Log Haven

Log Haven.  It's got a real dirty sound, like a rusty steak knife cuttin' through a well aged steak.

Went here to celebrate a special occasion with some friends and I've always heard very mixed reviews - everything from "best restaurant in Utah" to "so bad we left our food on the table and went home".  Log Haven definitely has a specific feel - from the waterfall in the parking lot to the big fireplace in front, you certainly feel like you're much deeper into the mountains than you actually are when you visit Log Haven at night.  I was also pleased to make it up without any moose encounters on Millcreek Canyon road.

First course was a local organic farm egg, polenta ravioli, sofrito dish topped with house pancetta, parmesan cream, truffle popcorn and green garlic oil.  Sounds fantastic right?  This was the fail of the night.  The egg was burnt (hard cooked yolk?  really?).  The parmesan cream was overdone and the ravioli were nothing special.  I really liked the green garlic oil... 

Next I had a small portion of the chicory frisee salad (hazel nuts, brandied raisins, apple smoked Beehive cheddar, cider vinaigrette).  Several of the people in our group went for this salad and it got mixed reviews.  The greens were great and I thought the brandied raisins were a nice sweet in there, but the cheese was the wrong choice for this combo and the cider dressing was also pretty sweet.  I'd give the salad a 6/10.

Main course was the grilled Ballard Farms pork loin topped with ricotta gratin and dried apricot chutney, served with yam fingerlings and wilted chard.  The food was good, but it trended towards steakhouse fare when I was expecting some more creativity based on the menu and ingredients.  What I got was massive pork loin cooked very nicely but hurt by too much ricotta topping and chutney.  The chard was good and the yams were slightly under cooked (crunchy isn't my favorite preparation for fingerling potatoes, but hey).

One of my dining compatriots ordered the nightly special, which was a monkfish sauced with a tomato and fennel based sauce.  She wasn't keen on the dish, but her husband was happy to take care of the left overs so I'd say it got mixed reviews as well.

I had been warned off of the desserts so I didn't spring for a sweet course, although those who did were very pleased.  At the table we tried a frozen coconut custard and a lava cake (topped with salted caramel ice cream and caramel corn).  Both were very good.  We drank Luigi Bosca Malbec with the meal, although Log Haven does offer a $15 corkage fee and that would be the way to go in the future.

The verdict?  I was neither blown away nor particularly disappointed, but I won't be back.  My food was not bad, and it was fun to drive up the canyon for a dinner in the mountains.  That being said, this is the type of place my grandparents would have enjoyed.  Huge portions of rich food and marginal execution by the chefs.
  

Fresco Itallian Cafe

We headed to the newly christened "Best Overall Restaurant" (Salt Lake Magazine) this weekend to finally try out the place where Tom Call (last seen on this blog at the Bacon Battle post) has been cooking since he arrived in Utah.  The result was a mixed bag - some very good and some marginal.  Nothing was bad, but Fresco certainly doesn't top the short list of restaurants we've reviewed in SLC over the past year.  We came with four people for this meal, plus two friends randomly sat down next to us, so we really got to look at six entrees, three salads and a few appetizers.  We took advantage of the $12 corkage fee twice.  The restaurant was super dark and I only take shots with an iPhone so my janky photos are the best you're going to get.  Here's the skinny:

We started with the antipasto.  It was well done - three cheeses (a sheep/cow blend, a bison cheese and a cow's milk hard cheese).  All were good, and accompanied by three cured meats that I could not distinguish between.  Cured meats are not yet a part of my culinary vocabulary.  Sorry.  The antipasto came with an interesting selection of accompaniments as well.  Overall, good start.

Next appetizer course was the Calimari.  Reviews were mixed between "good" and "great" at our table.  The caper salsa is a really cool twist on this dish and the thin sliced butternut squash serves to balance out the flavors and add some color to the plate.  Continuing along on a positive trajectory here...

Salads arrived.  I split a pear and radicchio salad (arugula, rocchetta, and supposedly some hazelnut vinaigrette).  The salad looked great on the plate and the ingredients looked good on paper, but we all swore that they forgot the dressing.  The salad was bone dry... we could certainly have been wrong, but either way our salad was missing something and turned out pretty disappointing. 

There was also a Caesar at the table and it tasted like a Caesar, no complaints.  Next time I go to Fresco, I'm going to try out the roasted beet salad given that I've had some really impressive beets before coming from Chef Tom, and we should have gone that route this weekend.

