Applefarmhotel-sanluisobispo

I like to be surprised when I eat out, and that's what I got from Chef Steve Smeets at the Apple Farm Restaurant. Even if you order Traditional Pot roast with mashed motatoes and gravy, you get it so sloww-cooked you can cut it with a spoon, and with not just carrots but young parsnips that look like white carrots but are sweet. The parsnips you get elsewhere may have a slight taste of mint but are too old to have that sweetness. We think of members of the cabbage family and fish as being strong and smelly. That's becasuse we have eaten them cooked too long and too late and improperly. Air out your mind. The CAuliflower soup with cheddar cheese, garnished with pancetta and chives was so delicate it brought back a treasured childhood memory of Chicken a la Reine Soup at the Buccanaeer Hotel in Galveston after an afternoon in the Gulf of Mexico. The Rainbow Trout in a reduction sauce over mushrooms, sprouting legumes and celery root was punctuated with a few small dices of fresh turnip and the occasional tiny beet leaf. It came with the skin on. Of course theskin could have easily been slipped off, but don't miss its slightly crisp texture. The whole thing comes together so perfectly that you need to plan each bite to include all the ingredients and some of the broth.