The Inn at Little Washington, March 2011 - Washington, VA - A grand experience from start to finish where the whole theme is to enjoy and remember. This was easily the best overall dining experience I've had in a long while.
Having made reservations beforehand, we were greeted with customized menu's. Granted, in this day and age printing a guest's last name on a menu isn't a grand feat, but for fine dining the smallest details matter. They continued making us feel welcome by asking how long we traveled in order to visit them and proactively offered to take our picture when they saw our camera on the table. At no point are you ever made to feel that you don't belong, which is no easy task at fine dining institutions... especially for a diner like me who wants to take pictures of each dish.
Even during the ordering process, the captain made sure we could be accommodated. While I usually let the chef have his/her way with me and go with whatever is on slate for the tasting menu, my wife tends to believe that tasting menus have too much food and invariable there are usually at least two dishes she'd rather not have which makes it such that she likes to order a la carte. Wanting to make sure we both had the same pace to our meal and that we both had a great experience, the captain substituted a few dishes on the Gastronaut's menu with any other choice my wife wanted from the a la carte list. That definitely made all parties happy. So without further ado, let the feast begin!
My only major criticism of the evening, each person didn't have their own set of amuse and we had to share this set...
The following set of photos is from the originally designed tasting menu for the evening with no substitutions.
Black Truffle Dusted Popcorn
Caviar "Caterpillar" of Avocado and Peekytoe Crab
Chilled Maine Lobster with Braised Celery Hearts, Root Vegetables and Citrus Vinaigrette
Seared Sea Scallop with Leek Puree and Caramelized Endive
Miniature Filet of Line Caught Halibut with Lemon Vodka Sauce and Lilliputian Shrimp Dumplings
Potato Wrapped Tuna Wellington with Caponata-Filled Ravioli and Sauce Bearnaise
Duet of Duck: Seared Breast and Braised Leg with Turnip Puree and Plum Sauce
Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Lavender Shortbread and Rhubarb Sorbet
Chocolate Menage a Trois: Miniature Black Forest Mousse Bomve, Chocolate Creme Brulee and Bitter Sweet Chocolate Souffle
Of course they provided the personalized copy of that evening's menu and let you take home the Inn itself...
A wonderful end to an enchanting evening.
I try to let the pictures speak for themselves, but the details of each dish were wonderful and don't remember a dish I didn't enjoy. My favorite two items were the Tuna Wellington and the Duck Breast. It was a journey that surprisingly didn't leave me stuffed and in writing this review makes me want to go back again. Overall 9.5 out of 10.
