Rob took me to Cyrus to celebrate my 24th birthday this year. We had to make the reservation for the 5th because I had to drive back to LA yesterday in time for my classes today. Cyrus has been rated as one of the top restaurants in the country with two Michelin stars and a Zagat rating of 28 points. Like the French Laundry, it's located in wine country which is a couple of hours away from the greater Bay Area. There were some people on Yelp that tried to compare it to the FL but the similarities end at location and expense. Cyrus had their own interior style, ways of serving, and cuisine type. We were wise enough to book a room near the restaurant because neither of us were fit to drive after our wonderful experience there. It's actually located inside the fancy Les Mars Hotel but at over $350 a night we declined to stay there. After looking through their menu, Rob wanted to try their chef's tasting menu and 7 course wine pairing. We went with that although the self-creating menu looks very tempting as well. Onward to the pictures and descriptions:



Rob in the hotel room ready to head out.



Me outside of the doors leading to Cyrus.



Finger foods to start with. I forgot the exact names of all of them. The top had mushroom siu mai and salmon tartare in the spoons. The next tier down had little tartlets with cilantro dressing (Rob managed to choke it down) and grapefruit gelee in the spoons. I forget what the bottom tier was...it was warm.



The Waverly Place Echo. Yeah, funny name for a cocktail. It's very citrusy with orange blossom vodka, slices of mandarin oranges, and meyer lemon juice.



Rob enjoying his blood orange martini.



Me.



Rob.



Okay, so we temporarily forgot about the camera and started eating our first course before we realized. In fact, we forgot to take a pic of our amuse but it wasn't really worth mentioning anyway. This is their Thai marinated lobster which I subbed in place of the scallop ceviche. I'm so glad I did because it was heaven! My favorite dish of the whole evening with avocado and tons of cilantro. Haha!



Nantucket scallop ceviche- Rob's first course.



Foie gras terrine with orange gelee and resting on top of chocolate crumpets. This was a very original idea. I'm normally not a big fan of foie but it worked...probably because the chocolate and orange masked the taste of it.



My second favorite course of the evening mostly because it reminds me of my mom's chinese comfort food. This is a Japanese seabream that has a crispy outside and resting on top of soba noodles and napa cabbage. The broth was delicious as well.



The squab! Peking duck-style with hoisin sauce and sticky rice cake. Rob and I have never tried squab before and we've had an endless supply of jokes relating to the naming of these domesticated pigeons before this day. Example: "Squab the decks me maties!". I know, we're dorks.



Ah, something I've always wanted badly to like but just can't quiet suppress my gag reflex long enough to eat much of it. I hear restaurant spirits hissing at me in the background. This is their genuine Japanese Wagyu beef (aka real Kobe beef, but slaughtered outside of the Kobe prefecture b/c of the lack of U.S. health inspectors). I ate half of it and gave the rest to Rob. He doesn't mind what I refer to as beef-flavored butter as much. The sauce and the cauliflower was good at least.



OMG, the cheese cart!! This is the first time either of us have indulged in such a treat. The server picked out six of them for us based on what we normally like.



The two goat cheeses were amazing because they're smooth and don't have that overwhelming tang that hits you with normal goat cheese. There was a little wedge of brie, an extremely sharp white cheddar, a gooey pungent cheese, and a stilton. The walnut date bread it's served with was addicting, as well as the spiced nuts!



The only label we took a picture of, unfortunately. But we did get a list of all the wines we drank that night along with a copy of the menu that they custom printed for us. Very thoughtful! This was a great vintage port to go with our cheese.



Mmm cardamom ice cream sandwiched between twilles and floating in a ginger muscat soup. Paired with two muscats-sparkling and vintage. They also had an old-fashioned chocolate soda and warm chocolate chip cookies with white chocolate confetti as something special for my birthday. Whee!



Blood orange souffle and chocolate torte.



Fruit jellies, homemade mint liquor marshmallow, champagne chocolate, carmel, banana lollypop.

This trip to Cyrus has definitely softened the blow of me becoming one year older. I love that I can share the common interest of fine dining with Rob. These shared experiences are the best kind of birthday present I could want thus far in my life.

Side note: We took most of these pictures without flash for fear of being reprimanded as was the case at Manresa. So they didn't turn out as well as they could have been. Only when the cheese cart guy came along were we informed that it was okay at Cyrus to take pictures and use flash. The scars from Manresa still haunts us to this day...