Alan and I went to Blackbird last night to celebrate his birthday and had a wonderful meal. Neither of us were in the mood for a big entree each, so we decided to kind of form our own tasting menu by ordering a bunch of appetizers. We couldn’t have done a better job if we tried!

Our server was awesome and very helpful. He let us enjoy our cocktails instead of rushing us to order. When we told him we wanted to share a bunch of appetizers, he didn’t bat an eye and even coursed it out for us and chose a nice progression of the food.

We had:
  chilled cuttlefish with jicama, snow peas, cardamom cream, and fried chocolate
  seared maine diver scallops with black trumpet mushrooms and grapefruit
  crispy veal sweetbreads with rye waffle and figs
  foie gras with something tasty (can’t quite remember)
  charcuterie plate of mole country pate and smoked eel rillette
  roasted pineapple with brioche ice cream, hibiscus and puffed ‘cinnamon toast’

It was first experience with cuttlefish and I loved it. It is light and a little sweet in flavor and I devoured every last bit of it. The sea scallops were cooked beautifully and just melted in my mouth. The sweetbreads were awesome (although I let Alan have more since it was his birthday), and I really enjoyed the figs with them. Ahhh. . . foie gras. Oh so good. . . The charcuterie plate was fantastic. We were both a bit curious and suspicious of the smoked eel rillette and it proved to be really good. That dessert was delicious. The brioche ice cream was really salty; I love salty ice cream.

The meal was a success and one we will fondly remember.