Celebrating Our Friend's Kanreki

Our friend Mary recently turned 60, so my husband was in search of a restaurant that would allow us to bring our own wine. We discussed the possibility of going to Persimmon Restaurant in Bristol, Rhode Island an hour and a half drive away. It seemed like a long way to go for dinner, but, 3 out of 4 of us are retired, so distance should not deter us from a good evening, was my husband's justification. So, on a Wednesday at 5 p.m. we set out for Persimmon.

The front of the restaurant is unpretentious, but inviting and we were seated in a cozy and intimate booth. Cara was our excellent server and she left us with an extensive menu and mentioned that they also had a 5 course tasting as well as an 16-20 course tasting that evening! Then came decision time...appetizer and entrée, or their 5 course tasting. When all was said and done, the men opted for appetizers and entrée and the women opted for the 5 course tasting. We began dinner by opening up Mary's favorite white burgundy, a 2011 LeFlaive Le Combettes, acquired by Barry on one of his recent trips to California. We paired the LeFlaive with our appetizers. I tried to take photos of all of the dishes, but sometimes I forgot and just ate the beautiful dish placed in front of me, the black truffle beignet, was one of them. Mary and I had 3 pre-appetizer offerings of quail egg, truffle beignet and creamed asparagus soup and the men had the cold seafood salad and the octopus salad.

As I mentioned in the title of this blog, we were celebrating Mary's Kanreki. Kanreki is a Japanese tradition that celebrates a person's 60th birthday and has it's roots in the Chinese zodiac of the twelve animals. In a 60-year cycle the honoree has gone five times around the Chinese zodiac, the cycle of life returns to the beginning, and marks the honoree's rebirth and return to their second childhood.
What better way to continue this celebratory dinner, than to open up a 1987 La Tache and follow it with the 1995 Dominique Laurent Clos de la Roche to pair with our entrées.

Mary and I began our 5 course tastings with the following offerings.

Barry's entée was the lamb done 3-ways and my husband had the duck with morels.

The La Tache still looked youthful in the glass and we sipped and enjoyed the wine which was still showing amazing fruit and acidity. We had been sending back a tasting of the wines we brought to have with our dinner so when we were having the entrée, Chef Champe Speidel came to welcome us to his restaurant and stayed to talk with us. I noticed that he went around to all the tables in the restaurant, speaking with all of his guests. Nice touch! Dinner, was not over by any means. We still had dessert to go. So, we were all given 2 pre-desserts of coconut ice cream and passionfruit donut.

Then, Mary had the cheesecake over citrus fruits and my husband and I enjoyed the chocolate and caramel balls, Barry choose the apple cider donuts. Lastly, we were treated to this platter of small bites. If I count up all of the dishes we had it amounts to 12 dishes that came in our 5-course tastings! The nice part about all this was that we were happily satiated and not stuffed at all. What an enjoyable and memorable Kanreki.