Other posters and I have previously reported on Lake Inez’s Mystery Patio previously, I am happy to note that this year’s edition is just as worth it.
As noted above, there is one seating per evening at 7:00 PM. You are served 6 courses with drink pairings (you can also order other drinks) and some dietary preferences can be accommodated with advance notice. The patio has covering for the tables, but if it is raining hard and the wind is blowing, some of you could still get wet. For chillier evenings, there are heaters also. Dinner goes to about 10:00.
The cooking remains excellent, emphasizing what is seasonal, with creative mixing of flavours. Each course has a fanciful name, sometimes with a painful pun. The plating is done on the patio and then the chefs introduce each dish.
The wine list emphasizes smaller producers from less-celebrated wine countries and includes hilarious, if opaque, descriptions. And owner Zac Schwartz continues to be an engaging host, introducing each drink with a rambling and often very tangential story.
The first course was “Makin’ zucchini pancakes”:
This featured a lovely dip of mayo from confit tomatoes, garlic scape and tomato agrodolce underneath, dark green lovage oil, and zucchini blossoms.
This gets scooped onto fried zucchini bread (crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside) with Gunn’s hill cheese and more bits of zucchini flowers. This was accompanied by a pink/salmon cocktail in a coupe glass: tanqueray gin, absinthe, ginger beer, rose petal lemonade - fragrant and floral.
The second course was “Salty sweet fields forever”:
Fresh hamachi sashimi, with strawberry sauce done in the style of ume boshi (Japanese pickled plum), argan oil, dehydrated strawberry slices, red shiso leaf - strawberries were not the flavour I ever would have thought to pair with fish and shiso, but it worked really well. This was paired with an apricot-y pet nat aligoté from Burgundy with indigenous yeast.
The third course was “Moralless yet morelful”:
Fresh morels stuffed with chicken farcis, roasted beets, salted cherry leaves, agrodolce whole cherries, Spanish smoked paprika, green sorrel - lots of complex flavours, with umami, sweet, sour, salty, and smokey all together. This was paired with an orange wine: Kolombour (colombard and bourboulenc grapes), made in Jura, Karnage winery, unfiltered, stone fruity and floral.
The fourth course was “The humm of the bass”:
Lightly deep-fried and flakey white striped bass with a creamy fava bean hummus, Meyer lemon marmalade, and sudachi. This was paired with a Slovakian 2020 Rizling - stonefruity and barnyardy, lime zest.
The fifth course was “The road to summertime is paved with cheeky flowers”:
Luscious beef cheek (smoked 7 hours) with an aji chili rub, lemony baby potatoes, aji verde, with nasturtium leaves and flowers. This was paired with Vendredi 13 Vino di Anna, Mt Etna (nerello mascalese) - light, sour cherries.
And for dessert, “Suburbs; poolside”
Semifreddo with a nod to root beer floats, with molasses-like syrup of sarsaparilla, ginger, chaga mushrooms, with fresh chervil, fennel, anise hyssop on top and soft crust underneath. This was paired with a cocktail of cocoa nib tea, roasted black sesame syrup, bourbon, sweet vermouth, amaro nonino, lemon juice, tahini coconut foam and Meyer lemon powder on top - really interesting sesame and bitter flavours.
Alas, they are no longer serving the Coney dog as a snack later on with more drinks. The owner explained that it was just too much for the kitchen to deal with on-top of everything else. No matter. Still a great experience overall.
