Daily Planet. Burlington, VT

Back in December, Daniel Boulud announced the names of twelve semifinalist chefs who would gather in February to compete to represent the United States at the next Bocuse d’Or culinary competition. This international competition is the World Cup of the culinary world, and I was curious to see the list of chefs that had been chosen by a group consisting of all star chef and restauranteurs Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller. Included in the list of semifinalists I saw chef Michael Clauss, and next to his name, The Daily Planet in Burlington, VT… Shortly after this, I looked it up and saw that he would be doing some test work until January when he would be the new executive chef, introducing a new, locally inspired menu.

I was excited by the prospect of such an acclaimed chef entering the Burlington restaurant scene, and was also excited by the fact that he was looking to keep things simple, fresh, and local. The night before last my mom made a reservation for three. My mom, step-dad, and I met at the restaurant on a Sunday night, finding it surprisingly busy for the end of a Burlington weekend… We waited a few minutes for our table then were led to our seats near the kitchen. The restaurant has new custom made tables that contribute to an interesting overall feel. It was almost surprisingly casual (in a good way) with a bustling bar and one or two small groups being served food on couches as you walked in the door.

The menu does not veer away from this casual feel offering an extensive appetizer selection comprised of a couple of salads, calamari, mussells, and olive cured tuna to go along with entrees like a broiled veal chop, pork loin, a burger, and a couple of vegetarian/vegan options. Their was also a fair number of specials including a pumpkin hummus appetizer that the three of us decided to share. It was served with toasted pita and the pumpkin flavor was there (I half-expected there to be very little “pumpkin”) though not overwhelming. The dish could have had an easier time coming alive had it been seasoned a little more aggresively, but I noticed this much more taking my first bite than I did my last.

To start, I had the olive cured tuna with chikpeas, roasted red pepper, arugula, and vermont qual egg. The portion was larger than I had expected. There was an impressive serving of fresh tasting tuna broken up on top of a lightly dressed chickpea salad. The arugula was fresh. The quail egg was hard boiled, but I had expected/hoped for a touch of bright, runny yolk to add to the dish.

Next I ordered the vegan lasagna. root vegetable curry. Vermont soy tofu. tarragon read the description. I don’t normally go for the vegetarian/vegan options, but I was intrigued. Many chefs offer vegan alternatives, but this dish seemed rather bold. For it to be included on the menu, I thought it must have been something the chef was proud of. Upon receiving the dish, there was very little that I would associate with a curry. This is not a bad thing. In fact, when it arrived, it was a very large portion and was presented in a very appealing way. It looked more like a traditional lasagna, and I was excited to eat. There were two different textures of soy, one resembling mozzarella and the other ricotta, layered with well done vegetables and hefty sheets of al dente pasta. I assume the pasta was eggless (in order that the dish remain vegan), but the color also suggested that it was something other than a plain, white, semolina pasta (maybe spinach pasta???). It was overall very hearty and had excellent flavor, and this flavor was accentuated by the bright red tomato sauce that the sqaure piece of lasagna appeared to be floating in. The sauce was not only bright in color, but in flavor. Overall, I found the dish very successfull, and I hope to have it again soon in spite of the fact that I might like to try other menu items.

My mom and step-dad both ordered and were very happy with a salad appetizer, and my step-dad was impressed by the short rib “sloppy joe.” My mom ordered the pork loin with potato puree and mustard sauce. She did not enjoy the dish, but is also very partial to the way she cooks pork at home. I tried the dish and found that it was okay but nothing to write home about. The flavor of the sauce was decent, and the accompanying potatoes and saurkraut were acceptable, but the pork was fairly dry and underseasoned. In addition to this, two of the three pieces of pork were relatively fatty and probably should not have been served.

Other than this one slip up, I thought that our trip to the slightly reinvented Daily Planet was a positive experience. The tuna and the vegan lasagna were both excellent, and they are both items that I will be back for. I would also like to make it back to ask the chef about his vegan lasagna. I enjoyed the dish very much, and I would like to know what went into creating it.

