SLCeats: Highlighting the best restaurants in Salt Lake City and Park City

City officials are looking to revamp local ordinances to possibly make them more mobile food friendly, and are accepting comments from the public regarding this issue. I received the following email from SuAn Chow of the Chowtruck. 

Dear Friends,

The City is in the process of reviewing and revising the ordinances for “mobile food trucks”.  They have set up an open forum for you to be able to post your comments in which they will be read and reviewed by city officials prior to formal changes.  This is a great opportunity for you to voice your support in advance and to hopefully help make progressive changes.

As owner of Chow truck I have worked diligently to provide a strong model of an upscale gourmet mobile food truck that will hopefully be the beginning of many.  I have been able to provide affordable, quality, and accessible food to a broad demographic of people from a wide range of locations, and have brought awareness and energy to the mobile food truck trend here in Salt Lake.

There are the obvious compliances which are required for all business, and we most certainly abide by them such as; licensing, taxes, health dept., etc., so what really should be in discussion are the operation considerations.  Please read the brief introduction of “Where do you want to see food trucks in the community” as it outlines some change considerations.  I hope you will take a moment to please post your comments, as it may influence the future of the food trucks in Salt Lake.

And please feel free to forward.

http://www.peakdemocracy.com/706

Thank you,

SuAn

One of my favorite things to do is meet new, local food producers who have great passion for what they do. I love hearing their stories about their journeys to where they are now.

Thanks to a meet and greet held at Caputo’s market, I was able to meet cheesemaker Kendall Russell, from Lark’s Meadow Farms. Lark’s Meadow, based out of Rexburg, Idaho, creates delicious farmstead cheeses, meaning that it owns the entire production, from the cow to final product. While many cheesemakers truck their milk in from other dairies, Lark’s Meadow is able to maintain complete control over their raw product: milk. And speaking of raw, Lark’s Meadow only produces raw milk cheeses, meaning no pasteurization of milk takes place. Instead of pasteurization, in order to ensure that the cheese is safe to eat, a minimum amount of aging must occur for the cheese to meet government safety standards. Many cheesemakers (and cheese aficionados) swear by unpasteurized cheeses, insisting that the taste is purer and truer to history.

Kendall certainly has an interesting history in the cheese business. His only formal training consisted of a two-week internship. Other than that, he has self-taught cheesemaking, which is a pretty formidable task (and costly–Kendall told us that he had to throw away about $40,000 in bad cheese as a result of early mistakes). 

According to Kendall, the act of making cheese isn’t a very difficult process, but understanding the nuances that go into making cheese, such as understanding differences in how milk tastes, aging temperatures, and humidity really is more art than science. One small tweak in any of these variables can have a significant impact on the final product.

Leland Cheese

We tasted three cheeses at the event. The first cheese is called Leland. It is a half sheeps’ milk, half cow milk cheese. Their cows are Brown Swiss, which are known for producing high fat content milk. It definitely shows in this deliciously creamy, high moisture content cheese. This one would be perfect for a decadent grilled cheese sandwich.

The second cheese we tried is called Helen, named after one of Kendall’s mentors. This cheese is made with 100% cow milk. It has some strong grassy notes to it, and has a distinct yellow coloration. Kendall mentioned that milk that comes from cows who graze in a pasture has a slight yellow tinge to it, due to the beta carotene that the cows consume in the pasture. Many cheesemakers add coloring to try to duplicate this orange-yellow coloration in their cheeses.

Dulcinea

The third cheese is Lark’s very first production cheese recipe, and I have to say, they nailed this one. While the other two cheeses were delicious, the Dulcinea knocked my socks off. This cheese is a very low moisture cheese. This rich cheese was nicely salty and nutty, and it even reminded me a bit of the sharpness you get with Pecorino, except much more rounded and subtle. The other really neat thing about this cheese is that as you eat a piece of this cheese and work towards the rind, the flavor profile changes dramatically to a much nuttier flavor.

All of Lark’s cheese is hand-produced, which, as Kendall said, means that he takes a lot of Ibuprofin since it is so labor intensive. Hand-pressing cheese results in some of the whey being trapped in the cheese, whose lactose then ferments into esters. It is these esters which give their cheeses some fruity notes that you won’t find in many other cheeses, contributing to make Lark’s cheese some of the most unique cheese out there.

Lark’s Meadow Farms cheese are currently available at Caputo’s Market and Liberty Heights Fresh, and they will be carried at many Harmon’s stores in short time.

larksmeadowfarms.com

Demolition has begun at the Five Star restaurant on 268 South State. The new restaurant will be named ZY (pronounced zie) Food Wine and Cheese and will serve upscale American. It should open later this summer.

No word yet on where Five Star will be moving. The owner said they’re looking for places in West Valley.

Stuart over at GastronomicSLC has the skinny on the upcoming Tastemakers event. It’s a two night tasting event at various restaurants in Salt Lake. $20 for the food passport and $10 extra for beer and wine sampling. 

Tickets may be purchased at saltlakemagazine.com

Salt Lake Magazine just announced that they sold out of the tickets, but that a limited amount will be available at the door on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Well, sort of. The Southern/Creole restaurant closed their doors in Salt Lake a few months ago to figure out their next step. Today they announced that they will be serving up their specialties every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month at Stone Creek Grill in Bountiful. The owners are some of the nicest people I’ve met, so I hope this is their first step back into a full-time restaurant.

Stone Creek Grill
1201 N 1100 W
Bountiful