Volt: A Dinner in Wonderland

One of two flying pigs at Table 21

So as you remember, last week I was a little concerned about overdoing it on my dining options this week. Two top tier restaurants in a weekend? A little excessive. But when my parents come in town from San Antonio, land of the chain restaurant, it's no wonder they want to do it up big. The only requirement: don't take us to a place we can go in Texas.

Graeme Ritchie, sous chef in charge for the evening

As I've already said in my Restaurant Eve Review, that night was a great success, but what waited us at Volt was more. And in a completely different way that made the meals almost incomparable. The food at RE? Fantastic. But the energy, excitement, and build-up of attending a molecular gastronomy tasting menu for the first time kind of stacked the deck in Volt's favor. This is up there with La Reve as my best dining experience ever.

For Wine: Two bottles was perfect for four people

Thanks to a random patron who cancelled for Table 21 on Sunday night, we were not only able to try the restaurant's most hearlded courses like yellowfin tuna tartar and arctic char with black forbidden rice, but more experimental things like a mock oyster and a fabulous lavender, vanilla, and coconut dessert. With rare exceptions—the dry aged beef strip loin seemed a little, well, average; and the dulce de leche dessert had an overpowering lime sorbet—each bite confirmed that this meal was worth the expensive price tag of $121 per person.

Most expensive sushi counter ever :)

Table 21 is set around the kitchen prep bar, with four seats on two corners wrapping around like a sushi counter. Even with the casual settings, the service never faltered from exceptional. Four servers setting plates down at the EXACT time--it was a cool experience. The fact that it was in a kitchen was even better, because the pretenses and attitudes were on a much lower key. They totally seemed fine with the fact my mom and I were both camera hogs and documented the entire thing!

prepping the beat salad

Prepping the Blue Cheese Course

Take a look at the slideshow below to see the complete progression (I'm only missing two courses--the second and the final dessert). I didn't want to write out the entire menu, but I've added captions of each course on the slideshow on Flickr.