SLCeats: Highlighting the best restaurants in Salt Lake City and Park City
A food blog about restaurants in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. Ryan Kendrick's words and photos.
Chicago dog, Johnniebeefs in Fort Union. Johnnie ships in his buns every day from his hometown. It’s a perfect blend of ingredients. Start talking with Johnnie about the Bears or Bulls and you’ll have a friend for life. Just don’t tell him that Jordan pushed off.
Bistro 222 has changed things up, hiring a new chef and redoing the entire menu. Chef Brady Gray, formerly of Ruth’s Chris and Baci Trattoria prior to that, has taken the helm and rewrote the entire lunch and dinner menus. “Casual but elegant” is a proper description of both the bistro’s décor as well as its food. The restaurant is surrounded by towering windows looking out to downtown.
We tried various courses at a recent press tasting. Some of the dishes were an elk tenderloin carpaccio with Peri Peri sauce, a rich lobster bisque with sherry and cream, beef short ribs with a cauliflower potato mash, Chilean seabass and oxtail, King salmon, and a ribeye filet.
Bistro 222 is open for lunch and dinner on the weekdays, dinner on Saturday, and brunch on Sunday. Parking is validated at the 222 parking garage (enter near the Hotel Monaco).
Disclosure: I was an invited guest of the restaurant to meet the chef and try the new menu
A new restaurant on Main Street in Park City has opened, name Tupelo. I was invited to a preview dinner at the restaurant last week. You can find my photos and writeup over at The Utah Review.
This recipe has been adapted from Luv To Cook’s wheat bread recipe. I’ve lightened it up a bit using some bleached flour to give it a bit better texture and lightness. Also, the Luv To Cook’s recipe calls for gluten, but I’ve found that as long as you use King Arthur flour, there’s no need for additional gluten as King Arthur is already very high gluten.
Also, one other recommendation: if you don’t have an instant read probe-style thermometer, I highly recommend you get one. It makes cooking much more enjoyable as it eliminates much of the guess work in cooking and baking. My favorite is the thermometer made by Thermapen. I’m not sponsored by Thermapen and I don’t have anything to do with them. I just think they’re the absolute best instant-read out there. And they’re local, which is a huge plus for me.
I have halved the recipe from the original simply because two loaves at a time is plenty for our little family. I will make two and wrap and freeze one.
Light Whole Wheat Bread
2.5 cups warm water (between 110 and 120 degrees)
2 tablespoon oil
1.5 tablespoon dough enhancer
2 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3 cups King Arthur whole wheat flour
3 cups King Arthur bleached bread flour
Mix yeast and warm water until bubbles start forming on the surface. Combine in large mixing bowl with oil, dough enhancer, honey, yeast, and 3 cups of the flour (doesn’t matter if it’s the whole wheat or bread flour). Mix on low speed in a Kitchenaid or a Bosch mixer
Divide dough in two, then shape and place in greased bread pans. Let rise until the dough has doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees for at least 20 minutes prior to putting loaves in. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread is 190 degrees F. Then remove, let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove loaves and allow to fully cool on a cooling rack.
Tomorrow (11/19) and Friday (11/20), Uber drivers will come by your house, work, whatever, and pick up your non perishable food donations for free, which they will then deliver to the Utah Food Bank.
From their site:
HOW IT WORKS
This Thursday and Friday (11/19 & 11/20), slide over to the FOOD DRIVE icon on the far right (of the Uber app) and request a FREE pickup at your location between 1pm- 7pm.
Meet your driver curbside with your canned or non-perishable food items.
Your donation will be delivered to the Utah Food Bank and provided to someone in need.With your help, we can make an impact this holiday season. Together.
For more details, check out the Uber Utah site here.
I was sent a box of Allgood Provisions’ new “Oven Stoked” line of products to try. Allgood Provisions is a Park City-based company that specializes in organic, vegan, and non-GMO. And while I respect their mission and those who follow those dietary guidelines/philosophies/lifestyles/whatever, I don’t particularly care about any of that, so I was mostly interested in how their product tastes.
