The Fig Tree

On the evening of my birthday, the Engineer took me out to the Fig Tree to celebrate. I know I’d already celebrated at Il Sogno, but this time, it was just the two of us. We had the restaurant almost to ourselves, with a table overlooking the River Walk that’s all lit up for the holidays, and it was a wonderful meal. The waitress was extremely considerate and friendly.

We started with an amuse-bouche of vanilla and red wine granité topped with beets, and the house-made pain de mie topped with salt. I then had the appetizer of the day, braised ribs off the bone in a vol-au-vent pastry with a cream and havarti sauce and roasted apples. It was truly delicious, and it’s too bad it’s not on the regular menu! The Engineer had the crab cake, which was quite good. I then had the duck breast, served with duck confit and glass noodles on the side, and he had the Tasmanian salmon (I’m not sure why the salmon is imported from off the coast of New Zealand when there are much closer sources of quality salmon, but that’s another story). I ended the meal with the chocolate torte (which, in the end, was graciously comped by the restaurant and decorated with a birthday message), while the Engineer had the baked Alaska flambéed at the table. And we had two mignardises of coconut truffle cookies at the end. It was the perfect restaurant for the special occasion, and we both had a wonderful evening. I wish I ate like that more often!