Plumed Horse — Restaurant in Saratoga

Most people are often surprised that I have not dined at Plumed Horse before. I have been meaning to for a few years now but always decided to skip it because a trusted foodie told me of his bad group dining experience and that the food wasn't very good. Granted that it has been years since the incidence, we both have very similar food preferences and taste so I trusted him. Well, I'm now kicking myself for not stopping by sooner. Not only was every dish more delicious than the next, I had to fight the animalistic instinct to lick my plates clean. OK, I might be exaggerating just a bit...but I totally would if no one was watching! Not only was I blown away by the fantastic food, but I now know how to get my foie fix in California! Well the same person who had given them a bad review was with me for dinner and he agrees that Plumed Horse has definitely redeemed themselves after that night. This might now be my favorite restaurant in the South Bay!

*Tip on how to get "free" foie gras Order the tasting menu (non-vegetarian one, duh) or the wine listed under "Hot Appetizer." The foie is a surprise bonus dish in the tasting menu and the wine is what you pay for and the foie is just a freebie to accompany it.

Smoked Tuna Cream Cannoli- Perfect with our glasses of bubbly!

Parsnip Soup- A hint of sweetness amongst the rich creaminess of the soup

Big Eye Tuna Tartare- Very good. The caviar helps to bring out the flavor of the fish.

Black Pepper and Parmesan Souffle, Uni and Dungeness Crab Fondue-I instantly wished that I ordered 3 of these and skip the entree. This was the dish I wanted to drink a gigantic bowl of!

Surprise Foie!-This was an awesome freebie! I was so happy to be reunited with my beloved foie gras!

Camembert Cheese Fondue, Duck Fat Fingerling Potatoes, Black Truffles-It's really hard to top everything on this menu, but this dish really took the cake. I don't think words can describe the state of Nirvana I experienced. The potatoes tasted like like perfectly cooked duck and had large chunks of black truffles. This is rather big for an appetizer and the starch really filled me up. It is great for sharing.

Lobster Risotto with Fresh Shaved BlackTruffles- I didn't like this dish as much as I thought I would because the truffles ended up drowning out the taste of the generous chunks of lobster. There was so much truffle oil and shaved truffles on top! There was also something pungent/sour in the dish that turned me off a bit from this particular dish.

Kobe beef with bone marrow- Very yummy but not amazing. I've had better before at other restaurants.

Pork done 5 ways (forgot the name)-Interesting as this included pork belly, a spiced sausage, and 3 others although I can't recall them now. This was probably my least favorite of the night.

There were 2 more desserts that I probably blacked out through. I vaguely remember something with caramel and another that had dehydrated port

EDIT I remember them now :P

Vanilla semifreddo, passionfruit & olive oil curd & basil - Pretty good considering that I'm not a big fan of passionfruit.

Vahlrona Chocolate Mousseline, Port Wine Gele & Whipped Creme Fraiche - A very dense chocolate dessert. I was too distracted with the other dessert to appreciate this one.

"Curiously Strong"- Mint mousse, chocolate cookie crumbs that tasted toasted (intentional?), roasted marshmallows, mint.

Macarons with Mango jellies- Some of the best macarons I've had in a long time. The jellies tasted like perfectly ripe mangos.

The only thing I could fault them for is upon arrival, there was no one at the front desk to greet us and we stood around in the dark foyer for a while before venturing into the dining room where a very confused maitre d quickly escorted us to an empty table. A little disappointing for a starred restaurant but my dining experience more than made up for it.

Photo Op tip Drop by the cool, glass, walk-in...

Seriously disappointed! Went here on a Saturday night to celebrate a special occasion.

Ambiance was off. Tables were large & close together, so much so that I was closer to the person at the table next to me than I was to my date. This made conversation difficult, and got in the way of service – they often had to dance around each other to refill glasses or bring dishes, which was rather distracting. The background music was techno-lite, which was an appropriate soundtrack for the sometimes frenetic pace of the service. I was left with the feeling that they were trying to churn as many of us as they could out of there as quickly as possible, which doesn’t mesh well with the overall vibe of enjoying a chef’s tasting menu.

