Kimski

The Marszwewski clan have a wide ranging and expanding empire.  They started out with Maria's Packaged Liquors & Community Bar, a Slashie (bar/packaged liquor store) in Bridgeport.  They then went on to Marz Community Brewery, which was contract brewed and largely served and sold at Maria's (as well as other places around the city).  In the early days, they would have cookouts in the back patio featuring Korean and Polish (and Korean-Polish) fare.  This eventually became the Counter Service restaurant Kimski, a name referencing both their Korean and Polish heritages and Their mother's maiden name, Kim.  While I was interested to see what they might do, I have some friends of Korean and Polish descent who were also interested, so we decided to make it a group outing.  Maria's is an old-style storefront, Kimski is very modern with a patio in front under an angled overhang.  The ordering area is actually pretty small with the counter straight in as you enter and the kitchen window to the left.  There are event posters on the walls and Korean toys on the counters.  In order to get to the main seating area, you actually have to walk around the counter.  So we ordered our food and wandered back with a number to show where to deliver our food.  The interior dining area is largely black with high unfinished ceilings, has a large bar, and seems to be a joint space with Maria's, which is also black.  The back wall's are glass sliding doors that lead to an enclosed patio with high walls and generally has a tan color scheme.  There is one graffiti art painting in the corner with "No Smoking" written (painted) in many languages and styles.  There are booths and four tops in the interior dining room, but as it was a nice day, so we decided to sit on the back patio.  There are smaller Two Top and Four Top banquette picnic tables around the edge of the patio as well as a few large high top tables in the center, where we sat.  The bar is separate from the food area, so you have to get your beer after you order food and wait for it.  It is not delivered.  I like the tap list here because there is generally a wide variety of different beers from all over.  Before the Marz Brewery Tap Room opened, there used to be several Marz Beers on tap.  I was surprised not to see any on the tap list when we were there.  I like Marz beers and they were close, so we decided to visit Marz Brewery Taproom after.  Despite the fact that there were no Marz beers, I was easily able to find something that I would like.  I went with Odd Side Ales Shadynasty New England-Style IPA.  This had a nice hop flavor featuring pine and grapefruit flavors without exceptional bitterness.  It had a nice head that broke down quickly and left some lacing, and had a dry finish.  It was a good beer.

Our food started arriving when we were drinking our beer and everything was shared.  One of the first things that arrived was the Scallion Potato Pancake.  The pancake was made with Beer Batter, Scallions, Shredded Potatoes with Dill, and topped with Tamari Sour Cream Sauce and Scallions.  This was pretty good and very Polish.  I liked the dill flavor in the pancake, and the sour cream provided for a nice sour finish.

Banchan aren't exactly a dish, but are more various sides that are presented with your main meal.  They can be any number things, but are meant to enhance the main meal.  Banchan was on the menu and I like the idea, so I ordered a course.  The menu lists it as a serving of three Ko-Po vegetable sides.  I also like surprises, so ordering this was a given.  While I did know that I was going to be getting vegetables, I didn't know exactly what vegetables that I would be getting or how they would be prepared.  I was presented with a plate of Green Beans, Zucchini, and Broccoli served with Red Pepper.  I am going to guess that they had been canned (or Mason Jarred, as it were).  I was kind of mixed on this.  The beans were nice and crisp, but the zucchini was pretty limp and the broccoli was a bit dry.  The flavor for all of the vegetables was good, but the texture needed work.

There was a dish on the menu that was a combination of Korean, Polish, and Quebecois Bar Food, and a couple were ordered.  This was the Kimski Poutine.  A standard poutine will have cheese curds and brown gravy on french fries.  With this, there was the Fries, and the Wisconsin Cheese curds, but the gravy was Kimchi Gravy, and it was topped with Pickled Onions, Scallions, and Sesame Leaves.  It was nice and gooey with some spiciness, and a sesame finish.  While everyone had some and seemed to enjoy it, I am going to guess that I gave the impression that I liked it more than everyone else because it was given to me to finish, which I heartily enjoyed.

My main course was kind of a spin on Bibimbop, a Korean dish that I really like.  Called Be Bim Noods, it was made with Cold Cooked Wheat Noodles instead of the standard rice.  It was also served cold.  The Noodles were topped with Kimchi and Cucumbers, and served with a Sliced Hard Boiled Egg.  This was a favorite.  It was good and I liked it, but it was also pretty spicy.  This was a dish that should have been fairly easy to eat with chop sticks.  I can use chopsticks, though not well, but I did eat much of it, slowly, with chopsticks.

While the food was fairly simple and their were a few slips, I did enjoy things here.  It's very casual and friendly, the food is easy to share, and the dishes that were wins were very good.          

