Before I carry on about the dinner in Charlotte, I want to
sidetrack ever so briefly to explicate on my travel time between Minneapolis
and my first stop in North Carolina. For the two-hour airplane ride, all I
brought with for entertainment was my laptop. I hadn’t written a post in over a
month and was overdue on some stories and life events that I’ve been holding on
to, and I wanted to spend the entire flight tapping away. When the seatbelt
sign went off, I reached into my carryon and pulled out the computer and
switched it on. Log on failure. Reboot.
Or some shit in computer jargon. I rebooted several times, and looked around me
to see if anybody else shared in my frustration. I hit F12 upon suggestion from
my screen and it performed a diagnostic at which point it told me there was no
hard drive. “Hm.” I said. And I picked up the device to see a large gaping hole
where once had been some sort of drive. Well, the hard drive. “Shit.” I wasted
no time in packing it up, and saving my search for when I was in a hotel room. I did find it in the bottom of my carryon, and clearly I'm back to writing.
I decided to pay for internet service for the remainder of
the flight, so I got my phone set up to the point where I could pay, and then a
message appeared stating internet wasn’t available on this flight. And that’s the end of the suspenseful intermission;
now to the conclusion of our dinner.
The salad was a success, but not liked by everybody at the
table. My former coworker, who was with us for the early arrival and now for
the remainder of the conference, noted that it was just a house salad with some
honey mustard dressing, although the enoki mushrooms were on point. Yes, Tim.
Good call. He was right, as we picked it apart verbally, we realized it was
just mixed greens rolled up in a cucumber, sliced on a mandolin for a fancy
pattern. The bacon was dry, the dressing was plain. Enough.
I may mix up the order of the next few dishes because only
one of them wasn’t underwhelming. I’ll start with the fish dish. Steelhead
trout is a salmon-like fish from the ocean, whose freshwater version would be
the rainbow trout. It’s flavorful, delicate, and can be cooked like salmon.
Ours was fully cooked. It was served with a curried carrot broth or puree—I can’t
recall. It was served with baby white carrots, which the waitress refered to as
rainbow carrots. Since that moment, all white objects we have seen have been
pointed out as rainbow colored, much like the space inbetween the words I’m
typing now. There were also two, randomly plopped Brussels sprouts, and a
sprouting of bull’s blood for garnish. Bull’s blood is a small, acidic, leafy
red green that also garnished our soups, and we would see a theme moving
forward. There was no color play, and the broth—we believe—was also a pear
base, which we guessed because it had the same consistency as the soup, and if
you took out the curry, perhaps even the same flavor.
 |
| Hi, I'm bull's blood. |
The servers and the sommelier were on point the whole time,
never leaving a cup half full, and always eager to talk. We didn’t ask the
questions we should have because I think we were all anticipating some grand
main course.
Intermezzo: Raspberry sorbet: Cooling, palate-cleansing,
quite delicious; simply plated and garnished, I have no complaints so I’ll move
on.
The duck. The fucking duck. Here’s the first rule in cooking
duck: start with a cold pan and let it work slowly. There is a large portion of
very render-able, very crisp-able fat that lies over the breast meat. Our duck
breast fat had sort of a gelatinous body to it, and the only crispiness came
from some sort of glaze that was caramelized over top. This means he seared it
in a hot pan, giving the fat no time to render. There was another pear-based
sauce at the bottom, and I was fantastically disappointed in every bite except
for the asparagus. It was smoked—I think, and it had great flavor. Oh, this was all topped with bulls blood.
And then it was time for dessert, which deserves no time for a lead-up. It was just crème brulee. It was not very good, and there was far too much of it.
No, we didn’t complain about it at the time; maybe partly
because my two companions were bribed into submission with “splashes” of wines
from around the world, or maybe because we in foodservice tend to not complain.
The truth is, it was a fun evening. We were surrounded by awkward silence from
the get-go, and as the wine kicked in, our table encouraged others to speak up,
and the atmosphere became livelier. I made some pretty good jokes throughout
the night like when I asked the sommelier if they carried Alize. He either didn’t
hear me, or he did and chose not to answer. We had great conversation about
culinary trends, club members, and life. I got to announce to my former
coworker—and I’m announcing this to the public now—that I was recently promoted
to Executive Sous Chef at my club, and that this was a huge opportunity to
learn, and make some changes and create some fun dining events and experiences
for members who thrive on new things. But enough about that for now.
We paid our tab—Over $200 for me, and more for the wine
drinkers, and we left. We made fun of the five stars on the sign, and we never
looked back. Our respective companies will reimburse us for all of the food we
purchase on this trip, so we aren’t out the money. What we lost was the truly
unique experience that should have come from a tenured, passionate chef. I haven’t
decided if I’ll leave a review anywhere yet, but here is my opinion from
somebody who knows about the food that we ate.
3 out of 5 stars. They earned one extra star on service
alone.
Fortunately, not all food in North Carolina is overpriced
and boring. Remember, I came here for BBQ, and I found some last night that I
won’t soon forget.
To be continued…
