Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
Sidney Street Cafe: May 2016 Tasting Menu
Never have I ever...gotten the tasting menu option at Sidney Street Cafe. I am a control freak. I like to pick my food.Ā Most restaurants have set tasting menus where you pick between two options for each course, or it's prewritten so you know what you're getting (Niche, for example, has both prix fixe and a chef's tasting). Sidney StreetĀ only offersĀ a chef's choice tasting menuāyou don't know what you're getting. Each course is a surprise, and no one gets the same thing. Share (or don't)! Try new things. You're in their hands and they're going to make sure you leave happy. It's sort of like that special massage place you went to in Thailand. Here's a look at my experience with May's tasting menu (5 courses per person x 3 of us = 15 dishes. I did not get all of these).
I've always believed that bread service at a restaurant should be something special or nothing at all. Chef Kevin Nashan obviously agrees, because their fry bread/beignets are out of this world good. Try limiting yourself to just one. You will fail.
All tasting menus start with the crudoāMay's is a kombu-cured fluke (a Japanese preparation that turns the mild fish into an umami bomb) with blistered peas, pickled green strawberries, and, as odd it may sound, a white chocolate vinaigrette. The vin isĀ more of a buttery, sweet, umami kick than biting into a bar of white chocolate.
The second round of courses includes a Spring Gnudi, complete with ramp pesto, melted leeks, egg yolk confit, lemon curd, and grilled ramp leaves. This dish confirms what I had long believed: ramps are the sexiest of theĀ alliumĀ genus.
A plate of foie gras torchon with tandoori spiced apple, buttermilk borscht, and beet sorbet takesĀ ingredients I normally associate with winter and heavy eating and turned it into a delicate plate appropriate for spring. Beautiful minimalist plating.
Buttery soft octopus over posole with salsa verde, Swiss chard chips, and little peppers whose name I can't remember remains a star on the menu.
Round 3 is seafood. I'm not given a taste of the smoked shrimp spring rollārude, selfish tablematesābut previous versions of it were excellent.
The halibut plate has become Sidney Street's SpencerĀ buzzword dishāeven if the main protein was raccoon, I'd still order it thanks to uni bisque (I'm already sold),Ā clams, squid ink, and crab. I take a few bites and realizeĀ I don't even need all the components: just give me that perfectly cooked, buttery halibut topped in that uni sauce and I willĀ be happy. This is going into my epicurean spank bank.
Sidney Street has introduced me to many ingredients, and it was here that I fell in love with scallopsĀ close to a decade ago. Since then, I've lost interest. My love has faded. Rarely does a scallop seduce me. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in...with creamed English peas, a mushroom conserva, morels galore, glazed pearl onions, and a miso jus. Yet another dish that tastes like Japan in Missouri in Spring (perhapsĀ Nashan can open a restaurant with that theme and call itĀ ććŗć¼ćŖ).A small intermezzo of blueberry mint sorbet arrives and we're off to the entree races. My plate isĀ the rabbit porchetta, stuffed with rabbit merguez and wrapped in bacon, set over a bed of garbanzo bean ragout, morels, smoked kidneys, and a buttermilk broth. If you haven't had rabbit before, Sidney is the place to do it. It's almost like chicken...but better.
The squab & dumplings and beef cheek have been updated with the season and remain solid choices. The confit and grilled squab, accompanied byĀ drop biscuits, citrus braised endives, and a lemongrass veloute is the most rustic of the dishes, and my least favorite of the three. I've never been much of a fan of traditional "chicken & dumplings", and found the dumpling bowl to be a little heavy and muted, especially compared to the other dishes.
If you're not doing the tasting and absolutely must eat beef, go for the cheeks instead of the steak. Pull apart tender meat over a fermented potato pancake with bone marrow vinaigrette. *Drops the mic*
I can't believe I used to be some loser who never ordered dessert. I shudder to think of all the sugar I've missed out on. The classic "Snicker Bar" and Carrot Cake haven't changed, which I won't whine about, because both are so goddamn good. The fact that I can eat the carrot cake over and over and be blown away each time should indicate just how good it is. The Zuggernaut is one helluva chef.
I hope I one day meet a woman who can satisfy me like that cake.