The Oven Stoked products are designed to be a home roasting kit for the home cook. Basically, if you’re entertaining and want to impress, you can whip up a batch of these puppies and serve them to your guests piping hot. Pretty fun premise.
Allgood sent me a box of their Mexican Chocolate Pecans to try out. Preparation couldn’t have been simpler, with the kit coming in segregated plastic pouches of nuts, oil, and the seasoning, which are mixed into a bowl, put on a cookie sheet, and roasted.
I won’t lie, I wasn’t expecting to be impressed with this, but it is actually really tasty. The pecans end up with a nice, rich coating of chocolate, well balanced with the right amount of cayenne and coffee to give it just a little bit of a kick.
Like everything organic, vegan, non-GMO, prepare to pay more for these products than the regular stuff. I’m not sure what their retail price will end up being, but they are pre-selling each box for around $20 for something that makes about one cup’s worth of nuts, which comes out to about $60/lb. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good value or not. But they are really tasty, and I’d say give them at least a shot to decide for yourself.
Right now they are raising funds for the Oven Stoked line on Kickstarter. You can find their campaign here.
Disclosure: I was sent a roasting kit to try compliments of Allgood.
This event is crazy-fun every single year, and keeps getting better and better. Press release info:
With a spotlight on Salt Lake City-based Solstice Chocolate at the Fourth Annual Caputo’s Chocolate Festival, local restaurateurs and beverage purveyors will craft chocolate-centric preparations to benefit the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Initiative.
Solstice Chocolate, Salt Lake City’s first bean-to-bar chocolate company, is owned and operated by Scott and DeAnn Querry. Their skillful chocolate making produces straightforward bars that scream the origin of the cacao beans loud and clear. Terroir is never a mystery with Solstice. “Some would call their style loud and brash,” says Matt Caputo, CEO of Caputo’s Market & Deli. “But when the notes are as clean and pure as this, I say rock on!”
At this year’s festival, five chefs and local mixologists will use one of Solstice’s five bars to showcase sweet, savory, and boozy applications of the Salt Lake City craft-chocolate maker.
The all-star culinary lineup includes Chef Logan Crew of Current Fish & Oyster, Chef Tyler Stokes of Provisions, Pastry Chef Courtney McDowell of Pallet Bistro, Pastry Chef Amber Billingsley of 3 Cups, and Pastry Chef Alicia Pacheco of Rye Diner & Drinks. The tantalizing evening will begin with an amuse-bouche prepared by Chef Marshall Bryant of Caputo’s. Wine will be served by Francis Fecteau of Libation, Inc., beers will be poured by Avenues Proper, craft cocktails will be mixed by Beehive Bitters and Sugar House Distillery, and pour overs provided by La Barba Coffee Roasters.
“The raw energy behind Solstice Chocolate has their vibrant chocolate popping up on the best menus around town,” Caputo says. “The restaurant industry has never shown this level of support for a Utah craft-chocolate company.”
“For several years, chocolate geeks have known there is a revolution afoot,” Caputo continues. “Now, Salt Lake City chefs have been swept up in the excitement.” Attendees will see for themselves why Solstice Chocolate is overwhelmingly the chocolate of choice for these great chefs.
The fourth annual Caputo’s Chocolate Festival takes place on Thursday, Nov. 12, beginning at 7:15 PM, at the downtown Tony Caputo’s Market & Deli (314 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City). Admission is $35, plus $15 for optional alcohol beverage pairings. Space is limited, and tickets must be purchased in advance. Sign up by calling 801-531-8669 or visiting CaputosDeli.com
For some reason, RYE has been on my “must try” list for a while now, but it seems like every time we tried to swing by and grab a bite, we hit the few hours of the day they are actually closed: between 2 and 6 pm. But the stars aligned a few weeks ago, and we checked out RYE for the first time.