Sunday Dinner Club - Big Steak Dinner

 

While I have been regularly going to their smaller events at Half Acre Brewery, it has been a while since I have been to one of Sunday Dinner Club's dinners at their main space above Honey Butter Fried Chicken.  When they announced their Big Steak Dinner though, it was a given that I would go.  Knowing the stuff that Sunday Dinner Club does, I was sure that what we would be getting would be similar to what you might see at a steakhouse, but with a spin incorporating more Farmer's Market Fare and generally more creative.  A look at the menu for the evening confirmed my thoughts.  As Sunday Dinner Club is a BYOB space, I decided to bring a variety of beers, two from local breweries, Ten Ninety Sharp Wit Sour Belgian-Style Ale with Coriander and Orange Peel, and Marz Rhubarb Rain American Brown Ale with Rhubarb and Strawberries, Old Nation M-43 a highly rated New England-Style IPA from Michigan.  All of the beers were very good and contained fruit flavors, I imagined that the fruit flavors would match well with the gresh ingredients that we would be seeing at dinner.  All of the beers were very good and different and did go well with dinner.

For our first course, we got a spin on Outback Steakhouse's Bloomin' Onion.  Called a Bloomin Market Onion, it was a small and oblong-shaped onion from Green City Market that was cross cut like the original, Breaded, Fried, and served with a Remoulade Sauce made with Herbs from their Patio.  It was smaller than the standard Bloomin' Onion, but generally, more than one person is going to try to finish an Outback Bloomin' Onion and if you do finish it, you really won't want much else.  This was tender, crunchy, and perfect for one person.  The Remoulade Sauce provided some additional herbal flavor.  It was a great start for a dinner aiming at Steakhouse Fare.

After the Bloomin Onion, we had to have a Shrimp Cocktail.  While it wasn't precisely Shrimp Cocktail, it was a spin on that idea.  We had Wild Gulf Shrimp served with a Green Tomato Cocktail Sauce (instead of the standard red cocktail sauce), and Pickled Horseradish.  The shrimp was tender and the green tomato sauce was sour.  The pickled horseradish provided some heat, though less than fresh horseradish would.   

Another standard in Steakhouses is the Wedge Salad.  We also were served a Wedge Salad of sorts.  While it shared many of the same ingredients as a standard wedge salad, Greens, Buttermilk Blue Cheese, Bacon, Fresh and Pickled Cherries, and Pecans, the greens were not left in a wedge and actual cherries and pecans were used, as opposed to Cherry Tomatoes.  The cherries paired well with the blue cheese and the nuts added a nice crunch.  Lettuce doesn't have much more than a slight bitter flavor so it can go with anything.  It was a good salad that went well with a steakhouse theme.

With the standard appetizers and sides covered, we then came to the Steak.  We were served a Thick-cut Grilled Strip Steak served with a Panzanella Salad of Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Torn Bread, and Grilled Onions, and a Homemade Worcestershire Sauce on the side.  The steak was served medium rare and had some nice grill marks in addition to being very juicy.  The Panzanella was flavorful and great for adsorbing the steak juices, and the homemade Worcestershire Sauce was something else.  It apparently had 32 ingredients and took several days to make.  While the chef said that because of the amount of work it took to make it, it probably would not be made again, it was worth it.  It was sweet, spicy, flavorful, and went very well with the steak.

To finish things off, we were given a brownie.   This was a Tahini Brownie with Halva Cremeux (a creamy pudding made with Sesame Seeds and Cinnamon), Dark Chocolate Sauce, Raspberries, Feulletine, and Sesame Crunchies.  The brownie was prepared the way I like it, a little more on the crispy side and it was obvious that good chocolate was used.  With the tahini, the halva, and the sesame crunchies, there was a lot of sesame flavor, that moderated the bitterness of the chocolate.  The Raspberries added some tartness to round out the flavor and the fuelletine and sesame crunchies added a crunchy texture.

This was a lot of fun.  The food was both familiar and surprising and was very good.  I really enjoyed the meal and my experience and I will definitely return.
   
  

Hopewell Brewing - Monday Night Dinner with The Winchester

 

I have come for Hopewell's Monday Night dinner several times.  Unlike other beer dinners where a restaurant will invite a brewery to showcase their beer, in this case, the brewery is inviting local restaurants to do a family style dinner.  Hopewell has done a good job in bringing in a variety of interesting and Notable restaurants to work with them.  Their most recent collaboration was with The Winchester, a restaurant in Ukrainian Village (on Winchester as a matter of fact), that specializes in local, seasonal, and organic food.  While my friends have joined me a few times, for this one, I was attending by myself which was fine and actually kind of funny because I ended up sitting with a few people that after talking for a little while, we discovered that we frequently ran in the same culinary circles and yet had never met.  Many beer dinners start with a welcome beer and Hopewell's beer dinners do as well, though they are decidedly more casual.  There is a cooler in the corner filled with cans of beer and you can grab what you want.  For this evening they had First Lager and Swift IPA, a couple of their mainstay beers that, while not exceptionally creative, are solid beers and good representations of the styles they are representing.

