[Calgary] Muse Restaurant

April 10, 2010
Muse Restaurant
107 10A Street Northwest
Calgary, AB T2N 4M7
(403) 670-6873
http://www.muserestaurant.ca/home.htm

For my birthday this year (yay my happy 22nd) we went to Muse on Kensington after reading many good reviews about it. After checking their website, we saw that they had a 9 course tasting menu and wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately, we didn't call 24 hrs in advance and therefore had to settle with a 5 course instead (sorry for our descriptions, it's kind of our first time so we didn't catch everything the waiter told us).

After sitting at our table, we were given a small bowl of organic popcorn drizzled with truffle oil and sea salt. The oil was very strong when the waiter placed it onto the table, however, the taste was not near as strong (only the bottom pieces were drenched with salty truffle-ness).

Amuse-bouche was a bacon, parmesan foam in some liquid. (Sorry for the bad photo quality!)

We were then given a bowl of bread which, if we heard correctly, were Terragon and parmesan bread. They were buttery, dense and flaky.

1st Course: The soup had shitake, roma tomatoes, sweet corn, shives, machengo and was simmered down with consomme. We thought that the soup was somewhat on the salty side. Overall, we found that it was nothing really special, or what we learned today it was missing the "wow" factor.

2nd Course: Crispy beet with scallops on roasted endives and pear puree. The scallops were the highlight of the meal. They were sweet and juicy with a little raw-ness inside.

3rd Course: Foie gras on asparagus and hedgehog mushroom and covered in an apple sauce. The foie gras was very rich and was hard for the two of us to digest after :P. The asparagus and hedgehog mushroom were somewhat on the salty side for us though.

Palate Cleanser: Raspberry and amerie banana sorbet was good, especially the banana and it definitely helped us get ready for the main course. Even though at this point, we were almost 90% full.

4th Course: Braised lamb shoulder with zucchini and roma tomatoes topped with fried wonton rolls. We both agreed that the lamb shoulder was very tender, however, since I am not a lamb lover, I did not love the slight gamey taste it had. Also the zucchini and Roma tomatoes under the lamb shoulder were covered in a very salty sauce.


5th Course: White chocolate mousse with fresh strawberries and blackberries along with raspberry coulis meringue cookies. Although at this point I was over-the-top full, I had to finish this dessert. The mousse was not overly sweet and along with the fresh fruit, the dessert was delicious and light. The raspberry coulis meringue cookies were also were light and flaky.

Overall the food was delicious, however, we found most of the food a bit too salty. But we should also note that we did have a chat with the assistant chef and found that all the chefs in the kitchen (beside the assistant chef) was a smoker and that would have affected their taste buds. In general, the dishes were nothing special-but then again, maybe we have been reading too many funky food blogs lol.