Ruth's Chris

Address: 2001 Park City Avenue, Park City, Utah 84060. 435.940.5070.

Review: We recently traveled the thirty miles from our home to Park City to celebrate my wife's birthday. The birthday meal was a challenge since most of Park City's upper-crust restaurants still hadn't opened by this time. Now, my wife an I aren't steak people. Once every six months is about our max. This noted, we thought we'd give Ruth's Chris a try. We'd heard good things. We were not disappointed.

We started with the osso bucco ravioli. Osso bucco is a wonderful concoction of veal shanks seared and then cooked low and slow in vegetables and wine. Honestly, the braising liquid is generally the best part of dish. And while the ravioli part of Ruth's Chris's osso bucco ravioli was good but not great (the pasta was too thick, among other things), the sauce was exceptional. Sauces like this is why crusty bread was invented. it was wonderfully fragrant and meaty; a joy to eat.

Next, the side. We ordered creamed spinach, mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, and a roasted tomato. First, the spinach. Creamy, rich, silky. You could taste the spinach, but the taste wasn't overpowering as it can be with some cooked spinach dishes. It went very well with the steak and blue cheese (more on those later). Second, the mashed potatoes. Velvety, garlicky, buttery. The roasted garlic gave the potatoes a deep and somewhat sweet flavor. Very good. Third, the tomato. Not sure what type it was, but it was roasted to sweet perfection. It kept its shape and texture well, and the roasting process brought out the natural sugars. We fought over this tomato to the bitter end.

And then, the steak. We ordered the bone-in ribeye. Medium rare, of course. Topped with blue cheese crumbles. It was perfectly cooked and tender. I'm not entirely sure how you adequately describe the taste of a good steak other than deep and meaty, which this steak was. My wife and I agreed the blue cheese was a distraction, not because it did not taste good, but because the steak tasted so good it needed nothing more than salt. Next time, we will have our steak naked, and we'll like it.

I'm not much of an ambience guy, but Ruth's Chris had a good feel to it. Low lighting. Large tables. Live music. Nice, high-class establishment where you can spend entirely too much for a very good steak, and an even better roasted tomato.

Rating: 8.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Café Galleria

Address: 6055 S 900 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84121. 801.266.2225.

Review: Sometimes you have to say what you mean and mean what you said, and do it quickly. This is one of those times. Here it goes: Café Galleria is a hot mess. We were intrigued by the fact it utilizes a wood-fire pizza oven (usually a good sign), and the promise of Neapolitan-style pizza (Napton pizza). Lies, all lies. 

One of the advantages of using a wood-fire oven is it runs scalding hot. It should cook a pizza in approximately ninety seconds to two minutes, depending. So, it was disheartening when we were the only lunch patrons and we waited fifteen minutes for our pizzas. Not a good start.

I ordered the Siciliana, which included San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, roasted bell peppers, Italian sausage, and red onions. I also asked for prosciutto cotto (my favorite pizza ingredient). Every element of the pizza was, just, sad. Good Napton pizza has a thin supple crust. This crust was dense, gummy, and tough. The tomatoes tasted like nothing. The mozzarella had no flavor, no character. The sausage was dense, overly spiced, and overly processed. The onions ring slices were all different sizes, and some were end pieces entirely took thick, big, and dry to be on a pizza. And, to top it off, the prosciutto cotto advertised wasn't actually prosciutto cotto. It was, instead, prosciutto crudo that had been cooked until it took on the consistency of shoe leather. And just in case you think I'm being picky about nomenclature, I'm not. Prosciutto cotto refers to a very specific type of meat that is entirely different than prosciutto crudo. No one who has ever eaten a pizza in Italy would pass off cooked prosciutto crudo as prosciutto cotto. This lack of product knowledge is indicative, and very likely one of the primary reasons the pizza tasted as it did.

My wife's margherita was more of the same: bland, tough, lifeless, bad.

Now, to be fair, this is a new location for Café Galleria. My understanding is it's a Midway restaurant which recently opened in the Salt Lake Valley location. I have read good things about the Midway location. Maybe they haven't worked out the kinks in Salt Lake yet. We can hope, I guess.

Rating: 2.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Neptune Oyster

Address: 63 Salem Street, Boston, MA 02110. 617.742.3474.

Review: Boston conjures up so many thoughts: the Red Sox, the Patriots, the word "wicked," and, perhaps most prominently, lobster rolls. A lobster roll is an exceedingly simple concept. You put lots of lobster on a grilled roll and eat. In fact, the logic confirming a lobster roll's goodness is clearly demonstrated with the following syllogism. Lobster good; roll good; ergo lobster roll good.