Entrees.  Here's the rundown:

I ordered the risotto - which was a pork tenderloin wrapped with a pork belly on a bed of risotto with a balsamic reduction and broccolini.  The dish was topped with some crisp greens.  Flavors on the risotto were great, veggies were crisp and the greens were a really nice addition.  Sadly, my pork tenderloin was significantly overcooked.  At this point, I'm worried about the overcooking trend with this chef and pork tenderloin.  My pancetta-wrapped tenderloin at the Bacon Battle was also overdone, but this was a full step worse than that.  The pork belly was also not cooked particularly well.  All in, this entree broke my heart.  Chef Tom prepared the best pork belly that I have ever eaten, so maybe my hopes were too high, but this one fell very flat.

My wife went for the Maltagliati (Chicken Cacciatore, Parmesan, Wild Mushrooms).  This was perhaps the winner of the evening - PERFECT sauce, and a really nice pasta.  Nothing was wrong with this and Amelia now continues her streak of out ordering me whenever we go out.

Our friends did Fettucini Carbonara (house made pancetta, red onion, local egg and Parmesan) and the Cavatelli with Lamb Bolognese.  The Fettucini scored points on presentation (beautiful unbroken egg yolk FTW!) and really nice, fresh ingredients.  It was easy to pick out exactly what you were tasting in that dish, and everything worked well together.  On the other hand, it wasn't particularly exciting and we all agreed it wouldn't be a repeat order.  

The Bolognese was one that we had eyed on the menu before coming to Fresco and I feel like it should be the dish by which the entire restaurant is judged.  Seasoned with Marjoram and topped with a portion of ricotta, it was very simple, but it is really hard to pull off a well-done bolognese, and I think that Fresco was successful here.  This dish is very opposite of the Maltagliati, which was great because all of the big flavors were right in your face.  The Bolognese was subtle, and executed really well.

We also had a taste of the Ballard Farms Pork, which is pretty much the entree Tom cooked at the Bacon Battle.  Mine was overcooked that night, but on this night it was done perfectly so I'll chalk up my bad experience to the perils of working with a cadre of culinary students at a big event.  The Niman Ranch short ribs looked great, but were too far away to steal a taste.  I'd be temped to go for them based on appearances, for what that is worth.

We finished the meal with a couple of desserts: the date tiramisu and the itallian doughnuts ("Zeppole").  The doughnuts were a clear winner due to the slightly sweet lemon curd and some ricotta cheese mixed into the dough to add some body to the pastry.  The date tiramisu was interesting and we all enjoyed it, but next time I'd just double up on the Zeppole.

Notes on service: our server was great though we didn't really ask for much direction.  We did get quite a few attempts at clearing our table while we still had plenty of food in front of us, which was odd to me.  In sum, the wait-staff didn't significantly add or detract from the experience so no complaints on that front.

The verdict?  Fresco may be the best Italian in Salt Lake.  It certainly puts competitor Cucina Toscana to shame, and I really appreciate the changes to the menu that reflect chef Tom Call's more continental style.  There is still room to grow in terms of execution, and based on our experience this place should not even be in the conversation for Salt Lake's best overall restaurant, but we will be back.

The Copper Onion

We've never been to The Copper Onion and I had always heard mixed reviews. When our office food guru Tae-Sik gave it the thumbs up, I decided that I had to check it out. We were really, really impressed. On a high level, it was like a foodie mated with a chuck wagon and their progeny married Tony Caputo and opened up a restaurant. I also got the impression that only about half of the people in the place were really ready for what they were experiencing - very mixed crowd.

We started out with a Charcuterie plate, which you should do. I'm going to plug our server right here in the front of this review. She was the best server I've had in Utah. We went all omakase on her and she did not disappoint. Her name is Angie and she WILL improve your dining experience - so go there, ask for her and tip well.

Angie picked out a few items for us to try out and we ended up with a nicely balanced plate. Gran Biscotto, Grotte Caputo and a mixed-milk brie that I am not remembering the name of. They were all good although I saw an Iberico on the menu that I would have tried out if I were to do it over.

Next we ordered a pork belly appetizer. Pork bellys are probably my favorite food, but this was the only course I really have to critique. The meat was cooked really well - I am not sure how they did it but it was dry and crispy on the outside and really tender on the inside. Almost looked fried but I don't know. The dish was served over Brussels sprouts and parsnips, both of which were cooked perfectly. The killer was the sauce - they doused the whole dish in way too much of a fruit glaze (tasted like it was a cherry base?). The sauce complemented the salty dish, but they just used way too much. I can't give a dish too much credit if I'm scraping off sauce so that I can taste the food.

