Review : Six.One.Six

Ok, so I've been wanting to try Six.One.Six ever since it opened in the brand new J.W. Marriot in downtown, Grand Rapids. The hotel sits on the river, next to the Amway Grand Plaza, and probably giving the Amway Grand a run for her money with it's trendy, upbeat atmosphere. The hotel is shaped like an eye, two rounded sides, pointed on the ends. The rooms are gorgeous with modern amenities and SteelCase furniture (only Grand Rapid's best). I can't wait for my turn to stay there and take in breathtaking views of the city I was raised in.

What a perfect time to try this restaurant. We went to celebrate my 25th birthday. (That number is still surreal to me). We met some friends for drinks first at the B.O.B. then proceeded to dinner with just the two of us. It was fairly dark in the dining room, so forgive the orange-tinted photography.

The first thing that caught my eye was their Cheese Menu. Anyone who knows me, knows that I could live on bread, wine, cheese, and fruit. One thing I loved about the cheese menu was the fact that they featured local cheese makers, as well as international varieties. Also, the cheese could be served with wine flights, and I was delighted to see wines I had never heard of before, such as the Malbec or the Macon Prisse. Because my dashing dinner partner is not one for strong cheeses like the buttermilk blue, we ordered a three cheese flight with wine. We opted for the Dancing Goat Creamery Chevré with a Pinot Grigio, the Beemster Aged Goat with the Macon Prisse, and the Taleggio with the Malbec. When the flight arrived, I immediatly made the decision to come back just for the cheese. My senses were seduced by each flavor and each pairing. The Chevré and Pinot were paired with strawberry preserves, the Aged Goat and Macon Prisse was paired with a citrus-blossom honey, and the Taleggio and Malbec were paired with an aged balsamic. I don't know who they have working for them as their wine master, but the pairings could not have been more precise or delicious. I'm not a fan of the drier varieties of wines, but I could drink these wines in this pairing state all night. Each pairing accented and complimented each other in perfect harmony.

I chose to go with the carrot ginger soup as my petite plate, and the dancing goat creamery agnolotti for my entree. My dinner partner chose the charred asparagus salad and the pan roasted halibut. I was a little wary about the soup, not being a fan of cooked carrots, but the joining of ginger and orange crème fraîche made me curious. I was not disappointed, the flavor was excellent. I was only slightly bothered by the texture, but again, I'm picky on textures. I also rather enjoyed the manchengo (sheep's milk cheese) on the charred asparagus salad.
The flavors of the agnolotti were very complex. (The waiter had to explain which group of pasta agnolotti belonged to, they are small raviolis, in this case, stuffed with goat cheese.) I did cheat a little and look up fiddleheads before we went to the restaurant though. I never knew that the curled up baby ferns my dad and I used to eat in the woods had a culinary function. These 'fiddleheads' were a bit more mature than the ones we used to eating, but they added quite the nice bit of fresh crunch to the dish. The leek and Parmesan broth was a nice mellow flavor to counteract the bite of the goat cheese.
I took just a bite of the pan seared halibut, but I can tell you it had a nice, blackened outside and the inside was juicy and delicious. The grapefruite beurre blanc (white butter) was an excellent flavor pairing, and not too overpowering.
They were quite busy while we were there, and we were sat inbetween a small (10 people or so) wedding party and a larger birthday party. The waiter apologized for the louder than usual din and explained that it wasn't usually so. He also offered us dessert on the house, which we accepted eagerly. We chose the custard dream, a compilation of yuzu panna cotta, matcha green tea créme brûlée, and toasted coconut pot de créme. Wow. It was amazing. My least favorite, yet still delicious was the pot de créme, and only because of it's more custard-like nature. It was the least dense of the three, yet still smooth. The coconut was not too overpowering, since my dinner partner enjoyed it and doesn't care much for coconut. The green-tea créme brûlée was refreshingly different from the standard fair, but my abosulte favorite was the yuzu panna cotta. Yuzu is a japanese citrus fruit that tasted similar to lemon. It was so dense and creamy and the finishing tang of yuzu was unbelievable. They even topped it with sugard yuzu peel. Yum!
This dining experience is one that I will not soon forget. I can't wait to go back for seconds!

I'm giving this restaurant five stars, out of five!
★★★★★

Review : Bistro on the Boulevard

Chrissy, a good friend of mine won a gift certificate to Bistro on the Boulevard, and was kind enough to treat me and two other friends to a wonderful dinner to celebrate our birthdays. The Bistro is located inside the Boulevard Inn, a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan in Saint Joseph, Michigan. Inside is comfortable and spacious with stunning lake views, and they also have a covered deck for dining in the summer months.
To be honest, I have been to the Bistro twice before and was never impressed with the food nor the service. However, I believe this was due to the fact that I went on half-off martini nights, which were packed full of people and ordered off the bar menu. Not exactly the best conditions to spawn an excellent experience. Nonetheless, a restaurant should shine in it's busiest moments.
We made reservations, although not necessary at the time we got there, and were seated next to a window with a great view of the lake.
We started off with some bellinis and appetizers of frizzled onions and beets tempura. Fried onions are always good, but I was weary of the beets. They're not my favorite vegetable, but I decided to give them a try anyway. It was an excellent blend of sweet from the beet, and salty from the tempura and were quite enjoyable.
For my main entree I decided to take a leap and try the duck confit.

