Melisse

Celebrated my brother's birthday at Melisse on Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica last night. We both haven't been at this fine establishment in a long time. The ambiance was still elegant as ever;  Our table was nicely set with a little card that had "Happy Birthday" printed on it along with a small black box with some chocolate truffles. That was a very nice touch. We couldn't wait to try one of their "impeccable prix fixe menus.

The bread that kept coming did not disappoint.  We enjoyed the French, olive, brioche, and bacon focaccia. For amuse-bouche, we had some sort of onion gelee, tomato rolled in goat cheese coated with nuts. The onion didn't have much flavor though the tomato with goat cheese was quite good. After that, they brought out a little glass with chilled cucumber soup with some tomato base topping. Though the cucumber was refreshing, it was also a bit sour. Maybe this was a good thing to awaken our palates. With the soup, there was a piece of scallop with fennel. Gary and I do not like fennel or any of it's relatives but we ate it anyway. This shocked our palates!

For the first course, Gary picked the Hokaido Scallop with summer melons, lemon verbena and Manzanita berries. This reminded both of us of what we used to make on hot days in the Philippines. We shredded the melons so they looked like spaghetti and added cold water and a bit of sugar which was very refreshing. The melon juice was good but it was overpowering that the poor scallops were ostracized.
My first course was the Kona Abalone with lemon cucumber, Matsutake mushrooms and yuzu.  There were more mushrooms than abalone. It had good flavor but nothing out of the ordinary.

We both picked the same dish for our second course: Lobster Bolognese, fresh capellini with basil and brown butter truffle froth. This was a sweet spaghetti. Again, we both had the same comment. Reminded us of the spaghetti we used to eat in the Philippines when we were young. The capellini was aldente though I forgot about the presence of lobster as I hardly tasted it. The froth didn't do much. I never understood the fascination with froth...to me it looked like someone washed their hands with soap and instead of rinsing their hands, they let the soap settle on the food!

The third course came. Finally, something to almost to write home about. Flat iron steak with celtuce (celery or Chinese lettuce), wheat berries, cipollini onion-Jalapeno condiment. These 2 pieces of steak were delicious; on the salty side but delicious.
This was served with a very creamy mashed potatoes which we shared.

Gary chose Cherries, vanilla and white sesame for dessert. It was o.k. I picked the Meyer Lemon with coffee ice cream and ricotta. The presentation was impressive but I did not enjoy it at all. The lemon was heavy and gummy. After our desserts, they brought out a plate of petit fours; the chocolate with dulce de leche was the best among them.

Funny, the couple behind us commented on how something (probably the steak) was too salty. Later on, Chef Josiah Citrin came to our table and asked us how everything was. We said it was good. That's all we could say. It was such a pity because normally, I would have gotten excited and have a picture taken with the chef.  I really could not get excited about much. As he went to the next table (behind us), the lady that complained about the dish being too salty said: " Oh, everything was a surprise".  I think she meant that as a complement.... Gary and I just laughed.

We were both really disappointed with the food as we expected it to be as good as we remembered. We always raved about everything. Don't know what went wrong. I am sorry to say I won't be visiting Melisse for a looong time.