Lunch at Le Cordon Bleu

Hey everyone :)

Well, it's November 9th and in the upper 50s here in Ottawa if you can believe that! It has been sooo nice and warm the past few days here - I even broke out my flip-flops again! I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow though :( Oh well, at least it's not snowing!

Anyway, let's talk about one of the most important meals of the day: lunch. Now, usually, for lunch I get super creative and make a ham and turkey sandwich on wheat with some mustard, maybe a pickle or two, lettuce, and if I'm feeling extra fancy, I even toast the bread before I make the sandwich. Impressive, no? Well, I thought so...until today when I ate lunch the way it was meant to be eaten! At Le Cordon Bleu's Bistro!

The Le Cordon Bistro is a restaurant right in the school. If anyone is familiar with the Cornell Hotel School, it kinda reminds me of Banfi's (the restaurant in the Statler). The restaurant is a "fine dining" establishment open to the general public, but is staffed by student workers in the upper level cuisine and pastry classes. The students don't actually cook the food, but they work on the wait staff. Anyway, each class gets one "free" lunch at the Le Cordon Bistro, and today was the day designated for the Basic Level Pastry students to get ours.

We had to dress in business casual attire, which was actually kind of fun - I feel like we are all so used to seeing each other in our uniforms with our hair tied back and covered beneath a large chef's hat, sweating, and sometimes a bit flustered, that it was a nice opportunity to show a different side of ourselves. It was a three course meal and unbelievably delicious! For my appetizer, I had a cauliflower and aged cheddar soup, which I was so excited about that I forgot to take a picture! I *did* take pictures of the main course and dessert though:

For my main course, I had herbed chicken with barley risotto - but by no means was this just a plain, ordinary chicken and risotto - the chicken was cooked *perfectly* and the risotto was unbelievably creamy and delicious! And the sauce you see in the picture was a light gravy sauce that complemented everything wonderfully :) (The green stuff on the side is a single asparagus and bok-choy - I think it's funny that in fancy restaurants they only give you a single vegetable haha)

Dessert was a baked apple marinated in a caramel syrup with a green apple sorbet on the side. WOW. This was amazing. What really got me was how well the baked apple and sorbet complemented one another: I tried the apple on its own and it was too sweet. I tried the sorbet on its own and it was too sour. But, eaten together together, the dish tasted magical!

I don't know how I'm going to go back to eating ham and turkey sandwiches tomorrow...sigh...