Sauce and Bread Kitchen - Stuff Stuffed with Stuff 2018.

I have been to Sauce and Bread Kitchen for many of their dinners, and have even been to their Stuff Stuffed with Stuff Dinner, but as their dinners allow them to experiment explore, each one is very different, other than taking place, for the most part, in their bakery/cafe in Rogers Park.  Dinners are BYOB and diners sit at communal tables.  For this dinner, I brought a Fruity Farmhouse Ale, Blackberry Farms Buckwheat Strawberry Ale which was funky and nutty and had a lightly tart strawberry finish.

For this dinner, the SBK crew seemed to focus on dumplings, because dumplings are by there very definition, stuff stuffed with stuff.  Because of this and because dinners at SBK are usually 4 courses (because of the way things were divided, this dinner could have been considered 6 courses), we had a lot of dumplings. For our first dumplings, we were served Xiao Long Bao, Mackerel and Poblano.  Soup Dumplings have liquid in them, so if you don't do it right, it could be easy to burn your mouth or at least make a mess.  Luckily, we were given pointers on how to eat them (poke a hole in the top to release the steam and pop the entire thing into your mouth).  I followed the instructions and avoided calamity and found that they tasted pretty good.  Mackerel is a mild fish and poblano peppers are a mild chili, so while there was some fish flavor and some heat, it was relatively mild and they went together well.

Our next dumplings were called Crispy Mushroom/Lobster Pierogis.  While I will agree with the Mushroom and Lobster, and the crispy texture, which were all very good, I would have characterized the dumplings as Empanadas instead of Pierogis.  No matter what they were called, they were topped with Black and White Sesame Seeds and were very good.  They were served with a Fermented Cucumber and Scallion Salad with XO Sauce and Malt Vinegar.  The flavor of the salad was pretty good with a tart and malty finish from the vinaigrette, though the texture of the vegetables were a little mushy for my liking, though not so bad as to be inedible.  As for the dumplings, I really liked the crispy texture and the lobster and mushroom were plentiful and well flavored.

 

The next course was served in three parts.  Called a Trilogy O' Steam Bun Tacos, that is exactly what they were, split Bao served with different fillings.  Our first Bao "Taco" was called a Veggie Queso Fundido with Charred Cabbage, Black Bean, and Sweet Corn.  While there was no cheese (queso), I will not complain, because the vegetable combination was very flavorful and good with a lot of texture.  Bao "Taco" Number Two was called Smoked Lake Trout with Watermelon Rind Salad and Hot Peanuts.  This had a nice crunch with some spice and tartness and good smoked fish.  For Bao "Taco" number 3, there were parts that I really liked, overall, though it was my second favorite taco behind number 1.  It was filled with Grilled Eggplant with Smoked Carrots/ Umeboshi Crema and Fried Shallots.  Umeboshi is a salted pickled plum, which as you may imagine, had a salty and tart flavor that I really liked.  The Steam Buns used for all of the tacos was very soft and lightly chewy and apparently required a lot of work to make and prepare.  In any case they were very good, and the wait required between each taco was worth it.

Dinner could have finished at this point.  While I do like dessert, and the dessert that they made, I'm sure took a lot of work, it used a lot of canteloupe, which I don't care for.  It was a Peach Phyllo Cup with Vanilla Bean Canteloupe Ice Cream filled with Canteloupe Sorbet.  While I did eat it and it didn't kill me, I would have been fine not to have had it served to me.

Despite those dishes that I didn't care for, I like SBK and I liked the dinner overall.  I appreciate their creativity and I will definitely return.   

Sunday Dinner Club - "Made Wrong" Burgers at Half Acre Brewery

 

I like Sunday Dinner Club, the underground dinner club that hosts dinners with many various themes and I try to go several times a year.  Their main location is above their restaurant, Honey Butter Fried Chicken, which itself started as a Sunday Dinner Club dinner, but several times a year they will partner with Half Acre Brewery for a dinner at one of their tap rooms (mostly the Lincoln Tap Room).  These dinners are similar to the dinners in their home space in that when people are checked in and seated, they will come out and introduce themselves.  With the dinners at Half Acre, a Half Acre rep will first introduce themselves and welcome everyone before introducing the SDC crew who will then introduce themselves, tell the story of Sunday Dinner Club, and tell everyone about the dinner they will be having.  The dinners at SDC Headquarters are BYOB, but the ones at Half Acre come with four beers.  This dinner also came with a sample of Camchi's Kimchi, a product from one of their crew that they plan on commercializing.  The beers that I started with were Eat Shop Apricot Milkshake IPA with Lactose and Apricot and Deep Space Double IPA, both IPAs, but very diffwewnt from one another.  Eat Shop Apricot was creamy and hazy with a nice soft mouthfeel and apricot and tropical flavors.  Deep Space was decidedly heavier with grapefruit and pine flavors and a nice dry finish.  

