If someone tells me there is a French Laundry equivalent here in SMA, well, I have to go. Aperi, rated the number one restaurant in San Miguel, is calling my name. Reservations are at 7:30 pm.
This is the first time we leave the house when Michael is not wearing jeans—he is humoring me! I believe the address is 121 Quadrante; Michael claims it is 101. I think we both may be wrong. We can’t find it anywhere—not one doorway sports its name. How could Google Maps be wrong? We backtrack—we backtrack again. OK, I know I have said Michael NEVER backtracks, but sometimes there isn’t a choice. We cross the street to the next block.
Finding Aperi
I choose a table in the courtyard. Knowing I am always cold, Michael gives me a questioning look. I do have on double layers of the warmest spring clothes I own; I think I’ll be OK.
With my prescription eyeglasses sitting on the table, I am enchanted with the modernesque design on the pale gray wall before me till Michael says, “They’re snakes.”
“No.”
“Rattlesnakes.”
I have second thoughts about my enchantment.
The Food
We order wine from Espana, and immediately after it is poured, we are served an amuse bouche—it looks like a dead fish—but is, in fact, a tempura-dipped fried squash blossom dusted with flaked chile and stuffed with goat cheese. Lovely.
As we peruse the menu, Michael heads straight for the entrees.
Appetizers
“NO— we have to have appetizers!” And I don’t want to share. I order burnt sweet potatoes (because I can’t imagine what is in store) with browned butter and salt. Michael orders a clay pot filled with a fresh bubbling hot tomato sauce, a round of burrata bobbing up and down in the middle of the boiling liquid, with crostini on the side.
The sweet potato, cut in half, with the blackest skin imaginable, is set before me, swirls of browned butter on the plate, a bare sprinkling of sea salt on the deep orange flesh.
Michael lets me know his thoughts with an, “I don’t think you are supposed to eat the burned part.”
“I think you are.” I’m sure you are.
Michael digs out a taste of sweet potato from the middle of one half—it is just a baked sweet potato. I cut a piece of burnt skin with the orange potato, swirling it in the deeply browned butter, placing it in my mouth. It does not taste burnt but charred, a good kind of charred. The flavors are familiar yet foreign. I try to determine how they blackened the skin without burning it—I have an idea, but it is probably wrong.
Entrees
For me, turning down a short rib is close to impossible, no matter the other choices on the menu. Michael is happy to try their suckling pig with crispy skin. Both are beyond delicious. My short rib comes with a wonderful (perhaps divine) horseradish sauce, a swirl of deep red (wine?) sauce, and crimson foam. Wow! I finally am at a restaurant where I get foam—it may be overrated—it is just air, after all. But it makes a great presentation, and it does have a taste.
Endings
We barely get through the shared dessert of caramelized pear with a spice cookie crumble and some strange-sounding ice cream that is better than anything on the plate—in fact, wonderful.
Two American coffees keep us awake long enough to trudge up to the Jardin after dinner.
It is Ballet Folklorica—Act II—The Old Folks. We stay long enough to snap a picture or two and head home to our casa and cama.
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