Secret Sea Cove Dinner

Last year, a girlfriend and I had discussed going to one of the Outstanding in the Field farm dinners.  But we were a little late and most of the ones we were interested in were already sold out.  So when the tickets were released for this year, we were determined to get our top choice.  So were a lot of other people.  So much so that the website went down upon ticket release!

A week later, with an upgraded server infrastructure on the back end, everything worked fine and we got our tickets to the Secret Sea Cove dinner with guest chef Mourad Lahlou, Iron Chef winner and chef at Aziza in San Francisco (recipient of one Michelin star).  Apparently, we were lucky - the event sold out in 7 minutes.

We were not given directions nor the location of the event until about a week prior, and it involved finding a small road about 7 miles south of Half Moon Bay.  As you can see from the photo above, the site was truly magnificent!

We arrived around 3 pm and were handed glasses of rose (or in my case, a lovely cool water).  They were passing appetizers of moroccan flatbread with dill yogurt and roe (yum), crispy fried chickpeas with harissa (very yum) and pickled sardines on toast (meh).

Around 4 pm, the founder of Outstanding in the Field, Jim Denevan, spoke about the farm to table connection.  Or in our case, the ocean to table connection, with Hans Haveman as our speaker - he sourced all the fish and has been fishing off the Northern CA coast all his life.

Then there was a mad rush for seats at the big long table - we were outrun and were finally seated almost all the way at the far end.  Where the waves got dangerously close to us as the tide rose - it was all part of the fun!

Our first course was roasted and marinated yellow beets with wild arugula and pumpkin seeds.  It was a beautiful salad and the arugula was particularly nutty, just the way I liked it.

Next we had grilled mini meatballs with grapes over a jicama salad in a green herb dressing (Green Goddess!).  Yes, those green things that look like pasta were julienned sticks of jicama.  This was excellent but a little skimpy on those meatballs.  The dishes are served family-style to a table of 8, and not everyone got a second stick.

Then we were served a mound of slow roasted black cod with some marinated carrots, chard and mushrooms and roasted meyer lemons.  Plus the best couscous I have ever tasted!  It was brown butter couscous made by hand (as they apparently do in Aziza) - they make the dough fresh, then press it through a sieve, into a steamer.  Freshly made couscous!  It was divine.

Our dessert was fresh strawberries served with a wonderful lemon verbena cream - and a rhubarb crostata (which I didn't get a picture of, because we descended upon it like locusts).

There was wine with all the courses - which I mostly ignored except I did like the 2008 Bridesmaid White (or at least the one sip I had of it).  And the fisherman, Jim the founder, the sommelier and all sorts of people circulated to chat with everyone.  There was a very convivial atmosphere.

Alas the weather was pretty foggy and then started misting then drizzling lightly by the time we got to dessert.  We wrapped up just before 8 am and gratefully got into the warm car to head home.