It's amazing that anything happens at all in this country after superbowl sunday, as I'm sure 90% of people would have got completely wrecked. That's certainly how it felt anyway!
Today we went to St. Petersburg, home to the Dali museum. This was very interesting and made me aware of something that I was not previously: his surrealism period for which he is best known in pop culture, only lasted a few short years before he fell out with the 'organisers' of the surrealist movement. I suspect that this falling out came about at a similar time that Dali got together with his future wife & muse Gala, at the time the wife of Paul Eluard, one of the founders of surrealism.
The exhibition was excellent - he started painting at the age of 12 with his early work being very colourful and impressionist in nature. The gallery was organised in a rough linear time with a clear progression of skill and his interests, finishing up with his masterworks that around 4 meters in height and 2 1/2 wide each taking maybe a year to complete. The one technique that did re-occur throughout his middle-later work was the optical illusion - making a larger picture become apparent from lots of smaller images cleverly combined together and often only obvious when standing 20 feet away or more. A talented chap.
After this, we went for a walk in St. Petersburg, having been told that it was a place for little independants & boutiques. There were a few open, and a lot of galleries & art supply shops, but also mostly closed - no doubt due to the rigours of the previous evening.
That evening, we'd been promised a trip to Bern's Steak House. Stefan told us that all the meat that they sell there is reared on their ranch; the cutlery and cooking steel is made specifically by them for the restaurant by their steel shop down the road. All the fresh produce is also grown on their farm and all staff are apprenticed on the ranch/farm for about 4 years before they are allowed in the restaurant. This trip sounded pretty attractive. Valet service for the car with the main reception being fabulously opulent: you can always tell when somewhere is posh, pricey and good - as it's full of the well-heeled older generation.
Sitting down, cocktails were ordered and were given menus. The wine menu was about 1cm thick - all held in their cellar, as they are also famed for having over 5000 different wines, ports, brandies, sherries, you name it. In their collection is the only 2 surviving ports from 1870 in the world ($400/1 1/2 ounce measure). The steak menu (A4 sized) could only be called absolute. Any (decent) cut in sizes from 8oz to 64oz (for a party) could be ordered, and the price included a french onion soup starter, house-made onion rings, carrots, spinach and incongruously, a baked spud. B and I opted for Rib Eye, Stefan for a specially aged fillet and Joy the same. We ordered a side of creamed spinach (which wasn't as good as the Austin steak house's as it goes, but still great). Included in the menu was extensive description of how they prepared the different cuts of meat, the thicknesses and recommended cooking time. Unbelievable.
The steak was fabulous. Really, the nicest that any of us had ever eaten, with the exception of Stefan who had been there before.
After the meal, the restaurant has this scheme where they escort your party around the kitchens, which was also excellent; Stefan had arranged a special visit to the meat locker (not even the manager gets to go in there) as he knew one of the head chefs - the smell hits you first, a delicious aroma of curing meat, categorised and aging - a rough (conservative?) guess of the value in the meat there was maybe $20,000. Following the kitchen tour was a wine cellar tour - all fully temperature controlled, neatly labelled and ordered, and while being in a few rooms, we were informed that it was barely 1/5th of their entire collection. A very serious operation.
After the tour, we went upstairs for dessert. Yes, they have a dessert floor, with individual booths (complete with closing doors and period entertainment system with modern internals). B had an aged port (not the 1870 one though!) and enjoyed it very much.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining experience and surprisingly cheap, considering. Despite the excellence of the food, I think it worked out to roughly $70/head - putting the final nail in the utterly feeble coffin presented by Scammo's back in SF. Bern's was a very impressive place, and would definitely put it as number 1 place to eat for steak when we come back.
