The most memorable and important food experience to me is the first time that I tried the French cuisine in the Intercontinental Hotel about seven years ago, when I was a middle school student. That was the first time for me to have real French food, and let me have a new understanding of the western food, especially the french style.

The French restaurant only opens in the evening, and it is kind of dark, with diffused light inside and a little candle on each table, in order to create a romantic atmosphere. My mother and I walked in and sat down slowly, quietly and did not dare to make any noise. The server handed each of us a succinct menu, which only contains two pages, with bold names of each dish and the ingredients italicized below each name. I read it carefully and it might be the first time that I recognized about the main distinction between a Chinese menu and a Western menu. That is the name of the Chinese dish always makes itself become more attractive to customers (sounds really nice), but people don’t know what’s inside the dish, however, the name of the french dish is simple and is exactly what it is.  I followed the instructions that the server gave: choose the appetizer first, then the soup or salad and finally the main course.  After being struggled for a while, I made my significant decisions among all the alluring dishes—Foie Gras for appetizer (since it is a French restaurant, this is the must try dish!) , then the chestnut ravioli mushroom soup ( kind of combine italian style and french style together, but it really tastes so good) , and medium cooked filet magnon for main course.  After ordering the meal, the server brought us some warm bread with three different types of butter, the original one, butter with olive and one with sun-dried tomato ( I guess, but not sure). Warm breads are so delicious with butter, but I did not want to eat too much to full my stomach  since the delicate dishes were coming soon. The foie gras came first. I cut a little piece and put it into mouth. At that moment, I seemed to feel that everything around me, even including the time, stopped. It was so so so tasty that I could not find a specific word to describe it. The foie gras was fried to a extent when it was a little crispy outside and smooth inside, served savory and warm but not hot. The server recommended us to try it with a little berry compote on the side so that we would not feel oily when we ate more. I did as the server suggested and the experience of having the foie gras became even more awesome, but the portion of the appetizer was limited, only the aftertaste lingered forever. After that, the soup came. It was cute, with three little chestnut ravioli in the mushroom bisque.(Actually it was truffle so that the soup tasted even better.) I remembered truffle bisque clearly as well since that was my first time to eat something which combined the sweetness and savory flavor together—the chestnut ravioli had a hint of sweetness and the soup was savory. This was new and special to me.  The soup tasted creamy and rich, good for share. (Although I really wanted to have a full size, I had to save the space of my stomach for the main course and the dessert after meal.) After finishing the soup, the filet was served to us. It was said to be the meat from a young-aged cattle, but I was not sure whether this information was real though it did taste tender and succulent. ( The filet did not impress me a lot, maybe its significance was overlapped by the first two courses.)  Finally, I chose the signature dessert to end—the Souffle, which took fifteen to twenty minutes to prepare. The souffle was served warm with a small cup of meringue cream on the side. As I remembered, the meringue cream was chilled and I poured it on the souffle (made it to hot and cold mixed state). The souffle was really soft and I felt like it floated in my mouth. I could swallow it with only one or two bites, but I would not since I wanted the flavor to last longer in my mouth. Before we paid the bill, the server gave us some complimentary sweets such as macaroons and tiny buttery cookies. I enjoyed  the overall experience in that French restaurant was enjoyable and unforgettable, ; maybe because it was my first time to try these extremely delicate and palatable dishes; or maybe because for the dishes did tasted so delicious; or maybe it was because of both of them. I rated it as the most memorable dining experience during these twenty years of my life.

The epiphany that I have got from this  experience is while eating french food, I am not only sensing the “beauty” of the taste, but also the beauty of the appearances of the food, the hospitality and warmness of the server and the coziness of the atmosphere. Everything in the French restaurant is worth trying and experiencing.