Confit is a french word, and is one of the oldest ways utilized to preserve food. Meats confit are usually salted with herbs and then slow cooked in their own rendered fats. Sounds unappealing, I know, but the actual meat you get is not that fatty and falls off the bone with tenderness. I normally don't eat the skin of poultry, but I gave in with this dish and had a little. It was so crispy and perfectly seasoned. The meat was tender and juicy in every bite, and very flavorful. I can't wait to go back and have some more and I've been craving it ever since. The duck was served with garlic parsley potatoes that were sliced so thin they had a delightful crunch. I couldn't get enough of their flavor.

For dessert we ordered a Butterscotch and Gingersnap Parfait and Chocolate Packets. The butterscotch parfait consisted of butterscotch pudding layered with ground gingersnap biscuit. The mix of soft and creamy with the crunch of gingersnap was enticing. The chocolate packets were more my favorite, though they could work on the name. They were phyllo dough turnovers filled with bittersweet chocolate and topped with caramel sauce and homemade icecream. The bittersweet chocolate wasn't very sweet at all, and was a perfect pairing with the icecream. It had a bold chocolate kick and a wonderful phyllo crunch.

Overall this experience was very fulfilling. If you are going to the Bistro for the culinary selections, I recommend steering clear of the bar menu and going for a full menu instead. The food was well prepared and nicely presented. Our service was pretty good as well this time around.
Due to inconsistancies on quality from previous visits to this one, I give this delightful local restaurant 4 stars, out of 5.
★★★★

Haha... Rap Chop

Ok, so a friend showed me this video on you-tube where someone mixed the Magic Chop commercial into a rap and I thought I'd share it because it's really funny in my opinion.

I don't own a Magic Chop, but I do own a Pampered Chef Food Chopper, which is built exactly the same. What I love about this little gadget? It makes chopping a breeze, especially when there are a lot of things to chop. I use it mostly for onions, because I'm really sensitive to amino acid sulfoxides (the gas that gets released when you break the cell membranes of onions). I find it very helpful when making soups and needing to chop onions, celery, carrots, and herbs. My only complaint would be that it doesn't do a very pretty fine chop with vegetables, so if you're going for presentation, you may want to do it by hand.

Edible Flowers - A Great Way to Dress it Up

We've all seen it before, a flower on your plate as a fancy garnish. But do we ever think about actually eating flowers? My friend Nicole's birthday is coming up and I drew her name in our office birthday pool for a treat to bring in. I thought about all these extravagant things I could do, but in the end, I really wanted to make her a cake with Fluffy White Frosting. I was thinking of doing a lemon curd in the middle of white cake and adding lemon zest to the frosting, but Nicole chose chocolate, which I was craving anyway. I used *gasp* cake mix and just added some chocolate chips for and extra pop of chocolate. I almost added chocolate syrup, but decided to keep my cravings out of Nicole's birthday cake.
I'm not quite sure when it hit me. I guess I was pondering how to decorate the thing. I've never been good with piping, and I really wanted something springy. Since I couldn't make frosting flowers, and I'm not quite sure fluffy white would've held the heavier flower frosting, I came to the conclusion to use real flowers. I didn't want flowers you would have to eat around and pick off, so I decided to research edible flowers.
I was surprised to find that many well known breeds of flowers are actually edible. I found this great website that lists some edible flowers as well as their flavors and what they are paired best with. I don't know much about flower breeds, but I knew I wanted some spring-like colors like purples, blues, and yellows. I was at a loss on where to find such things in a small town like mine. Then a friend called me and told me that a local nursery just got some pansies in, and pansies are indeed on the list. Perfect! I stopped by the nursery and found many of the varieties listed on the site. I decided to go with violas, which are like miniature pansies, because they came in many colors in one pack. (And I didn't need an entire flat).

These beautiful little miniature flowers made my presentations beautiful, and they did all the work. It really was a nice and easy way to decorate a cake. Violas really have no flavor, and are mostly for looks. Another application I saw that was beautiful was flowered water. The wedding shower hostess used a large glass pitcher that had a tap at the bottom and she floated violas and violets in the water and it was beautiful and appetizing.

Stay tuned, I'd like to try my hand at sugared violets in the near future.

The yellow and purple one is my favorite!