May 30, 2009 - Elements

Elements in Princeton, NJ
http://elementsprinceton.com - Yelp

I was really looking forward to this one

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And I probably won't return. Don't get me wrong, the food was good and the place was nice, but with so much to eat in this world, there probably isn't a reason to go here again. With that said, we opted for the 9 course chef's table menu. All the chef's tables were taken, but they allowed us to order it in the main dining room.

The hosts were of course extremely nice and the place was well decorated. The only problem that we had was that the tables were really long. We sat down at something like a three foot by four foot table, and they sat us across from each other with four feet between us. We were also about two feet from the next table, so the option of schooching next to each other was not there. But once we got used to the idea of having to talk loud and not being able to share food easily, the place was quite nice. Nice enough for us to enjoy a four hour dinner in fact.

Probably the most amazing thing about this place was the amount of food that they gave us. Each course was probably half the size of a normal course, which basically means that we should have snuck another couple in with us and split the bill.

Course #1 was a tartare tasting. There were five different tartares each on its own convenient spoon. There was salmon, tuna, fluke, wagyu (!), and something else, as well as a little cup of cold carrot ginger soup which was actually quite good (even Ellie liked it). I was of course most excited about wagyu tartare. The spoon was a decent size, but unfortunately all of the tartares were just flavored with plain rice vinegar and a couple scallion shreds on top. We both thought that the fluke was the best of the tartares. As you can imagine, that is a disappointment, as I would never order fluke if given a choice. And don't read too much into this, the fluke was not amazing.

Next came our only true tasting sized course. It was a small dollop of salsa. I think they said it was root beer and celery salsa or something. There was this great pureed avocado at the bottom that made this dish.





Apparently we have no idea what this is. I thought we had a Thai shrimp salad with overcooked flavorless shrimp and a boring white vinegar dressing, but Ellie astutely pointed out that this dish does not look like it has shrimp in it. So whatever this is, it was not memorable.




After three appetizers, we were gearing up for what we hoped would be something like scallops, another fun fish (this place went a bit overboard on fish and out of its way to avoid red meats, possibly because we ordered a white wine), and duck or some crazy red meat. We then figured there would possibly be some cheeses and a couple desserts.

What we got instead was a flurry of fish (this was over the course of about an hour and a half). First (I actually don't remember the order, it was such a flurry) came an entire fried fish with another amazing pureed avocado, then a decent sized blackened sea bass, and finally king salmon with truffle. We figured there might be another course since it was fish, fish, fish, so when the waiters came out with a ridiculously al dente housemade cavatelli (so I don't forget this later, it basically just looked like little gnocchi) that apparently had lamb bacon in it. This was a huge disappointment for what seemed like our last main course.

So seven courses through our nine course meal, we were very full even though most of the courses were rather light. We figured we could probably eat the desserts that followed. So when the waiters came out with a giant plate that consisted of a chicken breast cooked inside of itself (they flipped it inside out or something) AND a big chunk of squab, we were both in awe and disgusted at the amount of food (and the reality of only one dessert and no cheeses). Luckily for us, the squab was absolutely amazing. It was as if a duck had sex with a cow filet and out came this filet mignon duck breast. Except this was a pigeon that we were eating. No matter, it made me accept that pigeons are a necessary part of our environment, so long as they can occasionally be eaten. The chicken was good too, but it was certainly the ugly duckling in this pair.

We barely managed to eat this plate, and after about 20 minutes of digesting, our waiter dropped by to mention that we would now be offered our last savory course, to be followed by a couple of dessert courses!?!? How would we make it? The answer: one of us wouldn't.

A couple minutes later, he brought out an entire lamb shank for each of us. A small shank to be fair, but a shank, with a big old bone and everything. It was great, but I was beginning to have food in my throat by that point.





The first dessert was "bacon and eggs". It was incredible, although not as incredible as the next dessert. Anyway, there was an empty egg shell, which three layers of stuff in it. It was basically a cake inside an egg shell, topped with smoke flavored whipped cream, which was really fun. The bacon was actually french toast and bacon. And the french toast was actually a creme brulee pancake. And the brulee was maple syrup. So there was a pancake with syrup and a strip of bacon on top, and then it was all hot and torched. Ellie had to help me finish mine because I was fuller than I had ever been in my life, and somehow she was able to power through it all (her dessert stomach helped, although I had sworn that I had one too).

The next dessert was a "kit kat". This was some homemade gelato and a really dense piece of chocolate, that was actually like a thick chocolate caramel fudge. That's right, thick for fudge. Anyway, I had to wait for my ice cream to melt before I could even eat it. We were in bliss at this time.




Finally they offered us four different truffles as a dessert of the desserts. I liked a lavendar one and Ellie liked another one, but we were unable to finish any of the flavors. We then received a complimentary piece of pound cake each for the road. And four hours later, we made it back on the road and eventually back home. I don't think we ate anything until dinner the next night.