RYE is in a unique setting: it shares a building with the Urban Lounge, and in fact the restaurant is owned by the same owners as UL. The owners had always wanted a place where they could grab early morning bites and late night food, so when the space next to UL opened up, they snatched it up and opened their own restaurant. Another unique feature is that when you’re enjoying a concert at Urban Lounge and go next door for a drink or some grub, they have TV’s streaming the concert next door so you don’t miss a beat. Pretty great idea.
As you might expect based on the current dining trends in SLC, upon entering RYE you will be greeted by Edison bulbs and plentiful beards–during our visit, I counted 11 dudes and 10 beards. I’ll let you guess which diner can’t grow one didn’t have one. So, while the atmosphere is plentiful in hipsterness, the restaurant is also plentiful in delicious food.
A friend recommended the pickled quail eggs to start, and they were indeed unique. At $3, it’s definitely worth giving them a shot. I love pickled anything, and these were right up my alley, although my wife was not interested in them at all.
For our entrees I went with the shoyu fried chicken with fresh corn grits and pickled peaches. My wife had the RYE burger with roasted jalapeños, caramelized onions, and avocado creme, all sandwiched between a lovely Eva Bakery bun.
Flying in the face of most new restaurants, the serving sizes at RYE are plentiful. The ½ chicken meal was easily enough for two meals. And while I was a bit disappointed in the toughness of the chicken, the breading was deliciously crisp, and the fresh corn grits were perfect. And let’s not talk about the pickled peaches, because they were so good, so in-season, so perfectly balanced between sweet and tart, that I am salivating right now and may need to run down there and get an order if I keep writing about them. So let’s just move on.
The burger was also fantastic. Well cooked, with buns that are hearty enough to withstand the juicy drippings of this fabulous burger. And I loved the fries. Get the burger and you won’t be disappointed.
Service was really good. Attentive, responsive, but not too intrusive. Exactly how it should be.
So there you have it. The kitchen is currently being run by Erik Daniels (formerly of Avenues Bistro and Copper Onion. Erik has gradually added some more American flare to the menu to complement former chef Tommy Nguyen’s emphasis on Asian flavors.
I’d also be remiss to not mention that RYE offers a very solid breakfast/brunch menu as well. I have not had the chance to try it, but look forward to being able to in the near future.
That’s it. I’d give RYE 8 pickled quail eggs out of 10, with a half egg deduction for chicken that was a bit too chewy. Definitely go check it out, and stick around for a show next door as well.
RYE Diner and Drinks
239 S 500 E, Salt Lake City
(801) 364-4655
One of Utah’s premier caterers, Culinary Crafts, will be holding a pop-up dinner on Friday, October 23rd, from 7-10pm at The Tasting Room, 357 W 200 S, suite 100.
The dinner will feature ten (yes, ten) courses, ranging from Rocky Mountain trout and Snake River beef tenderloin to a Pot de Creme featuring Amano chocolate.
The dinner will feature fruit and vegetables from the Green Urban Lunch Boxes program, a non-profit which supports urban agriculture and hunger relief. A portion of each ticket will go towards supporting the Green Urban Lunch Box program.
Tickets aren’t cheap–$150, plus another $50 if you would like the wine pairing supplement. But this is exactly what home equity loans are for, right?
To order tickets, call (801) 225-6567 or click here.
I won’t lie, my taste buds may have been influenced a bit by my ravenous post mountain bike situation, however, I am here to declare the following important factual information: the carne asada burrito at El Chubasco is hands down the best rendition in all of our fair state. And I don’t say that lightly, with strong competition such as Hector’s giving chase in a close 2nd.
But up here the meat still looks like meat, is crispy in all of the right places, and has a healthy dosage of melty cheese, black beans, and pico to make this food baby the top food baby around.
If you haven’t been to El Chubasco, get there. I think they have other stuff on the menu, but I haven’t really ever checked.
1890 Bonanza Drive, Park City
SLCeats: Highlighting the best restaurants in Salt Lake City and Park City 