Le Cordon Bleu: Birthday Lunch

My birthday was on Thursday, and so my mom wanted to take me to lunch! I thought we would go to our old favorite, Cisco Grill, but she decided to shake things up a bit and we traveled out to the Dallas Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School to dine at their Technique Restaurant. This restaurant is a class for the students, a place where they can put their skills into action: serving and cooking for actual customers. It was such a treat! The menu is actually quite large, and you choose three courses for just ten dollars! We both thought that due to the low cost that the servings would be rather small, but we were completely wrong! We ate as much as we could of each course, but always had something left over. Also, I certainly didn't expect bread, but we indeed had an endless supply of bread and butter! The bread was always just warm enough for the butter to lightly melt, very tasty.

I started with the Margarita Pizza, a perfectly fresh wood-fired pizza that I could have easily mistaken for one from Italy. Crisp but tender dough, huge fresh tomatoes sliced very thickly, large slices of fresh mozzarella, and a drizzle of olive oil. That was it and it was just the perfect balance of flavors and textures, the perfect ratio of gooiness to bite, soft to crisp.

I then had the Salad Nicoise, but requested to have chicken rather than the tuna. I knew we had a rather new student/waiter when he looked really concerned and perplexed about this request, he scurried off the the kitchen to ask about my absurd request, and then scurried back to the table with a relieved, yet still a bit concerned, look upon his face letting me know that indeed, they could make this substitution. Lesson number one for anyone working in the restaurant industry, your customers are difficult and they will ask you for things that you think are ridiculous, in response, you should politely smile and fulfill the request, you are welcome to think any thoughts in the world about how odd the diner is, just don't share it on your face! My chicken Salad Nicoise was delightful, lightly dressed and with each component perfectly balanced.

My birthday dessert was just what I wanted. Good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies! They were very soft, filled with chocolate chunks and just warm enough to give the illusion that they were just moments out of the oven. I had one at lunch and took one home for a midnight snack :)

Mom and I had a delightful lunch, classic tastes perfectly executed in a fun and different environment. The dinning room is basically in the kitchen, so you have a front row view of your food preparation. A little warning, it was freezing in there, so take a shawl! You can even go for dinner (dinner is fifteen dollars each), and dine on delicious food and drink cocktails from the bar. But I think one of my favorite parts of this place was walking in the hallways of the actual school to get to the restaurant. All of the classrooms have windows, so you could look in on students hard at work creating deliciousness, and you could smell the aromas throughout the hallways. What a treat! My very favorite part was eating birthday lunch with my mom!

A very special birthday lunch indeed, thanks mom!
Hopefully you too can enjoy this special place!