1580 Dorset Street, South Burlington, 862-4602
It's apple season. While those with an interest in being outdoors go apple picking, I found a more passive way to enjoy the season's quarry. Right in South Burlington, the Mill Market & Deli has plenty of dishes that showcase the same local fruit the cider mill uses in its Chittenden's Sweet Apple Cider.
In early September, the Mill straddles the seasons. On my recent visit, locals were still hitting the creemee window, though the chocolate and (fresh berry) black raspberry machine was broken, leaving just vanilla and maple.
But I was there to pick up a meal. The counter girl told me they were out of sandwich menus, and the options aren't written on a chalkboard, so I had to go from my memory of the website. This lapse was representative of a general disorganization I encountered at the market. I was asked to repeat my order three times and even then, they still didn't make it exactly to my specifications. The employee helping me wasn't sure of the items' prices or even where the store might have napkins.
That said, it's a great little market, full of quirky specialty foods, from Island Ice Cream to local meats and snacks. I grabbed a bottle of green-apple Jones soda and a bag of sweet and lightly salted Danielle pumpkin chips to make a fall cornucopia of snack food flavors.
It was a pretty ideal match for the Cider Mill sandwich. Composed of Boar's Head maple-glazed honey ham, green apples, baby spinach and red onion on grilled wheat bread, the sandwich was a roundup of crisp, sweet early fall flavors.
But what really defined it was its condiments: apple butter and honey mustard. The two combined for a symphony of sugary, spicy and fruity tastes. A layer of cheddar calmed the aggressive flavors with a blanket of creaminess.
It was a well-thought-out sandwich. But the Thanksgiving Feast pizza was truly inspired. Like a teenager with a mohawk, uncommon pizza toppings all too often exist just for the sake of doing something different.
Not the case with this pie, which seemed as if it had always been waiting in some culinary heaven, and had only now sent its avatar down to us.
The homemade crust was thin and crisp, and the Thanksgiving Feast was host to two homemade sauces, a garlicky white sauce and a tangy cranberry one.
Mixed on the crust, they combined into a slightly creamy, slightly sweet concoction that played a surprisingly similar role to tomato sauce. Set in a layer of chewy mozzarella, thinly sliced turkey, spinach and onions showered with Parmesan added even more Thanksgiving flavor. I might have liked some chunks of butternut squash to add another dimension; my boyfriend proposed sage stuffing. But even unchanged, this is a $15.50, 16-inch pie we will certainly order again.
We finished lunch with a pair of homemade cider doughnuts so light that they'd gotten away from us several times in the strong winds at the Mill's picnic tables.
But once I bit in, I found the desserts to be more cakey than I had expected from their aerial acrobatics.
Though not as airy as I might have hoped, the flavor was excellent. A hint of apple imbued the cake. A crust of sugar and spicy cinnamon covered it with just the autumnal tastes I was hoping for.
It seems I discovered the Mill just in time to bring in the cool weather. Surely as the leaves turn and fall, I'll be enjoying another Thanksgiving Feast.
Alice Eats is a weekly blog feature devoted to reviewing restaurants where diners can get a meal for two for less than $35. Got a restaurant you'd love to see featured? Send it to alice@sevendaysvt.com.
If you're the kind of person who loses all sense of time and self control whenever you visit King Arthur Flour, you might want to carefully plan your next visit. As in, set both a monetary and caloric budget and tell a friend where you're going, lest you get lost.
A few weeks ago, the baking giant unveiled the fruits of its yearlong, $10-million expansion. Though the building sprawls along the same hillside it's occupied for years, it feels like an entirely different place. And the complex looks like a wood-and-steel mothership. Which it is, of course, for thousands of bakers all over the world.
The iconic King Arthur throne is still inside, but it's dwarfed by interior improvements: huge windows that let visitors watch the baking in action; a larger, airy, polished retail space, with a Warholesque wall of flour; and most enticing of all (for me, at least), the new café, a roomy space filled with wooden tables and inviting leather chairs, plus a massive stone patio.
On a visit earlier this week, I tucked into an intense espresso tart and mulled which of the myriad pastries and breads to take home — a peanut-butter-and-marshmallow sandwich? A raspberry-topped cheesecake, or creamy Napoleon? In the end, I grabbed two chocolate-dipped macaroons and some 100-percent-Vermont-grains bread, a rich and nutty loaf that inspires instant bread lust. (You have to catch it on the right day, though; it's baked Tuesday and Friday). It was too hot of a day to stock up from the refrigerator, whose shelves are piled with sausages, bean salads, cheeses, pre-made sandwiches, sourdough starter, cultured butter...
