Sunday, May 25, 2008

Here fishy , fishy

Wednesday night I took my family out to The Crossing at Casey Jones in La Plata, MD. It was the first time my parents had been there and I was anxious about how my mom would like it. She is notorious for being very unlucky at restaurants. For some reason she always ends up with ribs that have the taste and texture of firewood or something else that just makes her sick.

I'll tell you right now she really liked the meal and asked if we could go again the next night.

Uh...no, Ma.

As much as I love my family and love to treat them to nice meals, the real reason we went was totally selfish. I wanted salmon.

Not just any salmon, but what is arguably the best salmon in the whole wide world: Copper River Salmon. Ok, it may all just be marketing, but still, it was the freshest damn salmon I've ever had. I think what one ends up paying big bucks for (I read somewhere that this year's take was small and a pound costs nearly $50) is the opportunity to eat wild Alaskan salmon a mere day after it is caught. And I live in Maryland; that's a long plane ride.

Before last May I had never even heard of Copper River. I did know that wild salmon was supposed to be better than farmed. Wild salmon have to have large fat reserves to allow them to have the energy to fight the rushing currents of cold Alaskan rivers in order to spawn in the calmer waters upstream. That fat is supposed to make them rich and delicious. As a bonus, they are packed with omega-3s that don't make you crazy from eating older-aged, therefore containing more mercury, fish like tuna. So, eating wild salmon way over here on the east coast would have to happen during the salmon run, mid-May to mid-June. The earlier the better, because there is more fat on a fish that is just starting it's journey upstream than one that has been fighting the currant for a month.

So anyway, last May I got an email from The Crossing informing me of a ticket sale for a special prix fixe Copper River salmon meal. Each ticket was over $100. I was much too poor last year to afford something like that, but now that I have a job, I've been looking forward to an email from The Crossing since April.


I didn't get one, so I emailed them on May 3rd.

Last Tuesday at 9:45pm, I got an email from them telling me that Copper River salmon would be arriving the next day. "Please call after 3pm tomorrow to check if they will be butchered in time for dinner, " read the email.

I love this restaurant.

As soon as I got home at 4pm I called the restaurant. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, hoping the price of the meal wouldn't be $100. Under $50? Maybe? Hopefully.

Hot damn, $28 for Copper River salmon, your choice of King or Sockeye.

I made a reservation for four.

This was our meal:

Bread: sliced, slightly sweet soda bread with rye served room temp with softened butter

Appetizers:
1)Sauteed lump crab (not blue, had to be something bigger) with fry bread and a couple of really yummy plate scraper sauces - maybe something with balsamic and another one that was green. Haha, I'm a good fud riter.
2) A big wedge of camembert cheese with crackers, pickled artichoke hearts, meaty and not too sour kalamata? olives, and scrumptious caper berries. None of us had had caper berries before but we'd all like to have them again. Ma loved the cheese and stopped complaining about how hot it was. We were near the kitchen, which is open.

Entrees:
Me: Copper River King salmon filet (medium-rare to medium) atop sushi rice with diced cucumber and tomato and spinach with a citrus vinaigrette. Deconstructed sushi, if you will.
Mom: Chilean sea bass atop lobster mashed potatoes with salsify (a root veg) chips
Pop: Prosciutto wrapped diver scallops on black rice and spinach. (I was totally eyeing this dish. Next time.)
Bro: Espresso-encrusted duck breast, foie gras, polenta, with a blackberry coulis

Dessert:
1) Bread pudding made with sliced soda bread and various dried fruits
2) Tiramisu "split" - three scoops of mascarpone ice cream on lady fingers topped with a ribbon of Valrona chocolate

By the way, all of that cost just $150 with tax. Gotta love the fact that this place is in the middle of NOWHERE.

Could I tell the difference between wild Copper River King salmon and frozen farmed salmon that I get from Sam's club? Probably only in the fact that the wild salmon was really fresh and clean tasting. Would I go out of my way to pay $50 for a pound of Copper River Salmon? No way, but I would never pass up an excellent fresh fish meal at a really lovely restaurant for $28.

3 comments:

Grace said...

Woohoo! How did your brother like the duck? That was one of the best meals of my life I think. I'm so glad that you got a chance to eat some awesome salmon. I'm jealous!

Aileen said...

He said it reminded him of a steak and it was really good, especially since he doesn't usually like duck. Apparently the problem was never the duck, but the fact that most duck is flavored with hoisin, which he really hates.

Grace said...

How the heck can anyone hate hoisin? I could eat it by itself, by the spoonful. Hmmm, maybe that is why I love duck so much.