Food was very expensive, but most of it was not very good. The tasting menu skewed heavily towards excessively rare meat – the opening course was mostly tartare, there was a mushroom tart that consisted of barely-cooked mushrooms in a pastry shell, and there were two courses of raw meat with sad vegetables (gristly raw duck that I couldn’t cut with the knife, accompanied by a piece of overcooked bitter endive, and super-rare beef with mushroom tempura that was so hard I couldn’t get it on a fork). The best savory course was the caviar dish, but it was served in a high-sided dish that made it challenging to access. The black pepper & parmesan souffle was ok, a little bland, and once again, served in a way that made it difficult to eat (blisteringly hot with tiniest spoon ever made).

The bread was fantastic – fresh hot dinner roll, and pretzel roll. But they each came out mid-course, and it wasn’t clear if they were supposed to accompany the current course or the next one.

Dessert courses were generally good – the pomegranate sorbet was the palate cleanser I needed after the less-than-edible savory dishes, and the granny smith apple-shaped dessert was fantastic. There was also a dish of small pastry bites, most were dry/flavorless.

So much awkward! We were celebrating a significant anniversary, and we were asked if we would like to start with some champagne. We assumed (correctly) that we would be paying for it, which was fine – until the end of the meal halfway through the dessert course someone came by offering us “complementary champagne for our anniversary”. We declined, because we didn’t want a drink right before leaving, but that left us wondering why wasn’t that offered at the start? Awkward. That beef dish was so unappetizing I couldn’t eat it, and I was asked if I wanted it boxed up to-go. Sure, I guess. So it was taken away, and I saw the box being carried up front. THEN someone came by to ask if anything was wrong with it, and when I said it was too rare for my taste they offered to “throw it back on the grill”. After it was boxed up? Awkward.

So, yeah. $700 for two, at an eight course chef’s tasting menu special occasion dinner, and the nicest thing I can say is “the bread was really good”. I see so many good reviews, was it an off night? It was Saturday, should have been their A game, but at that price point I won’t be giving them...

Hosted a dinner here. Lots of shady upsell practices … be careful!! I reserved for 12-16 people and committed min bill of $3500. I couldn’t get exact headcount until final day… they then set up to host 16 even though we ended up with 13 people…. And when I told them we had 13 when we arrived, they said no problem. But they ended up charging us 16 at the final bill. I asked why, they said because we booked 12-16… I said if you were going to charge me 16, I would have had them deliver all 16 dishes… we had people who could easily ate more. Btw. Our bill was $9k+. Way over the $3500 committed. We added wine pairing for all… they asked if we prefer wines of certain region… I said Napa over French. So they simply proceeded to change our wine pairing to bottle-based pricing without telling us. Wine pairing was $120 per person…. They started servicing different Napa wines without telling us it was going to be charged per bottle… we ended up paying several thousands dollar for the wines. I assumed they were simply changed our wine pairing from some French wines to Napa wines… they were making all the wine selection for us without consulting us so I assume it’s all equivalent pricing. Furthermore, we didn’t know we were paying by bottles so there were lots of left over wines in the bottles… they didn’t tell us we were paying by the bottles! They stopped pouring the wines when our glasses were empty…. We assumed it’s wine pairing so we only get a pairing glass per matching course. During dinner, they continue to upsell us on A5 beef as add-on, truffle add-on, etc… continual upsell without pricing transparency and switching wine pairing pricing plan without informing. Was charged also several hundreds for drinking water… lol. And They probably drank all our left over wines after we left…. We would have brought home all the left over wines if we were informed we were paying by the bottles. Worst of all, at the end of the event, i asked to see the bill…. They said it’s already all charged to my credit card stored with them. I can get details the next day…. Didnt get the detailed bill the next day so I had to contact them for details. After I finally got the detailed bill two days later, I saw they charged me twice for the truffle add-on. They agreed to refund one as they don’t know why they charged twice. I asked them about all the issues of charging me 16 tasting menu when we had 13 people and also all the wine pairing changes they made without telling us…..they simply said they will re evaluate their practices. It’s all just miscommunication in their view. Completely unacceptable in my view. The food were good but the continual upselling and lack of communication/transparency are unacceptable and ruined the experience. Not giving bill to review right away is shady too. Probably many people never review them….Given the number of issues (double charges, not showing detailed bill right away, changed wine pairing to bottle model without telling us the cost increase, even when we paid by bottle they didn’t tell us we can finish the bottle, charged 16 people even we had 13, upselling truffle/a5 w my guests, etc.). All seem...