FINE DINING

I am enjoying the Epicurean delight of a marvelous dinner at Gaddi’s in the Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong. This is dining at its glorious best. In the midst of the late 1990’s economic downturn in Asia, the number of diners a Gaddi’s tonight is limited. Our candle lit table for seven in the prime spot of the restaurant is the center of meticulous service. The peach champagne cocktail is chilled to just the right temperature. The bisque is perfectly ladled over the artfully arranged pieces of lobster in the monogrammed tureens. The salad seems to have come directly from garden to table with only a stop for its presentation to be enhanced. Entrées, whether from the kitchen or flamed tableside, are even more delicious than their Pulitzer worthy descriptions by the maitre-de. The wine is age and vintage appropriate. The soufflé is so light and fluffy it fails to float only because it is held down by the texture of the perfectly melted chocolate.

The dining companions are articulate, interested in topics of substance and gracious in manner.

I’m not responsible for picking up the outrageous tab. It is a fine dining experience and I relish it.

Fine dining is, however, by no means restricted to Michelin starred restaurants. A modest farmhouse with Formica topped dining table can be a gourmet’s dream come true. The menu: french-fried, never been frozen chicken, cream gravy on mashed potatoes, freshly picked garden beans with homemade bread just out of the oven and finished off with cobbler made from peaches picked that morning.

Or how can it get any better than a full Cantonese style Chinese feast with shrimp on toast, roast suckling pig, sharks fin soup, salt baked chicken, etc. etc. until all 12 courses are served?

This list could go on for pages: the jaegerschnitzel and spaetzel in Switzerland, marvelous all vegetarian food in Bombay, outdoor just off the pit bar-b-cue in Texas, grilled salmon beside a stream in Idaho. Name your favorites!

Fine dining: for a newborn it comes from the mother’s breast; for the poor it’s anything that puts bulk into the stomach; for the recovering patient it’s anything that stays down. For the Christian it’s a sip of wine and a wafer of Eucharistic bread.

While eating is a common need and/or pleasure it is also something that separates the human family. Vegetarians from those who eat meat. Those who love pork from those who find this unspiritual. Those who eat around supportive families and those who eat in silent groups or in lonely solitude. Those who eat until sated or those multitudes who wait in vain for any morsel of nourishment.

Fine dining. May we hasten the day when an entire human family enjoys the answer to their simple prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.”