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Food & Beer Pairing; Provisions Gourmet Market; Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Having previously tried one of the wonderful Food & Wine pairing classes being offered by Provisions Market in conjunction with Angela Ortmann (http://www.stlwinegirl.com/), Jay and I were more than happy to hand over the remnants of our vacation fund in order to experience the same type of format paired with glorious beer. Once again, the price per person to attend was $25, an incredible bargain considering the tastiness of the food and the generosity of the beer samples ... of which there were seven.

The first beer of the evening was their reception beer ; this made Jay and me both very happy because we didn't even know there was going to be a reception. They offered everyone a small glass of Bell's Winter White Ale - Bell's is located in Michigan, in case you were curious. This beer was nice and light but also had a bit of spice to it - it tasted great. And the staff was terrific about offering refills to those guests who wanted a bit more. Bravo and thank you for your generosity!

The Winter White was the only beer that I neglected to photograph - abject apologies to you all for my shortcomings!

Our first course once had all managed to seat ourselves was a Fontina & Arugula Salad with Blackberry Vinaigrette paired with Cantillion Saint-Lamivus (Belgium). They served the beer in a champagne flute and you will see from the picture below that it looks a bit like a sparking wine - it reminded me of a darker, heavier, more sour version of Rosa Regale. It's actually a Lambic and definitely had a tart, sour taste that I found unappealing. However, once paired with the blackberry vinaigrette used on the salad it transformed into a very smooth, lightly fruity tasting beverage that I really enjoyed.

This was the first time I'd ever tried a Lambic, which is brewed only in a certain region of Belgium near Brussels. The beer is produced by spontaneous fermentation if my notes are correct, and that is what gives the stuff its distinctive dry, somewhat sour taste.

Silence of the Lambics


Fontina & Arugula Salad


Our second course featured two beers, both IPAs, paired with Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. I am not a fan of IPAs - India Pale Ale - they are usually bitter and very hoppy and I just don't enjoy the flavor. We were served two of them to demonstrate a point, which was that while most IPAs need food to mellow their intensity some actually are drinkable (and tastier) without food. Color me surprised when I tested this theory and found it to be true. Who would have guessed that the Scientific Method could be applied to beer tasting? HAHAHA!!

The first beer pictured below is Southern Tier IPA (New York) - this one was puckered fish-lips bitter. To each his own but I don't see how people can drink a beer like this without some kind of food to cut that taste. The second beer pictured is the Avery DugganA Double IPA (Colorado) - and for some reason I liked this one a lot better on its own than I did with food. Just call me a fickle mush head.

Southern Tier IPA

Avery DuganA Double IPA


The first IPA definitely tasted better with food, especially something spicy like the gumbo pictured next. While the flavor of this dish was good, I didn't really care for it and thought the rice was undercooked. It was my least favorite dish of the entire evening. Strangely enough the second IPA didn't taste nearly as good to me with food as it did without. Like I said, earlier ... fickle mush head!

Chicken & Sausage Gumbo


Next up was Wiener Schnitzel with Gruyere Spatzle paired with Great Divide Tripel Belgian Style Ale (Colorado). The beer is pictured below and was one of our favorites - initially sweet it had a slightly bitter aftertaste which wasn't nearly as noticeable with food.

Great Divide Tripel


You will no doubt notice that I neglected to mention a third food item with our wiener schnitzel. Actually I didn't forget - there was no mention of a fried egg anywhere on the menu and it was a complete surprise. The presentation reminded us of a dinner item we had at Le Atelier in Las Vegas last year in a deconstructed / reconstructed kind of way! And just to show you all that I harbor no illusions about myself ... I thought wiener schnitzel was some kind of sausage ... I had no idea that it was some kind of flat meat dipped in bread crumbs and fried. You can laugh - I did - but since I don't eat German food all I can tell you is that the word wiener only means one thing in my world and it's usually prefaced by the words Oscar Meyer!

I loved the egg and thought the schnitzel was OK - the spatzle wasn't very good. By the time it was served it had congealed a bit and was lukewarm. In a word: gacky!

Wiener Schnitzel, Spatzle & Egg


Our fourth and favorite course came next: Baby Bison Burger with Tomato Relish paired with Morke Beer Here Pumpernickel Porter (Denmark). When Jay and I think porter we usually think dessert, so this pairing surprised us but it worked really well. And thumbs up on the bison burger because it was awesome - tender, juicy, and flavorful without being overpowering. The sweetness of the tomato relish worked really well with the porter. Once grilling season gets here (c'mon May!!!) I think we're going to have to try grilling some of Jay's signature ground-round wine burgers with a side of porter!

Pumpernickel Porter

Bison Burger with Cheese

The evening finished with dessert: Chocolate Bread Pudding with Vanilla Bean Mousse paired with Dieu du Ciel "Aphrodisiac" (Quebec). I had high hopes for this dessert and was a little disappointed - the bread pudding was pre-formed into something resembling a cupcake and its texture was cakey rather than light and custardy as I've come to expect. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought vanilla cream mousse was ... ummmm, I dunno, vanilla in color as well as taste. That mousse looked and tasted an awful lot like chocolate to me! It was good but not nearly as good as it could have been; then again, for the price, I shouldn't really complain too much. As for the beer, it was served two ways: slightly warmed and in a cute little plastic coffee cup and chilled in a champagne flute. The point behind doing this was to draw our attention to the fact that the aroma and taste of the same beer were very different when served at varying temperatures and can be used to complement food accordingly. It was a cool idea that we'd never considered but I guess it makes a lot of sense now that I think about it since the Europeans don't usually drink their beer chilled like we crazy Amerikanskis do.

