shared dessert (none of them large dishes) came to $75. Which would have been okay, I guess, if it was amazing. But I've had better food for far less at places like Saute. Plus, we were only offered bread once during the meal, and when I got home I ended up eating a bowl of popcorn and some pineapple because I wasn't full. For the price we paid I expected to at least end up with a full belly.

So although the service was good and the place is gorgeous, my food did not measure up. I'm glad we gave it a try, but I won't be going back - if I'm going to spend that much money on that little food, it had better be knock my socks off amazing. This was just good (and the lamb just barely made it into that category).

Any suggestions for further experimentation? We'll eat pretty much anything.