Fabulous beer dinner!

[JonM]

So, I gotta brag a little bit. Last night, SWMBO and I met some friends for a special dinner. We usually don't do decadent stuff like this, but we went to a restaurant where the head chef is a James Beard winner. If you call ahead, he will do the chef's surprise tasting menu - 6 courses, each paired with a different wine or beer. I've seen things on the local PBS station that showed the chef is a beer geek, so I went with the beer. Here's what he prepared:

1) Bay scallops and roasted peaches with pickled onions and radish greens, paired with Dogfish Head Festina Peche

2) Grilled swordfish and saffon cauliflower puree, paired with a bomber of 3 Floyds/Mikkellar Risgoop

3) Striped bass in an Argentine bean, veg, and pineapple soup, paired with the rest of the Risgoop

4) Lamb belly, cured lamb sausage, and some kind of fabulous potato thing paired with St. Jacobin sour ale.

5) Elk tenderloin, served like blue rare, pickled blueberries and veg, paired with Ephemere AND with a second glass of a coffee porter of the chef's own recipe.

6) Smoked pound cake with rhubarb and cask vanilla ice cream (seriously - I think they oaked the cream before making it into ice cream) paired with Dragon's Milk.

There was also a lamb liver pate amouse-bouche and a savory apple soup/Granny Smith sorbet palate cleanser before dessert. It was really, really special but definitely a once-in-a-great-while treat. Anyway, end bragging.

 

[beergolf]

That sounds great. The courses all sound very tastey.

My wife and I do that occasionally. We have come to the conclusion we already have too much stuff, so for anniversaries and Christmas, we decide on some decadent restaurant experience and give that to each other. Much more memerable than some trinkets you will forget about in a short time.

 

[Homercidal]

Amazing! That would be fun to do. My wife is a fan of food and I try my best to make stuff she likes, but it's nice to go out and sample some really creative foods form people who actually know what they are doing!

My problem with her is that she doesn't like to try new things once she likes something from a place. We have an upscale restaurant (for our area) nearby and she gets one thing every time: Champagne Chicken. Now I admit it's good, but there are other things on the menu and she won't try them because it's always that Champagne Chicken!

Last 2 times I've gone there I've gotten the cheese sampler and both times I've been amazed. I'm not into pairing beer and food too much, but trying the different kinds of cheeses really makes it easy to see how they could all pair with different beers.

There isn't any place around here that I know of that will present such an interesting meal as you experienced.

 

[JonM]

I was especially excited about this one. A couple years ago, we went to something of an "All-Star" beer dinner, where there were five top Milwaukee chefs and five breweries, and each chef did one course paired with a beer from one of the breweries. The runaway favorite was the chef that prepared the dinner the other day. It was shellfish chorizo (seriously), grilled octopus and grilled leeks paired with Goose Island Sofie. They were unbelievably good together.

 

[Yooper]

Ooooh, that sounds so fantastic.

I'm jealous. I would love to do that!