Their former sous chef Becca, had an enormously popular Cubano sandwich which they used as a theme for a pop up at Revival Food Hall.  It was also very successful, so there is now thought of opening another restaurant under the Sunday Dinner Club umbrella.  While the Cubano Sandwich is good, it's hard to build a restaurant on one item, so this dinner was sort of a try out to expand the menu.  For this dinner, they did a spin on the Maid-Rite Burger, a spiced loose meat sandwich similar to a sloppy joe without sauce, they called a "Made Wrong" Burger.  It was also a spiced loose meat sandwich on a bun, but it also had Camchi's Kimchi made with Cucumbers and Carrots, Spicy Aioli, and Muenster Cheese.  It was served with a very good Potato Salad made with Mustard and Spices.

For my beers to drink with dinner and finish off, I went with Shrub Tundra Coffee Brown Ale and another IPA, Half Acre makes a lot of IPAs, Fluorescent IPA.  Shrub Tundra is a collaboration with a local coffee roaster, Dark Matter Coffee, uses 5% liquid coffee by volume, the variety of which varies every year.  This years blend had a nice head, light carbonation, and a thin mouthfeel.  The coffee aroma and flavor were good and while there was a hop flavor, it was light.  Fluorescent IPA poured light yellow with a light haze.  It has a medium body and tropical flavors and was pretty good.

To finish our dinner, we were served Brownies.  I really like brownies in general, but these brownies were pretty fantastic.  The Brownie was Dark Chocolate topped with Peppermint Cream Cheese and Fueilletine Flakes.  Fueilletine, meaning leaves, is a very light pastry that tastes like a very light and crispy sugar cone and provided a nice crunch to the brownie.  The brownie had a great flavor and provided a great finish to a great dinner.  While Sunday Dinner Club does not do just one thing, there style is very homey and a lot of what they do is to elevate comfort foods.  I have liked the dinners that I have had with SDC, and I will continue going to their dinners.

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.
   
  

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.    

Sauce and Bread Kitchen - Foraged Feast

Having gone to several of Sauce and Bread Kitchen's monthly supper club dinners, I am starting to become a regular and become known by the staff.  It is very cool to see what they come up with for each of their dinners.    They do rearrange the space somewhat from dinner to dinner.  Usually my seat of choice is at the counter, but this evening, all of the seating was at two communal tables in the rear of the space.  As they are very creative and it is a BYOB, I try to come up with something interesting to drink.  This time I went with the Double Jungle Boogie American Double/Imperial IPA with notes of Mango, Pineapple, Tea, and a slightly bitter finish that I thought would go well, with what I expected to be the bitterness that would come from the foraged plants that we would be eating. 

For our first course, I did guess correctly on the bitterness because we ate Dandelion Greens which are pretty bitter.  Called a Dandelion Bacon Tartine, the greens were served with Crispy Bacon, a Cherry Tomato, and a light Vinaigrette on Toasted Brioche.  It was crispy, salty, and bitter from the greens and was a lot of fun.  While I did take a few bites of everything together, for the most part, I ate the individual pieces separately which were all good.

For our second course, we had a very interesting salad. It was a Spring Radish salad with Wild Watercress/Mustard Green Seed Pods, Chive Blossoms, and Green Goddess Dressing.  It was very fresh, crisp, and crunchy, with a little spice, and the Green Goddess Dressing added a salty and spicy creaminess.

 

I was not sure what Kuku was or what it was supposed to look like, but what we were served next, an Herbed Kuku with Stinging Nettles, Cattail Stems, Basil, Wisconsin and Michigan Mushrooms, and Radical Root Eggs.  After having the dish, I thought that I had had a Kuku and a Fritata, still not knowing what a Kuku is.  It is apparently an herbed Iranian egg dish similar to a frittata.  It was served with the Mushrooms and Cattail Stems, and the Stinging Nettle Leaves served on the side.  The kuku was very interesting, a little more dense than a frittata, and the mushrooms, cattails, and nettles, added flavor and texture.  It was very good, even if I didn't exactly know what it was. 

