Anyone have Providence's Five-Course Menu Recently?

[PeterCC]

I noticed on Providence's website, under Upcoming Events, that, to celebrate their seven years in operation, their five-course menu will only be $75 ($120 with wine pairing) in the month of June. This looks to be a $25 discount from the normal dinner pricing.

Has anyone had the five-course menu recently, preferably this month, and can hopefully compare it to other five-course menus from the past? I'd like to think that offering this discount as a gesture of appreciation to their customers would mean that the menus wouldn't be change in terms of quality/quantity just to account for the lower cost, but I wouldn't blame them for adjusting the menu so they're not actually losing money on these meals.

I realize their prix-fixe menus change all the time (daily?), so it's likely hard to do an apples-to-oranges comparison, but I'm just curious.

Also, has anyone had the five-course menu both at lunch (currently only on Fridays) and dinner, to compare the quality/quantity of the two? The June anniversary discount is only $5 compared to the the regular lunch pricing; anyone know if a someone could get the five-course dinner menu at lunch normally, much less at the $75 pricing?

[Edit: Found a thread that says they've been doing this for their five-course menu the last several years: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/711464.]

[zack]

Providence offers this anniversary pricing each year in June. For the past few years, only the 5-course has been discounted. You get the same quality/quantity as usual (unlike most DineLA offers!). The tasting menu items actually don't change all too much over the years at Providence: #1 sashimi, #2 scallop, #3 white fish, #4 veal, #5 dessert. However, this week's menu (I went on Mon) was fairly different: #2 crab, #3 foie gras ravioli.

Never been for lunch but I don't think the tasting menu is the same as dinner.

[PeterCC]

Thanks zack. So it's a lie when they say the menus change daily?! For shame! :-)

I'm trying to figure out if I can go, but _if_ I go, I'd only be able to go for lunch. I'm sure it is different, just by nature of it being lunch vs dinner, but it's too bad I can't really take advantage of the discounted pricing for lunch, though $5 saved is ... parking I guess. :-)

[perk]

When I've gone for lunch and asked for the tasting menu, it's been the same menu and price as at dinner. But...there may be a separate lunch tasting. I'm not sure.

[PeterCC]

I sent an inquiry to the restaurant and got this response:

"The items are a bit different for the lunch tasting menu, generally. At
the moment, the lunch and dinner 5 course tasting menus are the same and
they are both $75.00 per person, not including beverages, tax and
gratuity.

"Unfortunately, we cannot offer most dinner items during lunch, as we have
not prepped those items yet."

[perk]

Thanks for checking. The last time I did it, I asked if the tasting menu was "available" for lunch, and they went and asked the chef. (or sous chef, or whoever was there.) They came back and said he could do it. I didn't know if it was exactly the same, but figured if not....the substitutions would be fine. But I do remember it was the same price.

[yangster]

There's free street parking (diagonal parking spaces) farther up on Cole if you can find open ones.

Was there last night. I can't compare to menus past since this was our first time, but last night's menu was: 1) Tuna Tataki, 2) Scallop, 3) Foie Ravioli, 4) Veal, 5) Dessert. But you can definitely ask for subs, if you've had similar before, or if you don't like a dish. My mom had 1b) Crab, and 4b) Salmon. Plus, I added an extra dish of soft-shell crab. Another popular supplemental dish that we didn't get seemed to be the salt-crust baked Santa Barbara Spot Prawns

Of course, I can't say if the amount of amuses will be different at lunch, and I think that while the entire menu doesn't change daily (or at least the general structure of the 5-course tasting), particular dishes might, or at least various components of different dishes.

1) Amuse 1: Spherified screwdriver & mojito ice
2) Amuse 2: Sunchoke soup w/ chive cream and port reduction & chive/nori/bechemel topped gougere
3) Amuse 3: Fried salmon skin chips w/ sea trout parfait dip (ended up forgoing the butter and used the leftover trout dip on our bread: bacon brioche, seaweed foccacia, black olive roll)
4) Course 1a: Tuna tataki
5) Course 1b: Dungeness crab w/ blood orange, tangerine-habanero gelee, parmesan foam, nasturtium (we all would have been better off to sub the default tuna for the crab)
6) Course 2: Scallop, pickled aprium, aprium-vadouvan broth, aprium puree, corn crumble, arugula
7) Course 2+: Soft-shell crab, veggies, parmesan foam, nasturtium, lardon (supplemental, a single person can order a supplemental instead of having to order ones for the whole table...but everyone else will have to sit around watching you eat :P)
8) Course 3: Foie ravioli, black truffle, black truffle fondue, parmesan foam (amazing)
9) Course 4a: Veal tenderloin, onion puree, asparagus, pumpernickel(?), king oyster mushroom (somehow forgot to take a picture of this one)
10) Course 4b: Salmon, hazelnut, trumpet mushroom
11) Dessert: Chocolate/hazelnut praline/condensed milk 'cake', milk chocolate meringe, espresso sorbet, ube puree
12) Mignardises: Chile-Lime pate de fruit, hazelnut caramel, olallieberry macaron

Hope that was helpful in your decision.

[perk]

Great description of dishes....but, how did you enjoy it?

[yangster]

I prefer not to do much of a review, but I enjoyed it a lot. Service was a bit on the slow side, but I don't care too much for that.

Best dishes of the night were definitely the scallop and ravioli. The veal and tuna were forgettable.

[PeterCC]

Thanks yangster, I went Friday, the only day they're open for lunch, and had the five-course lunch tasting menu. I had the same amuses as you, but instead of the of the tuna tataki, I was served Japanese kanpachi [pic attached]. I had the veal tenderloin as well but not the salmon--was that an add-on? Everything else looks identical to what I had, except I added on the foie gras saute [pic attached] before the dessert course.

The highlight for me were the foie gras ravioli, with the foie gras saute being a disappointment, and the other stuff in between. I'll write up my whole experience later, but I've attached pics of the two dishes not part of your courses.

[yangster]

The salmon was a replacement for the veal as one of our dinner party doesn't like red meat.