Excerpt from The Detroit News, Robin Mather, food critic:
" Meal two was served at Chez Grand-mère...This time, the menu reflected a creative, imaginative chef. With only one misstep, every course was delightful; every dish surprising.
To open, we recieved slices of coarse-cut rabbit pâté de compagne and duck liver pâté; two rolled paper-thin sheets of air-dried elk, nearly jerky; and a slice of smoked salmon. Two lightly buttered squares of pumpernickel bread rounded out the appetizer plate.The pâtés were silken on the tongue. These, combined with the salty elk and smoked salmon, created enough taste to hit every part of the palate.
Next, we were each served three wild mushroom raviolis with a veloute sauce scented with morels that chef Michel Poumay said he'd foraged from the hills behind the restaurant the day before.Then came a marinated grilled squab, served with a puréed beet cream sauce and a tiny Germiny mousse made from a stock of squab trimmings and enriched with egg yolk and cream. The squab was underdone, my tablemates and I agreed - the only flaw of the night. But the beet cream sauce, a delicate pink, was lovely both to behold and to eat.
Chef Poumay's triumph was ruddy, rare roast lamb. Its richness was cut by a reduced old sherry vinegar sauce of his invention, savory and complex like good balsamic, but not so familiar. In fact, the chef told our table, he had made the sherry vinegar himself. And he described how he'd done it - in French, for the benefit of a Gallic tablemate.With the lamb, a small "flan", or custard, of shredded zucchini filled out the plate. Even Poumay's fresh tarragon garnish was more flamboyantly flavored than seems usual.A salad of mixed wild greens dressed with mild vinaigrette followed, in the French fashion. I found the greens' bitterness refreshing, though my companion disliked their metallic flavor.
Finally, to close, we were served a gracefully piped meringue curlique holding scoops of strawberry and cantaloupe sorbets, accompanied by a thick-set, not too sweet lemon cookie. A fine finish, indeed, for a sumptuous supper. After this meal, we strolled rather than staggered, feeling satisfied rather than sated.
The difference in the two dinners(note: the other at Ute City Banque) lay, I think, in the surprises one offered that the other did not. the first menu(Ute City Banque) featured buzz-word foods: polenta, baby artichokes, stuffed squash blossoms, raspberry sauce. The other, so beautifully drafted by a man who obviously loves good food, tickled the imagination while wooing the senses. A beet cream sauce is unusual; air-dried elk jerky is a comparative rarity. And a man who makes his own vinegar obviously has the patience and passion requisite to prepare a fascinating meal."