Warmed beer

Chilled Beer

Chocolate Bread Pudding with "Vanilla" Mousse


They gave away cool beer glasses as door prizes - everyone was told to grope the underside of his / her chair and those lucky few would win a giftie. Woo hooty hoo ... Jason and I both had a golden ticket! We were nice, though, and gave one away to some people sitting at the table next to us - no need to be greedy after all. So check out our cool pair of glasses below!

We also bought two bottles of beer from the evenings program: The Great Divide Tripel and the Pumpernickel Porter. We also bought a full-sized bottle of Navan because I tried it last month while we were on vacation and liked it so much I needed to have some for our home bar. Navan is made by Grand Marnier - it's Madagascar Vanilla infused Cognac and it's quite the taste treat, especially if warmed up just a wee bit to release the vanilla. And it smells really good, too!

Tripel

Porter

Navan

Sushi in Stinktown - We Have a Winner!!!

After what has felt like an eternity, Jay and I finally found a decent sushi place not very far from our homestead on the outer fringes of Stinktown. Kitaro Bistro of Japan has been in business for at least a year but for some reason we never dined there - probably because of our snooty bias against purveyors of sushi in Stinktown, most of whom just can't compare with the fishie culinary joys we've experienced in Florida. The restaurant has a sushi bar as well as a main dining room and a hibachi area. They also have an extensive bar menu with a nice selection of sakes, which we will no doubt have to sample when we pay them another visit.

Honestly, we didn't know whether to laugh or cry when we first entered the restaurant - the hostess asked us if we were there for the all-you-can-eat buffet.

BLEH, NO!!!

We're here for sushi and nothing but sushi; seat us at the bar and let us rrrrrevel in the rrrrrrraw and wrrrrrigling fishes that taste so good nobody can eat just one order. It was really kind of sad ... all the patrons there were gorging themselves at the buffet which was mostly fried foods, some of which I'm not even sure were Japanese. Jay and I were the only two people at the sushi bar and apparently the only two people in the entire restaurant ordering sushi. And let me tell you ... we ordered sushi!!

Actually, before we ordered sushi we ordered a drink - a potent and very tasty beverage called the Volcano for Two. For the bargain price of $13 we were served a huge bowl filled with light rum, dark rum, triple sec, pineapple & orange juices, Meyers dark rum, Creme de Almond, and a splash of Flaming Bacardi. It's hard to tell from the pictures I took, but the shot of rum was ON FIYAH!!!

We loved this drink - it was potent and tasty and so much fun to share, especially with straws that were something like two feet long.





Once the alcohol was taken care of, we placed the first of our two sushi orders. In the picture below there is salmon, tuna, and hamachi nigiri, a spicy tuna roll (four pieces on either side of the platter near the nigiri), a pink lady roll (four pieces on either side on the back of the platter), and a rainbow roll.

The Spicy Tuna Roll included tuna, cucumber, green onion, mayo, smelt roe, and spicy sauce. It was very good and not nearly as spicy as I thought it was going to be. The Rainbow Roll, which is something we order almost every time we go out for sushi, was a traditional California Roll wrapped with salmon, shrimp, tuna, red snapper, and avocado. While this was tasty, I thought it was actually the weakest entry on the plate; it just didn't wow me like it has when we've tried it at other sushi places. However, the Pink Lady Roll made up for it - the roll was smoked salmon, cream cheese, cucumber, tamago, and black caviar wrapped in soybean nori instead of seaweed. I am a big fan of the soybean wrapper because it's much easier on my tender tummy and we always try to order at least one roll like this when we can. Our only complaint with this particular roll was that it was a bit heavy on the cream cheese, which we though overpowered the rest of the ingredients. The nigiri, by the way, was everything that I hoped it could be and more.

We were so happy with the first batch of fishie goodness that Jay and I decided to place a second order ... cause we're incredible hogs and that's just how we roll. The picture below includes another soybean nori roll - the Yellow Rock, which was crab rolled with crab, smelt roe, scallion, and spicy sauce. This was good, but for some reason this time it was incredibly spicy so I didn't eat much of it - I don't think Jay minded finishing this one on his own. We also ordered two more pieces of tuna nigiri, two pieces of smoked salmon nigiri, and one piece of eel nigiri. The tuna was wonderful - sweet and light - but I didn't like the smoked salmon at all; it was too salty and fishy for me. And while I'm not opposed to eel I don't really like it very much so Jay had that one all to himself as well.

The last item we ordered was all for the hubby because I knew he wanted to try something weird and scary that I wouldn't necessarily enjoy. To that end he chose the King Kong Roll which was soft shell crab, cooked shrimp, asparagus, crab stick, and radish sprouts topped with eel sauce and spicy mayo. He loved this and said it was incredibly tasty. I, of course, didn't try it; my favorite type of sushi remains nigiri and I don't care for rolls that have a lot of sauce ... I am not, and never have been, a sauce kind-of-girl. But for those of you who enjoy some sauciness with your fishies this would be a terrific selection for you.

All in all we felt that Kitaro gave us everything we've been looking for in a local sushi joint - good service, fresh fish, and lots of variety. We definitely plan on dining here again when we start jonesin for the raw fishies again.