News Taffy

Eating out with people who are uber picky about their food is an exhausting exercise in dining. “Is that gluten free? Does that contain dairy? Will you ask the chef to remove the mushrooms from the plate, please? Do you have almond milk? And, on and on and on. You know those people, right? As my chef friend, Mina once said to me about those kinds of people, “just eat the damn bread already and get on with it!” I don’t fall into any of those categories. I don’t have any food allergies and I’m not gluten intolerant, thank goodness. And I’m not really a picky eater.

However, there are or were only three things that I could name that I would never eat again: octopus, foie gras and animal organs.  They are all utterly disgusting, in my experience. I’m reporting at this very moment that I have added a fourth item to that list. Sea urchin.

I was in Bordeaux, France briefly in April. Mark and I decided to try a restaurant that came highly recommended by the concierge. Le Gabriele is near the bank of the La Garonne River in Bordeaux in a beautiful old building. The waiter handed us the menu which of course was written in French. I don’t speak French. So the very helpful French waiter - that is a bit of an oxymoron I realize - interpreted the entire menu for me.

For some reason I’m still unclear of, I ordered sea urchin for a starter and a pork dish for my entree. The waiter poured me glass of Chateau Brown white wine. When the sea urchin arrived, I knew I was in trouble. Take a look at the photo and you will understand why.

The French are all about their fancy food dishes and presentation is everything. My sea urchin won the presentation prize for the most impressive dish in the house on this particular evening. Mark looked at the dish and then at me and said, “what were you thinking?” I must have been mesmerized by the waiters dreamy sounding American/French accent because the dish that placed in front of me looked like something out of the Miss Sea Urchin Beauty Pageant.

The three urchin pieces were poised perfectly in sea salt on their long pointy spikes. Each urchin was topped with impeccably placed vanilla infused whipped topping with the tiniest, intricately designed dollop of lobster puree.

To break it down, I’ll score this dish from the top to the bottom. The dollop lobster was really delicious - four stars. The vanilla infused whipped topping gets five stars! How can whipped topping be bad though? Once I hit the inside of the urchin dish - which in hindsight is what it really looked like - an underwater serving bowl of sorts - I knew I was in trouble. The texture was horrible - a cross between tuna tartare and soup. It tasted like nothing I’d ever eaten before and God willing never will again!! If I could give a negative star rating I would do that here. I swallowed it, took a deep breath and downed the rest of my Chateau Brown wine! At least I had the wine working in my favor.

I noticed the waiter circling the table and keeping an eye on me. I’m sure he got a kick out of watching me eat this insane dish. He came up to the table, looked at me and said, “Is this your first time eating sea urchin?” I told him in fact it was. And with a smirk on his face he said, “And I suspect it is your last time to eat it as well?”  My response? “Indeed sir, it is!” I’ll check sea urchin off the list. Now, may I have another glass of that wine?”

Keep up with DJ’s adventures by following her on Twitter @mrsdjduckworth and on Facebook. DJ is a contributing writer for New York Family magazine. She lives in Manhattan with her two boys and the world’s most amazing wiener dog, Leo - woof, woof.