As bakers well know, KAF's retail store can be like crack. Wandering its nooks, you can convice yourself that you absolutely need some Vietnamese cinnamon, panettone papers, and flour especially milled for "mellow" pastry, as well as a cupcake corer and baker's special dry milk. As much as I tried to stick to photo taking and avoid dollar spending, it was futile to resist a bag of feathery hazelnut flour. (I fried some flounder in it later that night; recipe below.)
KAF's official grand opening begins September 21, with a weekend of bread giveaways, demos from Gesine Bullock-Prado and Dede Wilson, and lots of fattening free samples. Are you brave enough?
Hazenut-Lemon Flounder
this quick and easy recipe serves 2
ingredients:
6 small or 4 large flounder filets (about 3/4 pound)
2 eggs
1 cup King Arthur Flour Hazelnut Flour
1 tbsp. lemon zest
punch each of sea salt, black pepper and dried oregano
2 tbsp. butter and 1 tbsp. oil, for frying
Rinse and pat dry fish filets. Crack eggs into a bowl and whip. In another bowl, add hazelnut flour, spices, herbs and lemon zest, and blend with hands. Put a fry pan on medium-high heat, and bring butter and oil to a froth. Coat each filet in egg, then roll in flour mixture and carefully lay in pan. Cook until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes each side. Plate, spritz with lemon, and serve.
Revered Vermont institution Ben & Jerry's found itself in the news today, and not for its yummy, creamy treats: The company filed a lawsuit against the producer of the "Ben & Cherry's" series of pornographic films. Each title in the X-rated series is, you guessed it, a parody of a B&J's ice cream flavor. The New York Daily News has the scoop, along with some potentially not-safe-for-work photos (although the scandalous bits are blacked out) (not talking about the photo of Ben and Jerry themselves though).
The socially conscious Vermont company is suing a California smut peddler that blatantly ripped off its logo for X-rated DVDs.
...
An unprintable title drawn from the flavor Banana Split features two bare-chested women on the cover.A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan Federal Court demands the porn be taken off the market and seeks unspecified damages.
Unprintable? What prudes you are, New York Daily News.
Anyway, one wonders if Ben & Jerry's has a leg to stand on, given that some of their real-life flavor names are, well, kinda scandalous. (Yes, that includes Clusterfluff, which could probably be the title to a very fascinating porno but was later changed to What a Cluster.) Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all, and those Häagen-Dazs people can only wish that there was anything sexy about their treats.
And now, a game: We've listed ten names below. It's up to you to decide if each one is a Ben & Jerry's flavor or a porno flick. The answers are listed after the jump. Ready? Go!
And now, here are the answers. If you managed to get all ten correct, treat yourself with a pint of Ben & Jerry's tonight — or with a smutty film, if you'd prefer. We won't ask.
Photo credit: Don.chulio at the German language Wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
69 Elliot Street, Brattleboro, 254-6143
Growing up outside New York City, my favorite flavors came from India. My earliest memory is of tandoori chicken.
When I moved to Vermont in 1998, I was nonplussed as to why something that seemed so effortless as preparing delicious, flavorful Indian food seemed so difficult within the borders of the Green Mountains.
My only hope was India Palace, a family-run restaurant in Brattleboro where I habitually stopped on my trips from Burlington to Connecticut. The food was flavorful, the meat was of good quality and the prices were astonishingly low.
I excitedly returned on Sunday for my first meal there in more than a decade. I found that India Palace wasn't bad, but it was no longer great, either. The food to price ratio, however, was still unbelievable.
I ordered the $21.95 tandoori dinner for one, which proved to be more of a tandoori dinner for three or four.
Immediately after ordering, I was presented with a cup of mulligatawny soup (above right). It smelled delicious, its cumin aroma sensuously filling the air. The lentil soup also had a spirited punch of acid, and as I swallowed it, black pepper lightly burned my throat.
My only complaints with the soup were that the the broth was uncharacteristically thin and that the spice came from black pepper rather than chiles. But these were minor quibbles. It tasted great and that was what mattered.
It was closely followed by this table full of food (right). The dessert-level-sweet coconut soup, dotted with nuts, and the disappointingly bland chicken tikka naan were my boyfriend's. The rest of that feast was all mine.
