village pub

In Woodside there is a one-star Michelin restaurant called The Village Pub which serves Fine Dining type food. And, we got there in our friend’s Tesla that drove itself from our house all the way to the parking spot, including navigating the often tricky 85 to 280 interchange merge at Foothill Expressway. It got an easy roll though, Northbound traffic on a Friday night is usually light and the other cars were particularly cooperative. The self-driving mode was set to “hurry”, and so it kept the speed about 10-11 mph over the speed limit and we arrived early; the only hesitant, jerky bobble was turning into the parking lot when an oncoming car was getting near. It did park a little further away than was strictly necessary.

Greg, our waiter, was rifling the Prix Fixe menu at us about as fast as he could, and out of order, which made it hard to follow along. We sorted it out after he left, things like “what is kampachi” or “why does this dish have vegetable ash in it, what does that mean, exactly”. A lot of the menu was like this, which if I understand correctly, is a feature of fine dining. I ordered the most absurd thing that I remembered Greg shooting off about, the summer melon consommé, a kind of soup. I had to confirm if it was hot or cold, and Greg was a little bit surprised by the question, his answer was more natural and genuine than the rest of his prepared material. The broth is lukewarm, er, sort of room temperature. Thank you, Greg, that will be fine.

The table service was actually kind of in your face. The bus boys, bus men, I should learn the French word for this role so they can sound as important and integral as they are to the meal, whatever they are called, the service was a show and we weren’t meant to ignore or miss it. Greg and an assistant brought the amuse bouches, and then Parker house rolls, which were perfect. When we ran out of rolls and weren’t sure if we actually wanted more, for the gainz, our hesitation was interpreted as politeness, or perhaps a demurring, when it was in fact a real decision that we were all sorting out at the table. More rolls arrived, along with more sculpted butter. Forceful, vigorous, and sometimes a little too proximal service was the tone, and while it was never delinquent, it was also never invisible either. The only woman on staff that I saw was the hostess, confirming reservations.

Greg insisted on straightening the silverware whenever he passed by, until more customers arrived, anyway. I gave him a hard time by putting them back exactly where I had them as soon as he moved them. I’m not sure if he understood that it was all a joke, I do not know how seriously he has to take all of this for unknown to me reasons.¹ He did seem to lay off the touching of my fork and spoon a bit, but he could have just been distracted. The bus-men had no such compunction, and there seemed to be about a dozen of them so it could be that they just didn’t consistently visit our particular table as the evening proceeded. They took the plates and silverware when they were going to take them, and whatever position our bodies happened to be in at the time, interfering with the urgent matter of clearing the table, well, we would just have to move out of the way. There was a service on, don’t you know, and it was kind of a war against these dishes and diners, a bit of collateral damage might just be the cost of doing business. Greg cleared the crumbs with one of those little aluminum scrapers that looks like someone cut a small pipe in half length-wise.

After the last bit was et, another round of amuse bouches- a tiny blueberry tart, a hand rolled salted caramel, and a tiny pâte de fruit that let’s be honest here tasted exactly like a fruit rollup, and the bill was given, left on the table for a while, finally paid and finally returned to us for signing, we continued finishing our water until they took away the tableside ice bucket that had held Loonen bottles, and we realized that the entire outdoor patio in which we had been seated and had had almost all to ourselves for much of the meal was now completely occupied. We decided it was probably best that we not keep the table until Wednesday and so we grabbed our coats and made our way to the front of the building for one more picture with The Village Pub sign, and then we left, riding the self-driving Tesla off into the sunset.

jg

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