I heard Neptune Oyster had one of the best lobster rolls in the city, so while seeing the historical sites, I dropped in. First thing I noticed was Neptune doesn't not sport many seats, so I waited outside for a while before gaining entrance. Once inside, I began with a buttermilk johnnycake topped with honey butter, smoked trout tartare, and sturgeon caviar. It looked a little sometin' like so. 

Honestly, the johnnycake was a this-sorts-interesting-so I-guess-I'll-try-it choice. So glad I took the chance. This was a damn johnnycake. the cake itself was moist, creamy and surprisingly light. The trout was beautifully smoked. The caviar was salty and tasted like the sea. And the combination of the smoke, salt, and honeybutter was magical. One of the best dishes I've experienced in a long time.

And then came the roll. Again, this is an exceedingly simple dish. the Maine lobster was cooked in butter and placed on a grilled roll. Oh, yeah, and there were fries, but who cares? (The fries were good,  not great but good, and the mayo accompanying them, which is not pictured, was quite good.)

So, no matter what's on a sandwich, every sandwich starts with the bread. The roll in this case was exceedingly white, toasty crunchy on the outside, and nicely dense and chewy on the inside. Good start. And while bread is always the starting point, and usually the most important component of any sandwich, lobster is the star here. And, thankfully, this lobster was as good as American lobster gets. Cooked to perfection in seafood's best friend (i.e., butter), it was succulent and luscious on the tongue. It also possessed that slight sweetness every lobster lover adores. I squeezed on a bit of lemon, which added a nice acidity and cut through the butter a bit. In the end, deliciousness found in utter simplicity: nothing could be better.

Beautiful meal in a beautiful city.

Rating: 8.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Korea House

Address: 1465 South State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115. 801.487.3900.

Review: Korean cuisine represents the confluence of a food I know relatively little about, and tastes I dearly love. The heat, the sweet, the sour, the salt. So good.

My buddy Dan and I went in search of some good Korean, and the Korea House got the nod today. Upon entering, Gangam Style filled the restaurant and a boy was dancing that ridiculous horsey dance Psy popularized heaven only knows how. After Gangam Style ended, the child stopped galloping and nondescript Korean music ensued, as did the food. I ordered osam bulgogi (i.e., spicy Korean bacon and squid). Surf and turf, baby.

Our meal came with a number of sides, including the best kimchi I've ever tasted (more on this later).

The osam bulgogi was a beautifully savory dish. The Korean bacon is bacon like pancetta is bacon: sort of but not quite. It doesn't have the smokey quality of American bacon, but it is pork belly nonetheless, and pork belly can never be anything but money. The squid had that chewy-tender quality of well cooked squid (it could have been a little more tender, but nothing's perfect). The onions and garlic added a savory earthiness that did not overpower either the Korean bacon or the squid. The sauce was all chiles and luscious oil. Just an enjoyable dish. And, while there wasn't as much heat as I would have liked, there was enough to balance out the dish.

The sides. Oh, the sides. There was some seaweed, some broccoli, some yada, yada, yada, and then there was the above-referenced kimchi. Tender, salty, spicy, acidic, and yet amazingly fresh for a fermented dish. Best I've ever tasted, although my experience with kimchi is admittedly limited. 

Mmm, can't wait to go back and try more dishes.

Rating: 7.5/10 (5/10 is average).

High Note Thai Cuisine

Address: 8005 S 700 E, Sandy, UT 84070. 801.256.0209.

Review: Thai food is based on balance and juxtaposition of contrasting flavors. Sweet juxtaposes sour. Salty contrasts with sweet. Sour and bitter enter the mix. Capsaicin adds a beautiful heat that adds interest and aids in digestion. In order for Thai food to work, all these must be present and in the right amounts.

I'm going to be brutally honest, I'm watching Oregon take it to K State right now, so I will cut to the chase: High Note Thai Cuisine just didn't stack up. Well, okay, I'll elaborate a bit. I ordered the yam salad with beef and pork.  

The salad included sliced beef and pork, an an assortment of raw vegetables (i.e., tomatoes, carrots, onions, sweet peas, and a nicely acidic lime and herb sauce. It was served on a bed or romaine and only heaven knows why. The best part of this salad was the vegetables: crispy, tasty, refreshing. The meat was rather indistinguishable. I had no idea the pork was pork. It could have just as easily been chicken. Likewise, the nuts sprinkled atop (a combination of peanuts and cashews) all tasted like peanuts. The sauce was sweet and acidic. It would have worked well if there had been heat to balance out the sweet, but there was no heat at all, which is unforgivable since I specifically asked that the dish be made exceedingly spicy. Without the heat, the dish didn't really come together in any meaningful way.

And then there was the rice. White. Beautifully sticky. Great stuff.

Rating: 4.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Plum Alley

Address: 111 E 300 S, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. 801.355.0543.