Buttery basmati rice and a giant pile of naan served as the starchy bases for the meal. While the rice was pleasant enough, it lacked the aromatic beauty I expect from a great Indian restaurant. The naan was suitably chewy in some places, but in others, it was thin, greasy and overly crisp.
A platter filled with stewed lentils was grayish, which wouldn't have mattered had it had any flavor besides salt.
With the meal option, I was allowed to choose any meat curry on the menu. I opted for the boti masala, lamb cooked in the tandoor, then stewed in a tomato-based sauce. The thin slices of meat were tender and pleasantly spiced. The tomato-butter sauce was salty and slightly sweet but lacked the acid and delicate smattering of spice I generally expect from the dish.
There was still the sizzling platter of meats fresh from the tandoor to sample as well. This was the greatest disappointment. My prior visits to India Palace had been filled with moist, flavorful tandoori chicken. This time, the meat was dry, mildly gamy and almost completely lacking in the subtle layer of gingery spice the dish's yogurt marinade should provide.
The chicken tikka, while still not quite up to snuff, was tastier and slightly more moist. That was lucky, because the seekh kabob was an unmitigated disaster. The little lamb sausages were inedibly dry, almost mummified.
After all that food, there was still dessert. I skipped my usual gulab jamun to try the gajar halwa, a dish I rarely see on menus. While relatively unadorned — the carrot pudding is little more than shredded carrots speckled with cashews and bathed in butter and sugar — the dessert hit the spot. Light and creamy, it was a refreshing end to the heavy meal.
I might not recommend India Palace as heartily as I once did. And it won't fulfill my need for great Indian in Vermont. But if I'm looking to fill up on the cheap in Southern Vermont, it will certainly remain on my radar.
Alice Eats is a weekly blog feature devoted to reviewing restaurants where diners can get a meal for two for less than $35. Got a restaurant you'd love to see featured? Send it to alice@sevendaysvt.com.It’s less than 12 hours until August turns a corner. For me, it signals a sad close to a season that begins in early June and wends its way through three glorious, salmon-colored months: the season of sipping rosé, almost to the exclusion of other colors.
When I went to pick up another bottle of the pink stuff this week, the usually teeming display of rosé had disappeared; the remaining bottles had been relegated to a mid-shelf rosé ghetto. With heavy heart, I grabbed a bottle of pale Blaufrankisch and resolved not to let the moment die. So that you might consider joining the crusade, here are some wines you can (and should) keep drinking until the rain starts lashing your window — or until they become stranded behind an autumn display of Syrah or Cabernet Franc.
What makes rosé so ridiculously perfect, besides being the anathema to sticky, hot days, is that it pairs like a glove with almost any kind of food. It's cheap, too, or at least can be found for a song. Sparkling rosé can help you wash down anything from fries to oysters to acorns and seeds (why not indoctrinate squirrels, too?). 'Still' rosé loves on BBQ pork, salads, tarts, burgers, or even any iteration of tomatoes you’ve dreamt up in the last few, red-stained weeks. The wisps of acid in a dry rosé deftly meet those in food, punch for punch; their inevitable fruitiness makes for satisfying patio pounding.
Yet do not — repeat, DO NOT! cross over to the dark side: sweet rosés. These run counter to nature. They often have sugar added to their juice, and they are not your friend.
Granted, many Vermont wineries have to make sweet wines to sate the average sugar-loving palate, and rosé is no exception. Fresh Tracks Farm in Berlin makes two rosés: the off-dry Little Piggy Pink, a pressing of Frontenac grapes; and the drier Vermont Rosé, a quenching press of St. Croix grapes.
The latter is where it’s at. With an autumnal tinge to its pink hue, it throws off aromas of raspberries, melon and a hint of menthol, and has heady flavors of cranberry, blackberry and a touch of quince. It’s palate cleansing, luscious and superb for these parts.
I first had Boyden Valley’s Rose La Ju Ju at the Stowe Farmers Market last year, when it was first released; it was striking in that, unlike many dry Vermont rosés up to that point, it lacked the puckery acids that can mar some of our cold-climate wines. Made from Frontenac and Cayuga White grapes, each sip has hints of pomegranate, watermelon and pebbles.
Truth be told, though, most of the rosé I’ve quaffed this summer has been from other shores. As with an acceptance speech, there are too many to mention — floral Masciarelli rosato from Abruzzo; the poised, crisp Château Thivin Beaujolais Rosé; the easy-sipping Cline Mouvedre rosé from California, a real bargain; even the fruity, slightly herbaceous Sofia (Coppola) Rosé that seemed everywhere this summer (even gas stations). But the real lesson of the summer has been that rosé made from Grenache is round, spicy and utterly captivating. The Capcanes Montsant Mas Donis Rosato, for instance, is an extroverted, berry-hued, almost chewable meld of cherries, pepper and plum.