For our final savory dish we had Nashville Style Hot Fish and Chips with Wild Caught Catfish and Peruvian Potato Chips.  The catfish was lightly breaded and was very tender.  The hot sauce was spicy and tart, and the crisp dill pickles that were served on the side were crisp and cut the heat of the hot sauce.  There are over 3000 breeds of potato in Peru, although those potatoes that are generally referred to as Peruvian potatoes are purple as were the potatoes used for the very thin and crisp chips.

To finish things off, we were served what to me was very similar to a Strawberry Shortcake.  Called a Strawberry Romanoff, it started with Angel Food Cake and Strawberries.  Served with it was Strained Yogurt, Rhubarb Syrup, and Violet Flower.  The Angel Food Cake was very light and spongy.  The strawberries were fresh, sweet, and tart.  Both yogurt and rhubarb are sour and they were combined together although the flavors were distinct.  It was all light, sweet, tart, and a great finish to another fine meal.  I enjoyed both my meal and my company both, and I will continue to return.   
 

SBK - Lamb Dinner

I have been lucky to make it to many of Sauce and Bread Kitchen's dinners recently.  Their latest was a Lamb themed dinner.  I thought going in that all courses would include lamb, which did make me a little nervous about dessert.  These fears were luckily unwarranted.  As SBK is a BYOB and cider goes well with lamb, I decided to bring a couple of ciders that I had on hand at home, Ember and Glow from Alpenfire Ciders in Washington.  They were both lightly sparkling, semi-sweet, and went very well with our meal.

As SBK is both a bakery and the place where Co-OP Hot Sauce is made, bread and/or a good use of spices will figure into many of the courses in the meals of their underground supper club. The first course in our lamb supper featured both.  We were served Lambschweiger (Lamb Braunschweiger or Liver Sausage) with Methi (Fenugreek)/Green Rhubarb Mostarda, and Shaved Asparagus on a Seeded Rye Cracker.  The cracker was thin, very crisp, and had a nice rye flavor.  The Lambschweiger was smooth, flavorful and went very well with the very tart mostarda.  The shaved asparagus added some green freshness that cut the possible heaviness of the sausage.  It was kind of funny that there was another piece of sausage hidden under the cracker, so if you were trying to give yourself enough sausage to spread across the cracker, you could easily end up with surplus sausage (not that that would be a bad thing because it tasted pretty great.

Our soup course went with a Lamb Consomme with a Parmesan Crispy, Dried Ramps, and Chili Oil.  I am generally not a fan of consomme because they can so easily go wrong.  It is a very simple soup, consisting of a clear meat or vegetable broth.  It could easily be pretty flavorless (except for salt), but this had a good lamb flavorful, which was added to with the Parmesan Crispy and the Dried Ramps.  The chili oil, which was used sparingly, provided a spicy finish.

While the greens were very fresh, the salad was the least exciting part of the meal.  It was a Frisee Salad with Shaved Fresh Radish, a 5 Minute Egg, and Bo Peep Vinaigrette.  The frisee and radishes were very fresh and crisp with the bitter flavor that fresh greens will have.  The egg was very good.  It was soft boiled and cutting it up spread the yolk around which added flavor.  The Bo Peep Vinaigrette seemed to have some lamb flavoring as well, but it was pretty subtle, and probably wouldn't have changed my opinion had it not been there.

The main course was very interesting and probably my favorite course.  Called a Farinata, it was XO Braised Lamb Shoulder with Ramp Kimchi, and Fresh Mint on a Chick Pea Pancake.  XO is a Spicy Seafood Sauce used in Southern Chinese cooking which is something that I head to look up after dinner.  I knew that XO also means extra old when referring to cognac, but it didn't exactly apply.  This makes much more sense since it was pretty spicy and the flavor went well with the shoulder, which was pulled, and the kimchi.  The pancake was flavorful and reminded me of a thick tortilla, so this was eaten like a taco, and it was a very good, if unusual, taco.

For dessert we had a lamb cake which apparently went through several last minute iterations before service do to availability of things.  What they did turn out though looked like a lamb and was very good.  What we were served was a Basque Cake topped with Coconut Cream (for the lamb's fur) and filled with a Cherry Filling.  The face of the lamb was a Scallop Shell shaped Cookie decorated to look like a Lamb's face and it was served with Matcha Tea Powder and Black Raspberry Powder for extra flavors to go with the cake.  It was a very nice finish to a very good dinner.  I really enjoy SBK's dinners and their creativity and I have already planned on going to their next one.  