Tourterelle

Just north of Middlebury, VT on Rt. 7 used to be Roland’s Place. This past summer, a new establishment took over the location. Last night was a friend’s birthday, and eight of us met up to celebrate with some classic French cuisine. The menu is intersesting, with a section devoted to appetizers, one to crepes, an entree section, and then bistro fare. They have soup and salad, four different kinds of crepes, entrees like pork tenderloin, bouillabaisse and salmon, and also have steak frites and two different burgers.

Looking over the menu, I decided to start with an appetizer portion of the bouillabaisse and a glass of Clean Slate Riesling from Germany. For an entree, I chose one of the specials, a pan-seared cod served with quinoa, zucchini and squash.

The Riesling was pleasant, but was a little sweet for my taste and was not all that complex. The bouillabaisse came with scallops, mussels, “fin fish” (most likely cod as it was the special), and shrimp served in a tomato broth with a saffron aioli. The fish was all well cooked, very tender, but the tomato broth was a little heavier than I am used to for a bouillabaisse and that was not helped by the aioli. It is not easy to cook the different pieces of seafood correctly together, and I was very satisfied with how this was done, but the broth could have had a bit more in terms of the depth of flavor. In my opinion, more attention could have been paid to what the fish were swimming in.

The cod was simply seared, served on top of quinoa mixed with zuchini and squash. The dish was served with a sage brown butter sauce. I enjoyed the dish very much. The quinoa was simply prepared, but was cooked well. The zucchini and squash were cooked through and were certainly not overcooked, still holding on to some of their texture. The cod was cooked perfectly. It had an nice, hard sear on the outside, but was extraordinarily tender and as moist as any piece of sashimi. It almost melted in your mouth and was a joy to eat.

Overall, I was happy with the meal. The atmosphere was very pleasant. They have a nice bar, although I might like to see more than the three beers they have on tap with all of the local Vermont brews around. The tables were elegantly set, and the owners were attentive. Our waitress could have impressed me more as she made a couple of mistakes in my eyes, asking a couple of uncomfortable and unnecessary questions. In terms of the food, I was impressed by how well the ingredients were treated, the only thing lacking being the bouillabaisse broth. It is certainly worth trying out if you are in the area and looking for an upscale meal interspersed with bistro fare.

Emptying the Fridge with Friends

This past weekend, I invited a couple friends from college to make the 45 minute trip from Middlebury to Burlington for dinner at my house. They said that Wednesday worked great, but that they would have to find a car. They asked around, and come Wednesday afternoon, I hadn’t heard anything final. So I didn’t end up making a trip to the grocery store. At about 5 o’clock I got the final word that three of them were coming up after going for a short run. They would arrive around 7:00. I thought for a second that I might be in trouble, until I looked in the fridge. Working with a butcher leaves me with an abundance of meat products, so the proteins would not be a problem. I had two NY Strip steaks, three and a half chicken breasts, two house made veal and apple bratwursts, a half pound of shrimp, and two very fresh-looking whole mackerel.

The easy solution to me seemed to be the grill. I readied the meats for the grill, seasoning the steaks with salt and pepper, and the chicken with a dry rub consisting of salt, cayenne, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, and paprika. I cleaned up the shrimp, gutted the mackerel, and seasoned them with salt and pepper as well. Everything was ready for the grill, but I was still unsure about what else we would be eating. I looked around and found the kitchen staples: onions, garlic, and carrots. I also had bought a couple of fairly large leaks earlier that day.