Yet if there was a frog-prince of my summer, it was Austrian rosé. The salmon-hued 2011 Erwin Tinhof Blaufrankisch Rosé, made in Austria’s Burgenland region with native yeasts, exhales citrus and a wisp of candied apple when poured; lime, red fruit and a touch of butter dwell within. On the finish, the wine gives you a tiny kick to the top of the mouth, then settles into a long ‘om’ of tart strawberries.
Here's to Indian summer.
1611 Harbor Road, Shelburne, 985-8498
We all need a taste of luxury now and then. Usually, in those cases, we assume that those meals will be stressful on the wallet. But smart diners know that even at the finest restaurants, meals earlier in the day can cost a fraction of rich dinner prices. To give both me and my billfold a treat, I indulged in brunch at the Inn at Shelburne Farms.
We were led through the grand entrance to a table for two just below a painting of the original homeowner, Lila Vanderbilt Webb. It had taken me weeks to get a reservation, and the joint was indeed jumping. Our server warned us from the beginning that the kitchen was backed up and it would take 15 to 20 minutes for our food to arrive.
That ended up being more like 30 or 45 minutes, but good conversation in opulent surroundings is really the goal at Shelburne Farms. I wasn't in a hurry.
And the food was worth it. The veal and pork terrine was tender and smoky — perfect for a Sunday picnic in Provence. It was bathed in tarragon Hollandaise that had just a whisper of anise flavor. Eggs were poached perfectly and lent an extra layer of creaminess to the plate, which also included microgreens and an herb crostini. It was a delicious plate, but for $13, the portion was more like an appetizer than a hearty breakfast.
The lamb shoulder had no such problems. There was enough to share to make up for the meager terrine.
Like practically everything else on the plate, the tender, braised lamb never left the farm itself. Perhaps that accounted for its fresh, ungamey flavor. Of course, the rolled roast's filling helped, too. Chèvre and fennel combined for a tangy, creamy, licorice swirl.
Beneath the lamb, a pool of sharp cheddar grits made for a hearty, satisfying accompaniment. On top, a sizable pile of scrambled eggs were light and frothy as could be. Sandwiched in between a slaw of cucumber, apple and onion added a welcome shot of acid and crunch to the proceedings.
Our server also brought a thick, almost black, homemade blueberry jam to spread on the O Bread. We paid and left without realizing there was dessert, only discovering it when we saw other diners enjoying. Next time we'll indulge, as if our brunch weren't already indulgence enough.
Alice Eats is a weekly blog feature devoted to reviewing restaurants where diners can get a meal for two for less than $35. Got a restaurant you'd love to see featured? Send it to alice@sevendaysvt.com.
In the September 2012 issue of Bon Appetit, Andrew Knowlton anointed his "50 Best New Restaurant Nominees." One Vermont restaurant landed on the list: SoLo Farm & Table in South Londonderry.
Miles and mountain ranges mean that no one in our office had yet visited SoLo, despite heady rumors that have floated north. BA's nomination was a call to action. This week, with the gravest of intentions, I drove down, wandered into the restaurant's warren of rooms, and unfurled my napkin.
It's easy to get caught up in the Burlington restaurant scene and forget that southern Vermont is a magnet for urban chefs and eaters who co-create an eclectic, polished dining culture. So it is with SoLo, opened last summer by chef Wesley Genovart and his wife, Chloe — who both have some formidable NYC restaurant chops, including stints at Per Se and the running of the much-feted East Village restaurant Degustation. (For Chloe — originally from Vermont — SoLo is a sort of homecoming).
Though chef Wesley hails from Spain and labels his own fare Mediterranean, many dishes at SoLo during my visit had an Asian sensibility — such as the moody soy-lime mignonette that punched up some delicate Cape Cod oysters. Gazpacho here was not just gazpacho, but a vegetal sea poured over a white bowl adorned with paper-thin radishes, cucumber, dill, tiny, pink flowers and crumbled, crispy jamon. It was like drinking an August garden, punctuated by crunchy nubs of fat and salt.
Artful, too, was a plate of spicy greens arranged with seared and tempuraed fresh zucchini, all of it cooled by a smear of fresh house ricotta and sweetened by a hint of grape reduction, half of a poached quail egg adding a top note of... well, fat.