Review: Sometimes restaurants produce one particularly iconic dish that sets them apart. El Bulli had the spherified olive. San Domenico in Imola has the canard a la presse. And Plum Alley has the steamed pork belly bun. Let's start with the bun. Much like a good pizza or a good sandwich, the bread is key. Without good bread, the whole dish falls fails. Thankfully, the bun works. soft, somewhat damp (from the steaming, of course), mildly flavored. And then there's the pork belly with a cincalok glaze. Cincalok is a Malaccan paste made of fermented shrimp or krill. The glaze is tangy, sweet, viscous. It encapsulates a wonderful square of beautifully soft, fatty, unctuous, moist pork belly. This is among the best bites of pork I've ever experienced. So simple. So beautiful. And then there are the condiments (vinegared radishes, red onion, herbs). They are meant to add textural and flavor contrasts that add complexity to the dish and cut through the pork fat. Honestly, who on the river Styx next to Hades cares about adding textural and flavor complexity to this dish? This bun is an homage to all things caveman. Meat, bread, fat. Nothing else is necessary, and anything else simply muddles the flavor. Unadorned is the best policy with this bun. It is, in a word: dreamy.

Well, that was effusive. Indulging that streak makes reviewing Plum Alley's other dishes a difficult task because they pale in comparison (that's not to say they are bad; they just pale). The pickled vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, jalapenos, beats) were very nice. Crispy, vinegary, slightly salty. On the other hand, the steamed buns containing duck confited in pork fat with preserved orange was a complete mess. The pork fat masked the the taste of the duck so much I had no idea it was duck. The duck was also somewhat dry, which is hard to imagine since it was confited, but it was. The roasted cauliflower with aioli was okay. The cauliflower was unevenly roasted, but the aioli was quite good.

I'll be frequenting Plum Alley again and again. These future visits will always revolve around the steamed pork belly bun. And who knows, they might involve some other dishes as well. That is, if there's enough room in my belly.

Rating: (overall 7/10, pork belly 9.5/10)

Restaurant 7 Portes

Address: Passeig Isabel II, 14, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. 34 93 319 30 33 / 93 219 29 50.

Review: So, Barcelona is as close to the Mediterranean as Homer Simpson is dumb. Alright, alright, that comparison makes absolutely no sense, but it does contain one eternal truth: Barcelona is stinkin' close to the Mediterranean. And being right up on the sea shore, seafood is king, queen, and all the peons. Now, my wifey no likey seafood (because she plumb crazy), but she indulges me every so often, and tonight was one of those times.

Initially, we ordered jamon iberico with pan y tomates (Iberian ham with a Catalan staple, bread with tomatoes). Good quality ham, and pan y tomates is one of the better things you can eat. Then, the main event: 7 Portes Zarzuela with 1/2 spiny lobster. This is a seafood stew that came with: sole, hake, squid, mussels, the biggest frickin' prawn I've ever seen, and 1/2 of a spiny lobster.

Alright let's start going over this in systematic fashion:

1. Squid: Simple rounds, very tender which indicates it was cooked very well.

2. Mussels: Nothing particularly special, but juicy and good. (Note: I grew up in the middle-of-nowhere Alaska, and mussels were phenomenal there. Compared to those, these were okay.)

3. Sole: Great steaky texture. Perfectly cooked. Great stuff. One of my new favorite fishes.

4. Hake: Tender flaky white fish. Again, perfectly cooked.

5. Shrimp: Only one of these, unfortunately. Large, tender goodness. Didn't even bother taking off the shell to eat it, that's how tender and flavorful it was.

6. Prawn: My goodness, this prawn was huge. It was, literally, the size of a small lobster. The tail meat was mild and a bit without personality. On the other hand, the head portion was full of flavor thanks to the tomalley (alternative spellings seen: tumale, tamale). Of course, tomalley refers specifically to the digestive portions of a lobster found in its head, but it seems applicable to this massive prawn as well. In any case, it was intensely briny and tasted like the sea. It mixed with the little bits of meat found in the head made for wonderful eating.

7. Spiny lobster: First things first, spiny lobster is entirely different from Maine lobster. Spiny lobster has a much more assertive flavor, and assertive in a good way. And this lobster was, like everything else, juicy, juicy, juicy. Of course, lobster suffers from one serious problem: it just doesn't have as much flavor as crab. It's a wonderful crustacean, but it's just a little light on flavor. That noted, I ate every single inch of meat and tomalley this bad spiny boy had to offer.

Overall, the second best seafood dish I've ever had. (First is, without a doubt, freshly caught, killed, and steamed king crab drowned in butter. Could anything be better than that?)

Oh, and my wife ordered vegetable cannelloni.  

The dish can be summed up thusly: Spaniards do not make good Italian food. Stick with the seafood.

In the end, this picture sums up my experience at 7 Portes.

Rating: 8/10 (5/10 is average).