 

For our first course, we started out with People Power, a Pale Wheat Ale created by an idea from a Brooklyn Brewery, Threes Brewing, who suggested breweries around the country should make a beer (choice up to the individual brewers) called People Power and donate 10% of sales to the ACLU.  Hopewell's version was a light and crushable pale wheat ale that is great for summer drinking.  Paired with People Power was a spin on a classic summer picnic starter, Deviled Eggs.  The eggs were colored with Sumac and finished with Red Pepper and Paprika.  There were 12 eggs to the board and there were 4 of us sharing, so if we had split them evenly, we could have had three each, but there were a couple people that didn't want three, so a couple of us had to make up for that.  While the eggs were a little messy because they were held to the board with the whipped yolk.  They had a sweet and spicy flavor, were very easy to eat, and it was very easy to eat multiple.

 

Our salad was a favorite of mine as was the beer.  The beer was called Crudite and was a Wild Saison.  Saisons will have a funk to them and this was more so.  The salad consisted of Pickled Beets, Burrata, Arugula, Mandarin Oranges, and Candied Walnuts.  I liked every part of this dish, all of which were done very well.  The pickled beets were sweet and tart with a slightly bitter finish, the burrata was exceptionally creamy as burratas are.  The Arugula was lemony with a slightly peppery finish.  The mandarin oranges added a tart and slightly bitter citrus flavor, and the candied walnuts were sweet and bitter.  The sweet, tart, and bitter flavors played very well with the wild saison and it was a great pairing.

 

For our main course we started with Stay Crispy Helles, a Helles is another classic German style and is another great summer drinking beer.  Because of it's lightness, it will pair with just about anything.  For our main course, it was paired with a Pork Tomahawk with Cajun Spice with Pesto Frascatelli, Frascatelli is a very simple hand rolled pasta (called a dumpling) similar to Spaetzle.  The pork had a nice flavor and a good spice, the frascatelli added a nice chewy texture, and the pesto added a nice herbal flavor.

To finish, we were served a spin on a couple of classics.  Many beer dinners will finish on the beer side with a dark beer, normally a stout or a porter, which will typically go well with the sweetness of dessert.  Hopewell has a good dark beer that serves this purpose well, Cold Brew, a brown ale which is brewed with Metric Cold Brewed Coffee.  For dessert we were served Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Dark Chocolate, Caramel, and Chantilly Cream, a sweetened whipped cream that also uses vanilla.  It was sweet with the chocolate caramel, and vanilla, and went well with the coffee flavors from the beer. 

This dinner was a lot of fun.  The food and beer were both good and they paired well together and the company was also a lot of fun.  I will definitely do this again. 

   

Pub Royale- Brunch

When I last went to Pub Royale, the chef recommended that I try brunch.  Since brunch is a thing that I do regularly, it was easy to add to my list.  As I wasn't sure how many people were going to join me, it was a good choice because they don't take reservations.  It was a small group that arrived when they opened.  We sat at in a booth, but had a good view of the bar which is framed with a pair of stuffed peacocks and a motorcycle to the right of the bar (toward the back of the restaurant).  I had mentioned that there were several Indian masks hanging on the wall.  We were sitting next to several of them.  While it is a bar with a great beer list, that changes quickly, many cocktails go down easier in the morning, than beer and that's what I went with.  The cocktails all had similar names, Royal Cups, which is what they all contained, though they all varied as far as base liquor and fruit.  I am not sure what a Royal Cup was made from, though I will guess that it is similar to a Pimm's Cup.  I ordered the Royal Cup #1 which, in addition to the Royal Cup itself, had Gin, Orange, Cucumber, and Strawberry.  It was sweet, vegetal, and bitter, and very herbal and it was very good.

 

As is typical, I like both sweet and savory for brunch, but for this location sweet was easy because there really was only one thing that fit that description, the Naan Doughnut.  As described, it was a doughnut made from naan coated with Chai Dulce de Leche.  It was dense, sweet, and had a little spiciness to it.  I also ordered Samosas for the table.  While they are not sweet, they are really good and I really like them.  While some samosas can have meat in them, the samosas served at Pub Royale are vegetarian, containing Potatoes, Fried Onions, and Peas and served with Cilantro and Tamarind Dipping Sauces.

After we ordered our main courses, but before they came out, we were greeted by Chef Joanna, who I first met when she was chef at Ada Street.  We had some nice small talk and when she returned to the kitchen she sent out a bonus dish that wasn't on the menu, that the waitress called an Avocado Omelette.  While it did have egg and was topped with mashed avocado, it was all sitting on top of some Naan Bread, so it was essentially an avocado toast with egg.  In any case, it was really good and because I had so much other stuff, I ended up bringing most of it home.  It was still good after the trip.

