Tsunami

Address: 10722 South River Front Parkway, South Jordan, Utah 84095. 801.748.1178.

Review: Utah. Sushi. One of these things is not like the other. Well, actually, both of these things are not like the other. 

A week or so ago, we, as University of Nebraska Law School alums, invaded Tsunami during the lunch hour to get our sushi on. Since two members of our group served their Mormon missions in Tokyo, and since they picked the restaurant, I harbored higher-than-normal hopes for sushi in the Intermountain West. 

I began with the sashimi sampler. 

To be honest, I don't know enough about sushi and sashimi to give them an in-depth analysis. I just know I like them, and this sashimi I liked. The fish, while obviously not abundantly fresh, was still fresh as you can expect under the circumstances. The wasabi was light and wonderful. (I received assurances from the waiter that the wasabi was actually freshly grated wasabi, as opposed to the normal paste crap you get in supermarkets or other low-end Japanese restaurants.) The soy sauce was flavorful and not too salty. 

I followed my friend John's lead on the sushi and ordered what he ordered. One roll was blue fin tuna and nothing more. Simple. Unadorned. Great. The other was a fried roll, which I was somewhat reticent about, what with it being fried and all. It was the D.T.H. roll. It contained tuna, salmon (an odd choice for sushi far as I'm concerned, but that's because my father ran a salmon hatchery when I was a child), and yellowfin. It was warm, but none of the fish was cooked. While I prefer the purity of nigri, sushi, and unfried rolls, this was pretty good, and the crunch was a nice textural element not normally present. 

All in all, an enjoyable sushi meal.

Rating: 6.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Cork and Pig

Address: 2201 Knickerbocker Road, San Angelo, Texas 76904. 325.227.6988.

Review: Where, oh where, to eat in San Angelo, Texas? It's not in the Hill Country, so barbecue isn't king. It's not south enough to have great Tex Mex. It's sort of in the center of Texas, without a culinary identity.

Today, we tried Cork and Pig. Standard American fare, and quite a few specialty pizzas, were on the menu. 

I ordered the Cuban sandwich, which came with a roasted peanut coleslaw.

Let's begin by extolling the virtues of the coleslaw. Coleslaw is so often a gloopy, mayonnaisey mess. Not this. This coleslaw was light, crunchy, and full of interesting flavor. The roasted peanuts gave the dish a pad thai feel. I've never experienced a coleslaw like this before, and I'd love to experience it again, and again, and again.

The sandwich was not as successful as the slaw. Cuban sandwiches are all about contrast. Contrast of the fatty soft roasted pork with the acidic pickles, and the fatty ham with the mustard. The bread (the most important component of any sandwich) is pressed and grilled and dense. While the pork in this sandwich was beautifully roasted and flavorful, I was completely unable to taste the ham. The contrasting elements (i.e., the pickles and mustard) weren't prominent at all. Like the ham, I couldn't taste the Swiss cheese. I knew there was cheese, but it could have been mozzarella or any other mild cheese. The bread wasn't entirely pressed, and portions tasted like Wonder Bread.

I also partook of my brother-in-law's Southwestern pizza. I'm going to assume because they had pizzas like Margherita D.O.C. and the like, that they were going for a Neapolitan-style pizza. If that is the case, then the pizza was entirely unsuccessful. The crust had huge air pockets (which are very easy fixed). It was also thick and tough. The roasted green chiles were tasteless, so the only prominent flavor present was the pepperoni. The cheese was exceedingly mild, as was the cream sauce. It was all just bland.

My wife ordered the cheeseburger. Quickly, it needed salt, lots of salt. The bun was the best component of the dish. Toothy and structurally sound. The rest was, well, bland. Meh.

So, again I query: where, oh where, to eat in San Angelo, Texas?

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

Ekamai Thai

Address: 1405 E 2100 S, Salt Lake City, Utah 84105. 801.906.0908.

Review: Sometimes you go to a restaurant and have a few things, and when you think about it after the meal, you say to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had just ordered five plates of X." That's how I felt when my buddy Dan and I ate at Ekamai Thai, so I'm going to focus on the X dish.

In this case, X stands for fried calamari. (Noted: I love that a Thai restaurant calls the dish fried calamari, since calamari is an Italian word which somehow became popularized in America even though we could utilize the perfectly legitimate English word squid.) The calamari (see, there I go again) was all rings battered and fried in a very light and crunchy panko-style batter. It was accompanied by a sweet cilantro sauce. Initially, I wasn't altogether sure about the sauce. I like cilantro, but it overpowers easily, and I've never thought it went particularly well with seafood. The sauce was light and not overpowering at all, however. I was surprised how well it married with the ultra-light calamari. Not sure if it was the unexpectedness of liking the sauce so much, but this was one of the better calamari preparation I've eaten. And I say this as one who actually prefers the legs of the calamari to the rings. One can only imagine what this recipe would taste like if Utah were located next to a calamari-rich ocean. 

Wonderful dish.

Rating: Hot dang good fried calamari/10. 

Bistro 412

Address: 412 Main Street, Park City, Utah 84060. 435.649.8211.

Review: My parents are in town for Thanksgiving; so, naturally, my wife and I leave our child with them and escape to Park City for the evening. (Good thing they like our son more than they like us.) 

Our first thought for dinner was Ruth's Chris. However, we had just grilled some tasty T-bones and New York strips the night before, so the wife vetoed the yet-more-meat option. Not knowing the Park City scene, we texted a Park City friend for help. She suggested Wahso, but, alas, it was closed until after Thanksgiving. In the end, we decided on Bistro 412. A little French food every so often is good for the soul, after all.