So I started with chopping up a few strips of local applewood smoked bacon. I rendered the fat out of these in the pan, and removed the crispy bacon pieces. I diced up the onions and garlic. I sliced the carrots into thin rounds, and chopped up the leaks pretty finely so that they would become tender relatively quickly. I started sweating the onions, garlic, and carrots in the bacon fat and a bit of extra virgin olive oil. Shortly after, the leaks entered the pan as well along with a couple tablespoons of chopped fresh thyme. I seasoned as I went along, and threw some fettuccine in a pot of boiling water because I knew a group of cross country runners would need it…

The pasta was cooking and before I knew it, the sautee of the vegetables had turned into a braise (through the addition of about 2/3 of a bottle of a local Oktoberfest) with aspirations of turning into a hearty “condimento” for the pasta. While the alcohol cooked off, the pasta finished cooking. Well, I drained it just shy of being done as I wanted it to finish cooking in the sauce. The vegetables were now nice and tender, and the alcohol had cooked out of the beer. I added a tablespoon or two of honey, a handful of grated parmegiano reggiano, some salt and pepper, then added the fettuccine. I turned the pasta around in the pan, covering each strand with the beer, honey, cheese, and vegetables. After a minute, I removed everything to a large bowl, drizzled a few tablespoons of olive oil over the top, and the dish was finished.

My friends, realizing I had not used a recipe, decided they would fittingly name the dish "beer noodles"

While all of this was happening, I had filled the grill with a variety of meats. The chicken came off just cooked through and juicy. One steak I took off at medium rare, and the second I let cook a bit longer than i would have par the request of a guest. The bratwurst had started to release some of its juices into the grill, causing some excellent flare-ups to occur. They came off with the smaller chicken breast and the medium rare steak.

First of three plates of meat to come off the grill

The meat was all charred and delicious. I served the chicken with a homemade barbecue sauce I had in the fridge. The mackerel was flaky and flavorful; full of bones, but I didn’t mind eating around them. The pasta was excellent, with the crispy bacon bits served in a bowl on the side. My friends slowly but surely made their way through the absurdly large bowl of past, and by the time my parents were home, it was gone. The “beer noodles” definitely held the malty flavor of the beer, and this was complimented well by the sweetness of the honey and the fruitiness of the olive oil. An equally successful dish may have evolved from a local hard cider braise (holding the honey might be necessary in this case).

At the end of the night, we had each eaten beyond our heart’s content. My mother, returning from a trip the New York City for work, was very grateful to see empty space in the fridge. I guess I need to find ways to get friends over to the house more for dinner. It certainly helps diminish the ever growing stock of meat that we have, thanks to my work with Frank the butcher at Healthy Living Market.

Thanksgiving is around the corner…

…And the idea of spending a couple days in the kitchen with a fifteen pound turkey and its companions does not have me too excited. Maybe it’s the long days at work combined with going to school, or maybe I just want to do something new. Either way, I think it would be much more enjoyable to take the expanded budget of a Thanksgiving dinner and do some culinary experimenting. My mom seemed a bit hesitant when I told her this, and my brother told me pretty bluntly, “Dude, we have to make turkey and stuffing. It’s Thanksgiving.” So I am stuck in the middle of my family’s appreciation for a certain tradition and my own desire to do something unique.

The first thing I brought up in a conversation with my mom was sushi and fresh fish that we could order to have delivered the day before the feast. This may have not been the best way to introduce my idea. My mom is not a fan of eating raw or barely cooked foods… Thoughts of what I could do with fresh uni, live spot prawns, abalone, tuna, or halibut danced through my head. Don’t get me wrong. I want my family to be behind the endeavor, so this may have to wait for another occasion. Perhaps my birthday might be more appropriate.

In the past couple of days, I have made more of an attempt to take a traditional Thanksgiving and put my own twist on it. Game birds are available in Vermont, right? I may have to put in an order at work for pheasant along with the turkey that my brother insists be a part of the meal. Maybe I don’t even need anything new. Does my brother need to eat a whole roasted bird? I know he needs stuffing or dressing, and last year he even strayed from his go-to Stove Top to try my homemade dressing. He liked it too. It was difficult to convince my mom to keep the bag of dried bread cubes and seasoning shut, but I managed to do it. My brother was still happy. Would he be as happy with some kind of turkey roulade? Would I be able to make a reinvented cheesecake desert? Cheesecake ice cream with a white chocolate and graham cracker ganache and blackberry whipped cream? That one may take some more thought and practice, but why can’t I have fun with tradition?

