And then there is the $45 foie gras terrine, the preparation of which, according to the Bouchon cookbook, involves soaking a duck’s liver in milk overnight, marinating it with pink salt, poaching it briefly, and eventually squooshing it through a sieve into a mold. Like the salmon rillettes, it comes in a small glass crock sealed with a layer of fat that you scrape off before spreading the liver over dainty logs of toasted baguette. Pinkish beige and meltingly smooth, it makes the strongest case yet for keeping the beleaguered foie gras industry alive. Share it with three friends (it’s that rich), and consider it a steal at $11.25 per person.
Bouchon is not the place to skip dessert (although the cheese plate, with its oozing honeycomb, is a good alternative). If you’ve shambled down the mall’s long, hospital-like hallway to visit the restrooms, you’ve already run the confectionery gauntlet past the pastry display case and had your appetite sufficiently whetted. There are perfect little chocolate and lemon tarts, minutely crumbed coffee cakes, and cork-shaped brownies called bouchons (the French word for cork or stopper). There are classic choux pastry concoctions, lavished with coffee- and hazelnut-flavored creams. And there are croissants and scones to line up for in the morning or to take home for breakfast. Chief among these treats is the pecan sticky bun, an old food-court specialty that, like Bouchon Bakery itself, brings new meaning to the term mall food.
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