New Year's Eve Dinner

As in the past several years, my parents and I celebrated New Year's Eve last night at the Union League Café in New Haven, CT. Usually, the dining room is packed, but this year, attendance was sparse -- we were only the third table to arrive at 5:30.

Among the dishes we had from the prix fixe menu were:

Crab salad, yellowtail tuna, avocado-pistachio puree, pickled sunchokes, garlic chips, confit jalapeno dressing. The tuna with avocado and garlic was excellent, but the crab salad was kind of ordinary.

Oysters with a tart Hollandaise-like sauce, served on a bed of rock-salt. Outstanding.

A "Wellington" of celery root and truffles in filo pastry. The celery root was wonderful, but the truffles didn't really come through, oddly enough.

Wild striped bass, fingerling potato crust, fennel compote, Syrah reduction. Nothing special here; the crust was interesting but not absolutely necessary. The bass itself was cooked just right, but the flavor was a little bland.

Sliced breast of capon and seared foie gras. The capon was wonderful -- tender and buttery. And the foie gras was served rare, which made a nice textural contrast to the fowl.

Gâteau chocolat-café: layers of almond biscuit, bittersweet chocolate ganache, Arabica coffee buttercream, housemade coffee ice cream. Excellent combination of flavors.

Mont-Blanc aux marrons: Chestnut mousse, meringue crisp and chestnut, hazelnut "daquoise", white chocolate ice cream. Light and fresh and not too sweet. Terrific!

Gâteau de nouvel an: sponge cake with orange butter cream and candied kumquats. The orange flavor was very intense, but a little one-dimensional.