I guess the way I’m thinking about it is that Thanksgiving dinner just might not have to look the way it always has to satisfy tradition. Introducing new flavors or just presenting the old flavors in a new way might get the job done. Obviously this is how I have fun. I am almost certain that my family would be skeptical of anything different I do, but they are usually not disappointed. It will be a challenge to take a meal with so many courses and deliver on each one. In spite of this, I am more than willing to present one dish that is not entirely successful. This will be my attempt to get through the overwhelming feeling of redundancy that has taken over me. Sure, the meal is only made once a year, but I want to do something different, and I will definitely post about the experience, however positive or negative the result.

What Does it Mean to be Vermont Raised?

As I have spent the last twelve years of my life growing up in Vermont, I have come to think of it as home.  Until I was eleven  years old, I lived in Los Angeles. I love to visit California whenever I can. I have an older brother who lives there, and in my mind, you can’t beat the weather. I will shamelessly purchase and devour a pound of soft-serve (not including toppings) at a self-serve frozen yogurt place.  I don’t enjoy the change of seasons. I do not ski or snowboard. I am however, undoubtedly a Vermonter.

Since I have lived here, I have tasted many Vermont made products. With the development of my interest in food, locally made and produced food has come to mean something special to me. Nobody produces maple syrup like Vermont. One of my earliest Vermont memories is a visit to my friend’s house in middle school collecting sap from the trees in his backyard. Vermont makes some good cheese, mostly cheddar, and the state has a surprising number of small breweries. Recently, I even tried something called mead, a honey wine made from fermented honey and water that soldiers at war used to drink. For such a small state, it seemed to me that Vermont had so many people doing things right.

With my new job working for a butcher at the local co-op, I began to further understand what phrases like pasture-raised and grass-fed meant. Most of the meat we carry is local, and we aim to provide the highest quality meat possible to our clientele. This has even included taking trips to local farms to witness the slaughtering of animals. To take a quote from our department’s web page, “Locally raised meat and poultry are the bedrock of this department. We have been working with local farmers for over 20 years and are honored to offer the finest meat products we’ve ever eaten! Vermont can be very, very proud of its farmers who’ve risen to the occasion to provide a steady stream of fantastic meat products.”

This recent experience of mine makes the news I heard today of the Grand Isle Slaughterhouse that much more upsetting. I saw a headline this morning on Twitter, and got a call from a customer asking if we carried meat from “the slaughterhouse with the inhumane treatment of calves.” My coworker and I were distraught to say the least. I immediately sent contributor DBR a message to post a link to the Burlington Free Press article.

When I got home from work, I read the whole article, and followed a link to the Humane Society website that included a detailed story as well as the video footage taken by someone working undercover at the slaughterhouse. The video shows young calves being repeatedly prodded, kicked, and knocked to the floor. In addition to this, there are scenes of cows being stunned for slaughter in large groups rather than being restrained individually. There is complete disregard for the proper treatment of the calves. Where the stun gun is placed is payed little attention, and when this is done in large groups, some calves return to consciousness before they are killed. On hsus.org you can read the facts, as well as see video footage. Many of these images are difficult to watch, and it made me very uncomfortable knowing that this was taking place locally.

I am grateful to be able to say that we are not selling this meat, and I did not have to pull it off the shelves this morning. However, it does speak to the likely fact that this is taking place elsewhere. There are regulations put in place, and there are people in charge of making sure that farms and processing plants follow them. This is very difficult to do. To this point, people going undercover has perhaps proven to be the most effective way to uncover treatment like this.

