Pizza Night at Sunday Dinner Club

 

 

I really like Sunday Dinner Club.  They are an "Underground" supper club, located above Honey Butter Fried Chicken, and are in fact the founders and owners.  They do a wide variety of meals throughout the year, most of which are BYOB.  For those dinners held at their space, besides about one set of wine dinners per quarter and a Three Floyds beer dinner held in the fall, all of the rest are BYOB.  With these dinners mentioned, you are also able to bring a bottle, but they will already be serving beer or wine.  About once a quarter, they will have a dinner at Half Acre Brewery's Taproom.  This dinner was at their space and was all about pizza.  The entrance to the space is next to the entrance to Honey Butter Fried Chicken and is basically unmarked.  There is a sticker that says SDC, but unless you know that that's Sunday Dinner Club, it's pretty anonymous.  The door is also locked and you have to be buzzed up.  The stairway is narrow and has several plates as decoration at the top of the stairs.  The stairs open up to a room with three communal tables which will seat about 26 people and the menus were set at every place setting.  When we were all seated and had started to enjoy our beer and wine, I had a Double IPA from a small brewery in Bridgman, MI that I enjoy called Tapistry Brewing, the team came out to introduce themselves and tell us about Sunday Dinner Club and our dinner.

While I did say that the dinner was all about pizza, while it was the focus, we did eat more than pizza.  Our first course was Tomato Conserva Arancini, risotto balls filled with mozzarella and reduced tomato sauce with spices, served with a very nice Pesto Sauce.  The outside was crisp though thin.  The balls could be eaten by hand, though you did have to be careful to hold them lightly to prevent putting your fingers through the crust.  The risotto in side was very tender and flavorful after being cooked in the tomato sauce and the cheese was melted and gooey, which could easily be stretched out.  Arancini are very good, but these were especially good with good texture and flavor.

Our first salad, there were actually two, was kind of an Antipasto salad made with Chili and Honey Roasted Cauliflower, Ricotta, and Mortadella, a cured meat similar to bologna.  The cauliflower was the feature of the dish with a nice sweet and spicy flavor.  The ricotta added a creamy and bitter tang, and the mortadella added a savory flavor.  It was both simple and complex and was eaten very quickly.

For our second salad we had a more traditional salad with Apples, Pecans, Chicories (Bitter Leafy Greens similar to lettuce, Arugula, Radicchio and Endive) and Warm Bacon Dressing.  This was more traditionally salad and was pretty good.  As opposed to a salad that might be built from a restaurant salad bar, this was focused with the greens providing a bitter flavor, the apples, sliced very thin, adding a sweet/tart crunch, and the nuts providing a nutty flavor and a crunchy texture.  The bacon dressing, added a sweet meaty flavor which moderated the bitter of the chicories, and provided enough moisture to hold things together.

There were actually three pizza on the menu and they were all served family style, although they were cut.  The first pizza was a Chicago Thin that was similar to a Margherita Pizza.  It was made with a Sourdough Crust and was topped with Tomatoes, Fresh Chevre, a soft goat cheese, and Oregano.  It was also cut in squares.  I will never understand the logic of cutting a round pizza in squares, though it is a Chicago tradition and will tolerate it.  The pizza looked like a Margherita, though with the sourdough crust and chevre, it was more tart than the standard Margherita.  It also had a nice crispy texture.  It was simple, but with good ingredients, it was a very good piece of pie.

 The second pie was called a Grandma Pizza and was a white pie.  It started with Garlic Cream, Roasted Delicata Squash, and Magia Negra Cheese, a hard, raw goat's milk cheese, similar to Manchego.  While I liked the first pizza, this was a big step up.  This was also square cut, but since it was a square pie, it was understandable.  The garlic cream gave it a pronounced garlic flavor which the squash moderated with it's sweetness.  The Magia Negra had a somewhat sharp flavor which complemented the garlic cream and provided a counterpoint to the squash.

Our last pizza, also square, was also called a Grandma Pizza (a homemade pizza you might have at grandma's house), but it had more traditional pizza flavors with Tomatoes, Italian Sausage, Mozzarella.  It also had some sweet spiciness provided by Candied Jalapenos.  This seemed to be the most popular pie, I'm guessing because it was the most traditional.  There were leftovers of the last two pies, which I was elected to take home (not that I minded), though there was more of the white pie than the red.

For our final course, dessert, everyone was pretty full, but dessert was pretty simple and light.  It was an Italian Cookie Plate with a Chocolate Drizzled Pizzele, a very thin and light sugar cookie, a Fennel Cookie, and a Lemon Glazed Cornmeal Cookie, also called an Italian or Mexican Wedding Cake.  While all of the cookies were good, the Pizzelle with it's thin crunchy texture and light sweetness with a little chocolate and the Lemon Glazed Cornmeal Cake were memorable.  I really enjoy Sunday Dinner Club and this dinner was one of their better ones.  I will continue to go and enjoy what they put out.