>cold-smoked toro, mousseron, sauce gribiche, vadouvan...

The pleasant setting at Michelin-awarded (2 stars) Meadowood Napa Valley in St. Helena, complete with croquet-players in white, took me back to childhood idyll on mom and dad's golf courses. It was no Per Se, however. The restaurant was more comparable to Redd, at twice the price.

I believe I enjoyed myself a little too much - I apologize for forgetting to document this chef's tasting menu. I'll just let the pictures do the talking. As you can see, I didn't have a steady hand at the end of the meal.

The portion of the otoro dish was marginally more ample than the mere sliver left on the plate may suggest.

>plaa khem ปลาเค็ม vs. narezushi なれずし

Natto (なっと) does have a lot in common with crème fraîche and yogurt, no?

Think fermentation.

So do rakfisk and stinky tofu.

So do plaa khem (or plakem, ปลาเค็ม, pictured left) and narezushi (なれずし/熟れ鮨/熟れ寿司, pictured right), which are both salt-cured fish. It's a specialty of Shiga (滋賀県) where it's called funazushi, 鮒寿司(ふなずし).

I vaguely remember hearing about some decades-old slimy honnarezushi (本なれ寿司) going for a fortune at an auction. Apparently they never go bad, (unrefrigerated?), and more ancient the better. After years of fermentation, they'd end up resembling, you got it, yogurt.

Make that really really stinky yogurt.