It is so easy to overlook the meat industry and just think of your dinner as going from the package to the plate. This is something that I have made a conscious effort not to do as I discover more and more about the food world. I want to know as much as possible about the food I consume. Local is something that is important to me, but this is true because it is easier to know what you are getting. Just last week, my boss watched firsthand the slaughter of a cow by one of our meat suppliers. This is something that is comforting to me—to know that the meat we provide to the community has been raised properly and slaughtered humanely. I look forward to when I may be able to witness this myself. This will likely be soon, and I am sure that it will be an unpleasant experience. I am not someone who believes that witnessing the slaughter of an animal makes it more okay to eat the animal, but I look to take away some comfort in knowing that things are being done right. I want to go to a Vermont farm, and I want to be proud of what I see. My ideas of what being “Vermont raised” means have been shaken a little bit today, but I think and hope that what was going on just 30 minutes north of my house is not the Vermont standard. There is much to be proud of in the world of Vermont local products, and I think that it may take some time and a little research before my faith is restored in our local slaughterhouses, as well as those throughout the country.

Grand Isle Slaughterhouse Shut Down

Yikes. Definitely of interest to anyone who eats animals: The Grand Isle Slaughterhouse, a big meat supplier for the Vermont area, has been shut down and a criminal investigation will begin shortly. The reason? Cruelty to calves.

Here’s the kicker:

A society member, working undercover as an employee of Bushway Packing, Inc., recorded footage of other workers shocking, kicking, slapping and inadequately stunning veal calves before slaughter, said the society’s chief operating officer, Michael Markarian.

Full article here, from The Burlington Free Press.

Check back with us soon for more on this story.

Pasture Raised Pig and Lamb on the Menu at Bluebird

This fall I began work in the meat department at a local co-op in Burlington. I am learning a lot, and it has been fun. Weekly deliveries include whole pig, veal, lamb, venison, and sides of beef. I was surprised at how comfortable I was in the walk-in, ducking around hanging carcasses and removing innards with my bare hands. In my first days, I had brief moments when I would be reaching for a box of assorted beef cuts, and I would look to my right, only then noticing what I had pushed out of my way. Had I really not noticed that it was an entire half of a pig that I so rudely pushed aside?

Needless to say, in the development of my culinary interest over the past few years, using all parts of an animal is something that doesn’t leave me with an uneasy feeling. It excites me. This is not uncommon among my coworkers, and I had heard the word Bluebird thrown around a few times. From what I gathered, they had been there for dinner, it was something a little different for Burlington, VT, and they had very good things to say about it. They spoke mostly of the interesting menu and how they had made their way through nearly the entire thing. They were not talking about multiple visits. They were talking about the night before. I was going to have to go soon. I needed to experience this, or at least have my own experience of what they had to offer.

So I went with a roommate, my mom, and my step-dad. I have spent the last couple months living with one of my best friends, and he is experiencing many foods that he never would have thought. He was extremely reluctant at first but has become more adventurous each week we wake up across the hall from each other. My mom, I am still working on.

We had a reservation for 7 o’clock on a Wednesday, and we were seated when we arrived at a nice table in the corner. The restaurant, as its name would suggest, has a tavern feel. It is dimly lit with earth tones surrounding all diners. Shortly after we were seated, the server took our order. We ordered a couple of  “snacks” including  a salad of marinated and raw  vegetables. As it is fall, there was an assortment of root vegetables with a few greens, well dressed as to complement and not mask the flavor of the vegetables. My roommate and I had the warm uni with a warm mustard vinaigrette. The sea urchin roe had a nice, creamy texture and the aroma and taste immediately transported you to the ocean. The mustard vinaigrette was very mild, and I found that it neither added or took anything away from the dish. My mom seemed pleased with the deviled farm egg, and the entire table was impressed by the chicken liver toast. The liver was cooked well and was not too grainy or mineraly. It came with charred pieces of toast and a simple and sweet cipollini onion jam.

In addition to the appetizers, the chef also sent out a couple of complimentary bites. One was a little ball of liver terrine dusted in crushed pistachios. It looked nice, but I could not try it, as I have a mild nut allergy. The other was a little cube of deep fried head cheese. It was fairly good, but the fried breading was the prominent flavor rather than the terrine of pork.