For my main course, I ordered what was called Combo #5.  Why it was called Combo #5, I have no idea because while it was a combo, there were no other dishes labeled combos.  Combo # 5 included Pakora Battered Shrimp, Basmati Fried Rice, Spicy Soy Glaze, Bean Sprouts, Scallions, and a Fried Egg.  While I liked most of this dish, I didn't care much for the shrimp because the flavor was too strong.  Besides the shrimp, it was a good dish and made for a good finish.  While there were many brunch standards on the menu, they all had an Anglo-Indian spin to them which gave it some variety.  It was a lot of fun and I will surely return. 

Jolly Pumpkin Brewery, Hyde Park

 

 

I went to the original Jolly Pumpkin Brew Pub in Ann Arbor, Michigan earlier this year.  I decided recently to check out the recently opened branch in Hyde Park (Chicago), to see how they compare.  Located in 7 places, Jolly Pumpkin is a brewery that specializes in sours.  This is so much the case that when they wanted to make something other than sours, they started another brewery (North Peak) to market the non-sour beers.  They have been popular enough that they have been able to grow to 7 locations.  The Dexter Tap Room, the original original place, is simply a tap room and serves no food.  Every other place has a food menu.  Three of the locations, including the first brew pub in Ann Arbor are sit down locations.  The other three are counter service where you order food and beer, and then find a place to sit with your beer and your food will be delivered to you.  The outside of the Hyde Park location looks like a large modern retail or office location.  It doesn't really look like a brewery or restaurant from the outside, though it does look like a nice building and does have a Jolly Pumpkin sign.  Inside there is a line for the counter where you order your food and drink and then find a place to sit at one of the large picnic tables throughout the very large dining room or at the long two-sided bar.  There is also a round table that sits six inside a very large barrel in the dining room.  The dining room is very large, seating probably 200 people at the picnic tables and the bar.  Two of the walls are floor to ceiling windows looking at the street outside.  The other two sides of the dining room are the bar.  The kitchen is next to the bar one the side opposite the order counter behind a 3/4 wall.  The ceiling is unfinished with barrel lights and there are flat screen TVs throughout the room.  On the afternoon that I went, we were watching the World Cup.  There is a hall off to one side with a continuation of the window wall on one side with framed, poster-sized label art which is very cool and at the end of the hall there was a Game of Thrones-esque Throne of Barrel Staves.  It looked very worn, but it also looked kind of comfortable.

When I went to the Ann Arbor location, I ordered a flight, mostly of sours, but because they have so many interesting sours, when I came to Hyde Park, I again ordered a flight mostly of sours, with a token North IPA.  Most of the beers for the company are brewed at their production brewery in Traverse City, Michigan, though each place does have a small brewing operation of it's own for that location.  Most of the beers did come from the production facility, but I did get one that was brewed there.  Flights were four 5 ounce beers of your choice served on a barrel stave serving "platter" with space for five beers.  The beers also have an a la carte price for all sizes, so someone could augment their flight, if they so desired, so I guess that explains the extra space.  For my flight, I had the Biere de Mars Biere de Garde, Ale Absurd Sour Rye Tripel, Bath-O-Mat & Washeteria Sour Saison, a collaboration with Tired Hands Brewing of Ardmore, Pa, and my token North Peak Beer, Collaterale IPA.  The three sours were all pretty sour, but they all had different flavors.  The Biere de Mars was richer and had kind of a caramel finish, Ale Absurd was being brewed there though mine came from the production brewery.  All of the beers have some significant barrel aging time, so while they had brewed some Ale Absurd there, it was still barrel aging (in Chardonnay Barrels).  The Bath-O-Mat & Washeteria had a significant lemon flavor and aroma, and the North Peak IPA was an IPA.  It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't exceptional.

While I had to bring my beer to my seat, I was given a number for my food and it was brought to me.  While there were snacks, salads, and sandwiches, on the menu, what has gotten the most press has been the pizza, so I ordered a pizza.  The pizzas were 12 inches which is a good size for one person, especially when it has more than cheese and spices on it.  For my pizza, I ordered a Korean Short Rib BBQ Pizza with Korean Short Rib, Korean BBQ Sauce, Arugula, Scallions, Mozzarella, Black Sesame Seeds, and Sesame Soy Vinaigrette.  I liked it a lot.  It had a sweet and spicy flavor, with some savory from the soy sauce.  The Short Rib was tender and the arugula added some bitter crispness.  There was also a good sesame finish.  Between the flight and the pizza, I was pretty full when I finished.  While the service was casual, it was very friendly, and the food and drink were very good.  I would be happy to return.