The plates range from apps to "mid courses" to entreés, and it was so hard to decide between them. Among the mid-sized plates — which ranged from $24 to $25 — I caved to shards of pink rabbit confit atop floppy, housemade pappardelle, blended with more of that house ricotta, hen-of-the-wood mushrooms and what appeared to be edamame. The Maine lobster atop a lobster risotto was so fresh it wanted to walk off the plate, though the risotto itself was a touch undercooked — the only misstep we encountered.
At this point I had no room left. No. Room. Left. Still, here came the sturgeon — a moist, seared hunk of fish on which the server poured a warm "fish fumé" — a briny broth with Japanese undertones. And my quail — two tiny birds broken into tinier pieces — was herb-crusted and glistening with brown sear and juice, bristling against a hillock of bright green, herb-laden quinoa. It was earthy in the extreme, but still managed to be light. "Some people who come in here, it's all they order," said our server.
The wine list, both glass and bottle, is eclectic and excellent; so, too, is the all-American beer and cider list, but we didn't make it that far. We floated from fish and quail to an almost caramelized bread pudding alongside sharp, palate-cleansing grapefruit sorbet. Sips of strong coffee were a little unwelcome after a two-hour-long float through a sea of broth, flesh, flowers and brine.
SoLo didn't make the final cut of Bon Appetit's 10-best list, losing out to restos from Brooklyn, Portland, D.C. and San Francisco. More for us? Save your pennies and tread the miles; you won't regret it.
Any serious cocktail lover might order one in a low voice — such is the stigma that can accompany the Cosmopolitan. Somehow this simple blend of Absolut Citron, fresh or Roses lime juice, cranberry and a splash of Cointreau became, in the late 1990s, the cocktail equivalent of a Carly Rae Jepsen song.
But the bartenders that bastardized the Cosmo into sticky, sweet ubiquity are long ago and far away from from the bar at L'Amante in Burlington, where classics rule in both food and drink. With a chef who's a bona fide wine expert and a staff that know their Grillo from their Garganega, this is certainly a place to indulge a love of vino. The cocktail list, by contrast, is short and simple.
Ask bartender Ian DeLorme about wine and he will joyously pour you something new to try. Yet he also keeps classic drinks up his sleeve, including a tart, fresh-juice Cosmopolitan he first blended at his mother's request for a not-too-sweet version.
This summer, DeLorme has been making a Cosmo using floral Hendricks gin, shaking up a generous pour of the stuff with fresh lime and lemon juices, splashes of Cointreau and cranberry juice, and floating St. Germain on top. The resulting drink has tiny bits of ice and hints of roses, a pool of citrusy herbaceousness that you want to dive into and emerge, buzzed, on the opposite rim.
Ian's Gin Cosmo
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, then add the first five ingredients:
4 ounces Hendricks gin
Juice from half a fresh-squeezed lemon
Juice from half a fresh-squeezed lime
1 ounce Cointreau
Splash of cranberry juice
A very light splash of St. Germain
"Shake hard," DeLorme advises, then strain into a martini glass. Float some St. Germain on top, garnish with a wedge of lime, and serve.
85 Pearl St., Burlington, 862-3220
DoughBoy's Coffee Shop may have been the ultimate old Burlington diner. With a clientele split mostly between seniors and college students, it was a kind of spiritual cousin to Bove's Restaurant across the street. When it closed last summer, it left some big shoes to fill.
But Pearl Street Diner's owners, Pam Scanlon and Michael Niederer of Radio Deli, aren't trying to recreate DoughBoy's. Their tack is a little smarter. Along with diner classics, they're also serving up more creative fare with local ingredients.
One need only look at the condiments on the counter to get an idea of the aesthetic. Beside the ketchup, salt and cinnamon sugar, there's also Sriracha.
I didn't need any of the above for the breakfast or lunch dishes I tried on Sunday. I give extra points to any diner that serves breakfast until closing — 3 p.m. in the case of Pearl Street Diner.
The generous omelette I ordered was fluffy and moist. I was tempted by the omelette stuffed with apples and Cabot cheddar, but instead kept with the season and ordered the version filled with sundried tomatoes, fresh basil and Maplebrook Farm mozzarella.
I found the combination to be a little heavy on the tomatoes, leading with an overbearing kick of acid that at times made it difficult to taste the delicate basil. I can't fault the mozzarella, though. Bouncy and saline, it gave a spring to every bite in which it appeared.