For the main courses here, most are recommended to go along with another dish, or in our case, two or three. Mr friend and I shared a few dishes. We ordered the oysters and a fluke crudo that our server brought out first. The oysters were very good. They were fresh and served raw on the halfshell. They were served with a lemon vinegar that was excellent. It was very tart, and the lemon paired well with the briny oyster. The fluke crudo was not outstanding, and it was a very small portion. The raw strips of white fish were fresh, but fluke is a mild white fish, and serving it with breakfast radish and small shavings of cracklin (pork rind) did not add much to the dish. Along with these, I ordered a rare vos, a Belgian style amber ale. It came with a good head on and was enjoyed with the rest of the meal.

The tapas sized dishes did not stop here, which was a good thing for my hunger, but it did help keep the bill down. Our next four dishes came out along with what my mom and step-dad ordered for their main course. They shared the double burger and a celery root soup that was served with baby scallops floating somewhere in the middle of it. The soup was flavored with ham hock, but I found that it was surprisingly sweet and lacked a real celery root flavor. Oh yeah, I tried their two dishes as well. The burger was fairly good, but nothing too special. The meat was well cooked, but was served with a boucher blue that I am surprised to say was nowhere near overpowering. That is generally what I worry about when a burger is served with blue cheese, but with at least the bite I took, the cheese may as well have not been there.

The four dishes my friend and I were sharing included a veal heart dish, razor clams, a squid spaghetti, and a flatbread with falafel. I started with the razor clams which came with a couple of fingerling potatoes. The potatoes were not bad, but the razor clams were excellent, very tender with a good flavor reminiscent of the ocean. The squid spaghetti and the flatbread were probably my least favorite plates to come to the table. The squid ink pasta was well cooked, but the squid ink added nothing but color. The squid in the dish was a little bit tough, and I found that the saffron vinaigrette was a little heavy and lacked any hint of saffron. Then there was the flatbread. The bread itself had a decent flavor and chararound the ouside, but was soggy through probably 75 percent of it from some sort of vinaigrette. The falafel was okay, fairly light, but were a little sparse and seemed to be mostly made up of the fried outside. There was not much of the light, fluffy interior that I enjoy in a falafel. Lastly, the arugula was something that I did not enjoy at all. There was a fair amount of it, and I think that the dish would have been much better served removing whatever the bread was sopping up and using it to dress the arugula.

I didn’t save this dish  for last, but it was far and away the one I enjoyed the most. The veal heart was served with braised escarole, house made guanciale (an unsmoked salted and cured meat, usually made from pig’s jowls or cheeks), and a soft egg. Everything here made sense to me. The escarole was well cooked, the soft egg oozed a bright yellow yolk when you broke through it, and the guanciale provided a salty contrast (although it was diced small and could easily go unnoticed). The veal was fantastic. It was cooked perfectly, on the rare side of medium rare in order to maintain it’s tenderness. It certainly did that. The five slices of heart were a meaty pinkish-red in the center and were well seasoned to bring out the flavor of the meat. I would certainly go back  and have this dish again, recommending it to anyone who makes it there while it is still on the menu.

Overall, I had a good time. It was fun to go experience this with family and a good friend. I very much appreciate what they are trying to do here as well. Their menu changes often according to what they have, and producing consistent dishes with a changing menu is much more difficult to do than dishing out the same dished night after night. The chef here clearly is looking to work creatively, and that is part of what makes eating at a place like this exciting, even if not every dish comes out perfectly.

10/28/2009

Café Shelburne in Shelburne, VT

Cafe Shelburne is a little under 15 minutes outside of Burlington and is right in the middle of the town of Shelburne. It is a nice setting for a restaurant, and the building is inviting. My friend’s parents were visiting Vermont for the weekend, and they took us out for dinner at about 8:30. The restaurant was emptying out at that point, and we were seated in the main dining room. There is a bar as you walk in that is small but sets up a comfortable and elegant atmosphere. This atmosphere continues as you head into the dining room. The elegance, however, does not overpower the sense that you are still in Vermont. You are, in fact, in Vermont, and I enjoyed feeling it.

