26 Sep Maude September 2017 – Melon

I have enjoyed thirty-six meals at Maude over the past four years and while every menu has been very good, with some dishes being great, a few months have just been a home-run with each and every bite being as good, if not better, than the last one. September’s melon menu is one of those months.

Melon is a quintessential summer ingredient. With the bitter-sweetness of summer ending, the sweetness of the melon was a perfect ingredient to feature. A relative of the cucumber, summer melons include cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon, as well as many others. Maude explained on their website that “summer melons include those with a raised cross-hatched pattern or netting on the rind. The Charentais variety is characterized by the green ribs on the rind. Its tender, apricot-orange interior and gorgeous fragrance, make it the perfect dessert melon. Muskmelons are known as cantaloupe in the U.S. Their pale orange flesh is juicy and sweet. The Galia is a honeydew-cantaloupe cross. Spherical and small, the creamy, light green flesh is spicy-sweet. The Ambrosia is a hybrid muskmelon with a highly-perfumed scent, best enjoyed fresh. The popular Spanish variety, Piel de Sapo, has a rough, dark green exterior and crisp flesh and pairs well with salty, smoked meats. And we’d be remiss to exclude the watermelon, the largest of the melons. Barrel-shaped with bright, pink flesh, which can also be yellow or white.”

For this menu, we decided to do the wine pairing created by the Maude team. And, like most meals at Maude, we started with champagne – Vazart-Coquart Brut Reserve Blanc de Blancs Champagne.

The Champagne was enjoyed with the first two small bites.

The melon chawanmushi with melon gelee and Rosetta caviar was light and delicate and I wished that the cup was a little bigger as I wanted more.

But then came a watermelon spring roll with king crab, Thai basil, Fresno chili, daikon radish. We forgot about wanting more of the melon chawanmushi and wanted another spring roll. And these first two dishes were just the amuse bouche! Dinner was off to a great start.

The next dish was so colorful and looked like a dance floor from the 1980s. Sea urchin, avocado and various melons were cut into little squares and topped with Peruvian mint and melon vinaigrette. While each of the textures was rather delicate, I liked the combination of the sweetness of the melon with the creaminess of the avocado and the briny ocean taste of the uni.

And this dish was perfectly paired with Ginga Shizuku Divine Droplets Hokkaido Tokyo NV, a delicate sake with citrus notes.

We were then served a large frozen melon bowl with small little melon balls and jicama balls, leche de tigre, epazote, onion blossoms and a melon veil. Each little bit was chilled and delicate.

Next up was a cucumber melon soup with labne and keffir lime. Like the dishes prior, there was a lovely delicacy to the dish and the sweetness of the melon was nicely balanced by the sweet citrus of the keffir lime.

Paired with the cucumber melon soup was the Markus Huber Gruner Veltliner Alte Setzen Terrassen Traisental Austria 2013.

The melon terrine was served with a crispy piece of Serrano ham and a marcano almond puree. It was the combination of all three elements that brought the dish together.

The Adam & Haart Grosses Gewaches Trocken Riesling Piesporter Goldtropfchen Mosel Germany 2014 was paired with the melon terrine.

The fish course was a perfectly cooked fluke with fennel, shelling beans and Tuscan melon simmered in sour beer.