“One of the delights of life is eating with friends, second…is talking about eating...” –Laurie Colwin
Cecile and I were invited by our dear friends, Nelson and Susan Bye to join them for dinner at The Palms. It was an offer we couldn’t refuse. We had been to this restaurant before and it was well worth the experience.
Before it was transformed into The Palms, a Pacific Rim-style crowd-pleaser in Los Gatos, the stately 1891 Queen Ann Victorian style, historic Coggeshall Mansion, was formally a mortuary where people were dying to get in. Okay, okay, it’s a corny joke for sure:-) It then became the Chart House, a California favorite that Cecile and I used to dine at during the early years of our move from Chicago to the South Bay. Then it morphed into Travese, a Michelin star-rated restaurant, followed by Palacio, a high-end Mexican and Latin eatery. The Palms has a laid back elegant feel about it with a stunning ambiance both inside and out. We chose a quiet table against the right wall of the main dining room.
While the ladies abstained, Nelson and I allowed ourselves a rare indulgence of sharing one pint 9.4 fluid ounces of Allagash by Curieux, ale aged in Oak Bourbon Barrels with a 10.4% alcohol level. Before our meal arrived, friends, Sanae and Burke from yoga at the Bay Club Courtside caught my eye, and I went over to say hello. It was a bit of a serendipitous event, the last Facebook post I saw today was by Sanae and she said she was thinking of me since she recalled my posting celebrating a family event at The Palms, in one of their palapas, a cloth enclosed table section that allows an added amount of intimacy and privacy for small gatherings. Sanae and Burke share our love for Maui and it was a good time to briefly reminisce about our favorite island in the sun.
Cecile, Susan, Nelson and I started off our culinary adventure with The Wild Arugula Salad with sugared almonds, radish, strawberry, cucumber, feta, and citrus honey vinaigrette; and The Wedge Salad, with onions, mixed cherry tomatoes, blue cheese crumble and chipotle blue cheese dressing. For our entrees, we enjoyed a Macadamia Nut Mahi Mahi with wasabi mashed potatoes, braised bok chop, tropical fruit salsa, diner, beurre blanc, and micro cilantro; Seared Alaskan Sea Scallops. Continuing with the theme of Hawaiian style cuisine, we ended our evening by sharing a mud pie (aka Hula pie), a mainlander favorite that reminded us of our recent family vacation on Maui.
The moon was mysteriously aglow when we left The Palms. We invited Susan and Nelson to join us at our home for tea and biscotti, talked about our planned fall cruise of the Great Lakes beginning in Montreal and Quebec City and ending up in Cecile’s home town of Chicago, and called it a night.