The first course I had was a corn soup with a corn and  shrimp “coulis.” It was a stock based soup and had a good corn flavor. The shrimp complemented the corn well and actually providedsome nice texture, although may have been a little less tender than I may have liked. Next I had a scallop “salad.” There were three small scallops, very well cooked and tender. It was on a bed of sauteed endive that was certainly appreciated. The mesclun would have been nice had there been more than three or four leaves. It might as well have not been there. For the main course I had the steak tartare. It was beef tenderloin ground to order. They bring the tartare to the table for you to season it according to your taste. They bring things like shallots, dijon, worcestershire sauce, capers, an egg yolk, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar. I enjoyed the dish, but it did not show much from the chef. The three others I was eating with all enjoyed their food and had no complaints. Overall, I found that they do their version of French food well. It was a very nice meal, and I would certainly enjoy going back.

10/12/2009

A Single Pebble in Burlington, VT

I went here last night with a friend and family. There were four of us. I went very hungry, and was ready for a good meal. We started out by ordering a couple of appetizers. We ordered a soup, the Sea of China, with shrimp,  scallops,  squid, and a white fish I can’t remember. It wasn’t bad, but like the white fish, not memorable. I also had the salad of napa cabbage which was in a vinegar dressing and was fairly ordinary, probably cost 50 cents to make, and was sold for $7.50 or something. We had doule garlice brocolli, which again, was nothing to write home about.  That may have been the story of the meal, as the five flavor chicken left me with the same impression. The reason I would not give it three stars is that none of the dishes surpassed this, and a couple were not up to par. The Bejing Street Noodles were overpoweringly flavored with soy and were a little salty. My mom served herself some,  took one bite, and left the rest. I took a little bit to try, was very hungry for some starch, but decided to go home and have a bowl of cereal instead of having more noodles. We also had a seafood special with shrimp, scallops, and tilapia. The sauce on this dish was primarily white wine and garlic, lacking flavor and under-seasoned. The meal was not great overall. Most of the dishes were edible but not much more. We also paid about 30 dollars a person with one person getting something to drink, and you could get a better bowl of noodles on the side of the street for 5 dollars in most places.

10/04/2009

L’Amante Ristorante in Burlington, VT

Excellent upscale Italian food in Burlington. This, in my opinion, is one of the top restaurants in Burlington. For the experience, I do not find the price to be at all unreasonable. I spent some time working in the kitchen here, but mostly I have come as a customer. Things here are done right. The owners are great and the service staff is very professional, trained in all of the little things that make a meal feel special. The dining room is simply and elegantly decorated.

As for the food, it is excellent. They take quality ingredients and simply prepare them. One thing that they pride themselves in is the consistency. My parents eat here all the time and consistency is something that is extremely important to them.They are comforted by the fact that when they go out to eat here, they know what they are going to get. I went to eat dinner here this week, and I ended up having the grilled calamari and grilled sardines to start, then a shrimp risotto, and a seared halibut special main course. I am a big fan of their grilled calamari. It is served with balsamic marinated and grilled radicchio, finished with balsamic and extra virgin olive oil. The flavor is great. The calamari is tender. It is an excellent way to start the meal. The grilled sardines were quickly grilled and flaky, served with an eggplant caponata. The chef sent it out, and needless to say, I was glad he did. The roasted garlic risotto with shrimp and asparagus  I was served was excellent. Very creamy in texture, the rice still had some chew to it. It was well seasoned and very enjoyable. The halibut was also seasoned very well and had a good sear on it. Unfortunately, two members of our party had asked for their halibut cooked through or well-done. There were four orders of the special at our table, and it seemed like after this request, all of the fish were cooked a little longer. My fish was just a touch dry, but still enjoyable.

So many things about our dinner, and all of the experiences I have had here, were done right. There is excellent food and a great atmosphere. If one is looking for a nice dinner in Burlington, L’Amante will not disappoint.

08/31/2009