There were plenty of homefries, some crisp, some less so. My dining companion loved the special seasoning, but I found the taste, similar to barbecue chips, quite unpleasant. Maybe it clashed with the flavors in the omelette. So on the side, I stuck to bacon. Our server recommended it over the sausage and I imagine she was right. Each rasher was thick but crisp, with just a hint of melty fat at the edges.
For my lunch sample, I hewed to the traditional — a hot turkey sandwich.
The thick slices of house-roasted turkey breast were tender and moist. Despite its pale color, it was clear that the gravy was made with pan drippings. It tasted like a cream sauce made from a turkey base.
The gravy lent a lovely flavor to the otherwise slightly bland mashed potatoes. They were so silky, I'm assuming they were likely made from potato flakes.
While a cup of whole-berry cranberry sauce added a little color, I would have appreciated a veggie of some sort on the side.
Instead, I ended the meal with ice cream pie. Though attractive, it was pretty much as advertised — chocolate chip ice cream in an Oreo crust. Both arrived at a pleasing temperature — cold enough to hold together but not frozen solid.
My favorite thing at Pearl Street Diner? The freshly squeezed orange juice. Foamy and almost as sweet as a Honey Bell, the thick nectar was a true star. And next time, I'll be sure to order something that goes with Sriracha.
Alice Eats is a weekly blog feature devoted to reviewing restaurants where diners can get a meal for two for less than $35. Got a restaurant you'd love to see featured? Send it to alice@sevendaysvt.com.
The northward migration of a chef from Austin, Texas, to the Green Mountains is a rare but wonderful thing. When such a person moves between two wildly different places, they can bring a mashup of styles, ideas and dishes that is nothing but good news for the diners around them.
Chef Cody Vasek grew up on a farm in Bellville, Texas, and developed his culinary chops at hotels in Austin and Houston, where his farm-centric early life gave him a natural affiinity for field-to-fork cuisine. Like many a chef hungry for new experiences, Vasek eventually drifted north and worked his way through several of Jean Georges Vongerichten's kitchens (JoJo, Vong, Mercer Kitche, Spice Market and Jean Georges among them) before he pushed even further north, to the 45th parallel to become the executive chef at Stowe Mountain Lodge. (If there is an invisible hotel kithen circuit, Stowe Mountain must be a major yet frenetic node — as far as I can tell, it's a magnet for talented chefs who don't stay long.)
That was June 2011. By this spring, Vasek had become head of food and beverage at the Whip Bar & Grill, the clubby restaurant on the ground floor of Stowe's Green Mountain Inn. For the blip in time that I lived in Stowe, I knew the Whip as a place with a relaxing patio and dependable but somewhat run-of-the-mill food.
Since I've moved on, it took me a while to make it back to the Whip to try Vasek's food. The menu is a fun read, sprinkled with subtle Southern touches — crab fritters instead of crab cakes, for instance, or a baby green salad smothered in peaches. Here's a remoulade, there's a salsify puree, and everywhere are playful twists on comfort food such as a lobster knuckle sandwich, cauliflower risotto, and the parsnip-and-vanilla milkshake that comes alongside the burger.
That salad was a no-brainer, with wedges of ripe, juicy peaches draped over greens kissed by a honey vinaigrette. Crumbles of Bonneview Farm feta grounded and smoothed the flavors.
Another starter — a pile of plump, sauteéd shrimp — drew on a different octave of natural sugars: They came tangled with charred sweet corn, glistening, sweet pear tomatoes, and wilted basil. It was like summer distilled on a plate.
Choosing a main course here entails sacrifice: You can't possibly eat a grilled, smoked pork chop covered in cherry mustard and roasted onions, a slow-roasted hunk of salmon in heirloom tomato broth, and a grilled Black Angus steak smothered in a roasted salsify root pureé all in one sitting. Since I have a crush on chicken thighs and rarely see them on a menu, I was game to try them wrapped in house-cured pancetta. Apparently everyone else was, too, because by the time I ordered, they were gone — until Vasek magically produced another portion. They looked as though they had been pounded flat and then re-rolled, roulade style, with ribbons of salty, slighly gamey pancetta. Served atop a pile of buttery mashed potatoes and wilted greens, they hit that primal note that only meat-on-meat dishes can.
I couldn't eat another thing. OK, maybe one bite of ricotta cheesecake. Maybe another bite... soon, the delicate, citrusy dessert was gone, and I was scraping up every bit of a succulent compote of baby blueberries. The whole thing was so light, it was almost be a palate cleanser — for a second dinner?