There's a new challenger to the Iron Throne of desserts though, it seems. AsĀ the server places a plate in front of meĀ that looked like The Shire from Lord of the Rings,Ā two things strikeĀ me: I amĀ a loser for thinking of The Shire instantaneously and I amĀ about to be eating matcha, aka green tea, aka one of my favorite things. All together, it hasĀ a black sesame butter cream, white chocolate matcha crumb, rhubarb compote, black sesame ice cream, matcha microwave cake, pickled rhubarb, and a matcha meringue.
It, like the rest of the meal, is glorious. After years of avoiding the tasting menu, that's what I'm doing from now on.
Sidney Street Cafe
Let's be real: there are heaps of good-to-great restaurants in St. Louis, but two stand at the top - Gerard Craft's Niche and Kevin Nashan's Sidney Street Cafe. You can argue, but you'd be wrong. If you're looking to impress, seduce, congratulate, or wallow in self pity, these are the places to do it. The dinner you see below was of the congratulatory kind - a dinner to celebrate me! I decided to leave the corporate world and make Whiskey and Soba my full-time job. I have total faith in both Nashan (and Craft), so I'm willing to be more experimental in my ordering at their restaurants. I typically avoid sweetbreads (thymus gland), but Sidney Street found one of my weaknesses: the Vietnamese bahn mi sandwich.
Sidney Street's version put smoked then fried sweetbreads over a sourdough griddle cake, then thinly sliced jalapeƱos, radishes, cucumber, fermented daikon, and a dill aioli on top. A few springs of cilantro - a bahn mi necessity - made their way on at the end. The sweetbreads were crunchy and delicate, a surprisingly fitting substitution for the typical sliced pork and pork pate. The crunch and smoke gave a meaty element, while the texture inside had that pate-like softness.
The veal dumplings are a menu staple, one that I thought I remembered eating long ago and not caring for. Wrong. These little dumplings pack a punch of flavor mostly thanks to their teriyaki and honey glaze, but the cilantro salsa on top gives it a bright freshness that makes it pop. With each entree comes a soup or salad, and each evening there's a special salad option. My dad opted for the special, which had pickled rhubarb and a chimichurri dressing. I only got a small bite, but the dressing was the herbaceous explosion one would expect from a chimichurri.
How the hell is a chilled pea and mint soup so good? Someone tell me? I feel like people are going to think I'm lying when I say this soup was flat out amazing (or they'll accuse me of secretly working for Nashan, as someone did previously), but I promise you I'm not.
My dad went the healthy route for his entree, ordering steamed halibut over asparagus and a lemon nage, topped with a halibut chicharron salad. Five balls of dirty farro with crawfish lined the plate. The way he hesitantly gave me only a tiny bite of just fish - no asparagus, no farro, no chicarrons - made me think he enjoyed his meal.
I was fortunate enough to get their lamb Wellington, just days before it was removed from the menu. It's a perfect example of Sidney Street taking a classic dish - Beef Wellington - and playfully spinning it into something beautiful and different.
Lamb loin topped with herbs and wrapped in puff pastry is the dish's focal point, flanked by crispy lamb sweetbreads, creamed nettles, and a few drops of some kind of intense lemon puree. The little cauldron on the right side of the dish is a Merguez meatball ragout, a dish so good that I'm salivating just thinking about it again. It's cheesy, it's meaty, it's spicy; it should be an appetizer of its own.
If I went back again tonight, I'd get the grilled quail. The tiny, adorable bird is grilled and served over harissa tossed papas bravas (fried potatoes), charred carrots, and chimichurri. It's a perfect dish for summer with its smoke and char flavors. Oh, vanilla ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie! Wrong. That ice cream is popcorn flavored, and unlike most popcorn ice creams I've had, it doesn't taste like movie theater butter/a popcorn Jelly Belly. It tastes like creamy, delicious popcorn. Get it.Dessert of the year so far for me right here, folks. I typically detest deconstructed dishes. I don't want to order tiramisu only to receive a plate of Dippin' Dots. But this...this was something special. A crumbled piece of moist, wonderful carrot cake is served with shards of crispy ginger meringue, dabs of passion fruit gel, black currants, cheesecake puree (a "holy shit" delicious ingredient), and a carrot-passion fruit sorbet.
Pastry chef Bob Zugmaier and his crew looked at what the rest of the kitchen was doing with entrees and apps, said "let's show them what we can", then dropped the mic with this.