We started with the escargot. It came in the classic escargot vessel covered in puff pastry. Each de-shelled snail was in its own little divot, swimming in butter and parsley.  

Now, you would think snails would possess a kind of earthy (read: dirt) taste, or possibly a slimy quality. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are nice and light, if a bit chewy. My wife, who steadfastly refuses to touch a snail, asked me what they taste like. "Snails" was about the best response I could muster. Honestly, I could have used a little more parsley in the dish, but it was thoroughly enjoyable as prepared.

And here's a gratuitous snail selfie. 

And then on to the main event: the lamb shank. Now, my wife vetoed the yet-more-meat option, but only for herself. I mean, how can one pass up a tender lamb shank topped with field mushrooms, and accompanied by pureed sweet potatoes and broccolini. The lamb was tender and of serious quality. The mushrooms, mmm. They were meaty in their own right. The sweet potatoes constituted the obligatory sweet component in every lamb dish, and it filled the bill perfectly. The broccolini were green and good, and I don't like broccoli. (As in, I think broccoli is a vile weed.) And the lamb jus. Sopping it up with a bit of the toothsome bread provided is what dreams are made of. Must, not, drool, at, thought, of, jus.

Oh, and we had some pommes frites. Good. Crispy. Garlicky. Nice compliment to the shank.

In all, an enjoyable meal. Score one for the yet-more-meat option.

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

Flatbread Neapolitan Pizzeria

Address: 1044 E 2100 S, Salt Lake City, Utah. 801.467.2180.

Review: I read an interview with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in which he lamented about how he felt like he was always making the same arguments and saying the same things. That's sort of how I feel when I review pizzerie. 

At this point I usually talk about the structure of the pizza, how pizza is really about the dough and about balance, as opposed to toppings. I may wax nostalgic about living in Italy and eating the best pizza in the world on spaccanapoli (it really is transcendent). This time I'm going to forgo all that and just talk.

I had the carpaccio to begin. It wasn't carpaccio. Carpaccio is a raw meat dish, and I received a cured meat with a bunch of arugula. Look, I get that sometimes dishes aren't what you quite expect, and you just have to take them as they come and analyze what is good and what might not be good about the dish you receive. This, however, was simply false advertising. Carpaccio is one of the best dishes served in Italy because the meat is raw, fresh, and deliciously tender. A heavy, cured, fatty product, lightened up with some greenery, is not equivalent. 

Next: the pizza.

The crust was tough, way too thick, and lacked any flavor at all. The meat was good quality. They had baked the pizza with so little tomato that it was dry as a bone. The basil was uncooked (as in they didn't put in on until after the pizza came out of the oven). Also the pizza hadn't been properly rotated in the oven, so one side was burned, while the other was not. This was a poorly executed pizza in every way. 

Just an unfortunate experience.

Rating: 3/10 (5/10 is average).

Penny Ann's Cafe

Address: 1810 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115. 801.935.4760.

Review: About every month or so, a group of young attorneys picks a restaurant for our lunchtime get together. This month was Penny Ann's Cafe. The staff was exceedingly nice and accommodated our group with ease. What you understand the moment you enter Penny Ann's is that you will receive standard dineresque fare. There's nothing fancy about this joint, and thank heaven for that. And while lack of pretense is a good start, food is king. It is to this we now turn.

I began with the fried ravioli ("ravioli" is already plural, so, please, no more "raviolis").

Fried ravioli are what you expect: ravioli rolled in bread crumbs and fried. The quality of the fried ravioli is entirely dependent on the quality of the underlying ravioli. These ravioli tasted industrial, filled with gobs of mozzarella (kind of a non-standard choice as a filling), but lacking in any real taste. The sauce was equally blasé. (Note: of course diner fried ravioli are not haute cuisine (although they could be), but that doesn't mean blah components make a dish taste anything other than blah.)

Next up was the grilled Reuben. I asked for sourdough bread because me and rye, we no get along so well.   

The bread (i.e., where all sandwiches begin and end) was okay. Nice and crispy, but without any discernible sourdough flavor. The corned beef was okay; nothing special. The sauerkraut was unassertive to the point of not really being there. (Existential query of the day: when sauerkraut is just there to be there, then why is it there?) Couldn't taste the Swiss cheese at all, like at all. Man, to be honest, there just wasn't much to this sandwich.

Review: 4/10 (5/10 is average).

Trattoria Brown: Roasted Heirloom Tomato Sauce

With an abundance of heirloom tomatoes to use and/or preserve at the end of Salt Lake City's growing season, we have decided to make boatloads of tomato sauce. Now, this is a fairly standard preserving procedure, so we thought we'd get a little creative. Usually, tomato sauce consists of blanching tomatoes, removing the skin, and then canning them as is or cooking them down before canning. Honestly, however, I don't much like peeling tomatoes, and with this recipe you don't need to.

Ingredients

1.5 pounds fresh heirloom tomatoes

1 medium yellow onion

3 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 Fahrenheit. If your heirlooms are large, quarter them and place them on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil of parchment paper (your choice) so they don't touch. If you are using smaller heirlooms, halve them. If they are cherry tomatoes, just put them on the baking sheet as is. Chop the onion into large pieces and place on baking sheet, along with garlic cloves. Salt and pepper to taste and drizzle olive oil over everything. It should look a little something like this:

 

(As you can see, we used a variety of heirlooms. Six different types to be precise. You can use one type or many, depending on your tastes.) 

Roasted in the oven for approximately 90 minutes, turning every thirty or so. When everything is roasted, place everything in a food processor and process until smooth. It is read to use at this point. You can also freeze the sauce in ziploc bags to use during those clod, tomato-less winter months.