Sunday Dinner Club - Cassoulet

Most of my posts are about restaurants or events.  I will occasionally write a post about a specific food, but it is usually a single encounter or experience.  I will write today about a specific food item I had in two different contexts.  Every year, Sunday Dinner Club does a series of dinners featuring their Cassoulet, a hearty peasant stew with beans and 4 meats.  They also collaborate several times a year with Half Acre Brewing for a beer dinner.  One of these dinners featured their Cassoulet.  I actually went to both a Cassoulet Dinner in their space and the beer dinner at Half Acre Tap Room that featured their cassoulet.  The dinner in the SDC space featured an appetizer, salad, the cassoulet, and dessert.  The tap room just had the cassoulet and dessert, but everyone got four beers and it was at a lower price point.  The dinner at SDC space started with a Celery Root and Potato Pancake with Celery Leaf Creme Fraiche and Pickled Shrimp.  I really like Potato Pancakes and this was very good coming with a vegetal tang from the creme fraiche, celery root, and the pickled shrimp.  It was really good and I would have happily eaten one twice as large.  With the Half Acre Dinner we started with beer.  We were able to drink any of the beers featured on their tap list.  I started with a With With Belgian Single, but also tried the Pony Pilsener.  The Single was a little richer a little sweeter and had a better head than the Pilsener, but The Pony is a nice easy drinking beer that I would call a lawnmower beer, a nice relief on days when you are out doing lawn work.

The salad served at the SDC space was pretty complex and different.  It was an Endive Salad, (a bitter green in the lettuce family) with Dates, Citrus, Raddicchio, Fromage D'Affinois (a soft cow's milk cheese similar to Brie), and a Citrus Shallot Vinaigrette.  It was bitter, sweet, tart, cheesy, and had a wide variety of textures from the crunch of the lettuces, to the chew of the date, to the creaminess of the cheese, it was a very good salad.  At Half Acre, we picked up our second beers around the time that we went for our cassoulet.  I went with one of their Nitro beers, the Shrub Tundra Coffee Brown Ale, the other beer was a Cape Dune India Pale Lager (IPL).  Most nitro beers are of the heavier types, brown ales, porters, and stouts.  I didn't think about this when I ordered it, although I did drink it and enjoy it.  It was very smooth and soft with a nice coffee flavor.  The IPL was a hoppy lager and kind of had a sharp flavor, but it was also pretty good.  Considering the timing of when I picked it, I think I would have preferred Cape Dune as my primary beer.

And then came the Cassoulet.  The recipe was the same for both versions:  Garlic Sausage, Duck Confit, Leg of Lamb, Bacon Sausage, Slab Bacon, Duck Gelee, White Beans, Duck Fat Croutons, and some amazing Dijon Mustard.  The presentation was different in both places.  At SDC, it was presented in a large round ceramic bowl which was served to us with the mustard spread along one side.  At Half Acre, we stood in line and were served our cassoulet in a rectangular fiberboard "dish" with the mustard spread along one wall.  The presentation was better at the more permanent place, as might be expected, but at the tap room we were more easily able to get extra mustard, which is a part that greatly contributed to the dish (There was an eyeroll moment with the mustard on a piece of sausage).

The cassoulet was fantastic, but the dessert, was just as good.  It was an amazingly light Chocolate Mousse with Honeycomb Candy and Salted Honey Whipped Cream.  The mousse and the whipped cream had similar textures and it was like eating a sweet cloud (with a good serving of crunchy honeycomb candy).The presentation at the SDC space was again better, but we got beer at Half Acre, in my case a Nitro Chocolate Camaro Chocolate Milk Stout which went very well with the mousse.  We may have gotten a larger serving at SDC, but with the beer that we were served, we were amply full at the end of the night.

Having said that, I did have one more beer to drink after finishing the cassoulet and mousse.  I hadn't had an IPA up until this point because I think the bitterness of the hops could affect my sense of taste (he says after drinking a strong flavored brown ale and stout).  I do like IPAs and there were a few on the draft list, but I decided to go for one that I had not yet tried, the Wicca IPA.  It was hoppy bitter, but with a 6% ABV, it was on the lighter side IPAs and it actually kind of reminded me of Daisy Cutter, which while also hoppy, they do not consider an IPA.

Both dinners were very good in their own ways and I left both very satisfied.  While the presentations were different, the atmospheres at both places were very welcoming and the food itself was fantastic.  I will definitely do this again.