The Big Lunch

Business meetings usually go better with food. At a meeting in Belgium with a startup, this was taken to a new extreme. I was tagging along at the invitation of a client who wanted me to meet this company and see what they were doing. We drove about an hour outside of Brussels, into a corner of Belgium a few miles from Aachen and the The Netherlands.

We met for a couple hours, then went to lunch at an estate nearby. It started with champagne near the lawn with the helipad. The house champagne was good (I usually don’t drink, but I had a sip or so for this lunch just to try things. We slowly sat down at a big table outside for lunch. The waiter asked in French if there were any dietary restrictions. I thought we were ordering from a menu. Our hosts had pre-ordered for everyone. As the lone vegetarian, the kitchen had to do some quick work.

We started with the usual bread – focaccia – and really good olive oil. Then came a dish individually served with something crunchy and something soft. The group had some sort of fish. I had tomatoes. I was delicious.

Then came a dish with a black and white pasta sheet covering vegetables and some sort of meat for the group. My version had micro greens. It was again delicious. I thought the meal was great, but the wine kept flowing and we were told the next course would be out soon. For everyone else at the table it was a choice between pork or chicken. I had a mystery meal. The plates came out and were uncovered in front of us. I had pasta. It was fresh-made pasta in a cream sauce with sliced parmesan cheese on top and thick slices of black truffle.

In the last few years, truffle oil has appeared almost everywhere. It is a strong, very earthy flavor applied to fries or various vegetables or salads. The oil is supposed to add to the complexity of the dish so restaurants can charge more. It also tastes nothing like actual truffle.

I have seen black truffle on TV before, but never up close. It was always too expensive to even think about. Now, it was covering my pasta. Truffle is a mushroom. Mushrooms are one of my least favorite foods. These thick slices, each about two millimeters thick at least, of this expensive delicacy and served with expertly prepared pasta meant I had to go for it. The truffle was delicate, with an earthy flavor that wears moderated by the creamy sauce. It was like nothing I’ve ever eaten before. It was tender. It was elegant. It was rich. And it was earthy. It was also all over my plate and I was getting full. I ate as much as I dared, leaving some of the truffle behind. I’m sure the restaurant was wondering why they were throwing away this much truffle, but it was more than I could take.

With our plates gone, another wine poured, it was time for our cheese course. The waiter came out with a foamed cheese with a caramel sauce on top and nuts. I tried the cheese. It was mild and thick like a sponge cake. There was a lot of it in my bowl. I was being offered pure cheese, and everyone else was finishing it. I couldn’t. They hadn’t just eaten a plate of pasta filled with expensive truffles and cream sauce.

Now that was a great lunch. Or so I thought. The waiter then came out with our next course. A desert that included foams, an ice cream thing, cookie crumbles, a sauce and some sort of pudding. It was all beautifully plated. And it was delicious. The flavors stood out, but were not overpowering. I’m not sure exactly what each flavor was, but it went from slightly savory to sweet to nutty to savory to sweet as I worked through the multiple bites. This is a far cry from the gelato I had been craving in Lisbon.

At last, we were done. Until the waiter came out with our final dessert course, a series of three cookies for each of us. The cookies all had a different flavor and were works of art in themselves. They were the size of a quarter, decorated carefully for presentation and flavor. One or two bites and the presentation didn’t matter so much. The flavor was excellent.

In total, it was three hours of lunch and seven courses of rich French dishes, including four types of wine, water, coffee and espresso. Our hosts had apparently paid for this ahead of time or someone had mortgaged a house for the meal. This was, far and away, the most expensive meal I’ve ever had.

After going back to their site and meeting in the conference room for an hour more, during which time I was trying to stay awake after the meal, the meeting ended and we were off. One of my colleagues asked about the best chocolate to get in Belgium. One of our hosts took us to the chocolatier that the Belgian king apparently prefers. We were given boxes of chocolate – as I was there to help the client and understand the business, I requested the smallest box I could get. Finally, we were on our way back to Brussels.

I didn’t bother with dinner that night or breakfast the next morning. My morning run was quick and felt great. I’m glad I didn’t have the full cup of cheese or all the truffles, or I likely wouldn’t have been able to run at all.

Pasta with truffles

Dessert #1