Sunday, May 25, 2008

Amuse Bouche

One of my favorite touches at a resaurant is the "amuse bouche." It is a bite-sized morsel sent out by the chef before you order. It means something like "mouth amuser" and it supposed to give you a taste of what the chef has in store for you. The amuse bouche is often a little crostini or shot of soup and is not something you order. It just arrives...magically.

I've only been served an amuse bouche a handful of times - sometimes at fancy restaurants like Canlis and Restaurant Zoë and other times at more casual places like Le Pichet and Tilth. It never fails to make me smile though.

One evening out with my supper club (myself and 3 girlfriends), we decided our "supper club" needed a better name, so we decided to refer to it as Amuse Bouche. Well, we came to this decision after a bit of wine so when our repsective partners heard about it we got no end of shit. Gavin referred to it as "Amish Bush." Brooke called it "Dirty Bush!" and Gabe said..."what is your supper thingy called...Fermez la Bouche? We'd never live it down.

"Fermez la Bouche" stuck with me and it's now what I use to refer to the little dessert bite some restaurants serve (Le Pichet, Crave, Tilth, the Herbfarm, Restaurant Zoë).

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