The arugula salad came next and was an arugula salad. It was pretty straightforward - good (not great) arugula with a Parmesan, black pepper and vinegar dressing. So far the meal was going well and would be outstanding but for the pork belly sauce overload.

Our entrees arrived next. My wife went totally rogue and ordered the cast-iron seared chicken. I thought this was a crazy bad choice and I wanted to plead with her to order something worth talking about. When they delivered her entree - I felt even worse. The presentation wasn't bad, it just looked like some chicken on a bed of spaetzle, asparagus and butternut squash. My entree was the griddled moulard duck breast served with spaghetti squash, a portobello mushroom and some spring greens with pumpkin seeds. Here's the thing though: the chicken was a winner. Even my photo of the dish looks janky, but it was delicious. Don't get me wrong, the duck was really nicely done (thanks again to Angie for directing me towards this), but the chicken was so unexpectedly perfect that we were both blown away. So glad that the foodie gave the chuck wagon a chance.

Speaking of the chuck wagon, we had strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert, and it was great. It felt like the slice of pie you get at a diner in Sweetwater, Texas - big and delicous... no presumption of trying to put a snarky spin on the classic.

Last point was that we took advantage of the BYOB policy and drank the 2008 Vistalba Corte B. Anyone who hangs around me long knows that I'm partial to Argentine wines, and since we didn't know what we were getting we went for a vino de corte (this was a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec). This is one of my favorites, dollar for dollar, and has been since I spent some time with the guys who produce it in Mendoza.

We also ordered a bottle of Vichy Catalan water - really interesting sparkling water with a slight salty flavor. This is the only restaurant in Utah to order it with your meal (you can snag it at Caputo's as well). I'm usually not a sparkling water fan but this was a cool addition to the dinner.

The Verdict? I think that The Copper Onion deserves its reputation as one of the best places in SLC to eat creative food. A five course meal for around $100 was quite a value and we felt like our server actually knew a ton about food and how to piece together a great meal. Two thumbs up, we'll be back.

Chef War: Bacon Battle

Chef War is a relatively new event hosted by Chef Jonas Otsuji in which two local SLC chefs are invited to face off around a theme, and all of us Salt Lakers get to come and evaluate three dishes each to determine a winner. Given that Chef Tom Call (see my Tom Call fanboy post here) was going to battling it out around the theme of bacon, the opportunity was too compelling to miss.

I attended this event with a group of friends and we called ahead to find out what the wine situation would be. No wine. Strike one, but we could deal with that. When we rolled in last night, strike two was a bit less navigable. Chef War had sold significantly more tickets than they had in available seats. Ok for a concert, not so much for a dining event. The venue was a high end kitchen supply store and it just didn't work with the way they had it set up. Several people were in an entirely other room - so they could not see or hear any of the action - we decided to just pick up our table and move it into the main area, much to the chagrin of the people who had arrived on time and scored decent seats.

So, we pulled some tables together and made due and Tom Call came out to demo the first dish - a pork belly salad with a really interesting glaze. I wish I could tell you what the glaze was - but the PA system was only working in half of the building, and it wasn't our half. So Tom did his thing, which we couldn't see or hear, but c'est la vie. Then a dish arrived that wasn't what he had been cooking. Odd. The first dish served was a mixed winter greens salad with smoked pancetta oranges, grapes, cauliflower and garnished with PORK RINDS. This was good, not great, but I was so stoked on the usage of pork rind in haute cuisine that I overlooked any flaws.

Chef Katie Weiner was the author of the pork rind salad. Interestingly, Tom had been slated to square off against Roberto Denni, but he was a last minute (like 1.5 hours before go time) scratch. Rumor was that the owner of the restaurant in which Denni cooks threatened termination if Chef Denni participated in the competition, but that remains unconfirmed. So it is important to keep in mind that Katie drummed up her entire menu in about an hour. Impressive.

Next came Tom's pork belly. This was the best dish of the night - cooked exactly as a pork belly should be: crispy fat on the outside but soft throughout. It should be noted that we had no knives last night. Every dish had to be cooked as planned - you can't make it through an overcooked tenderloin with just a fork. After this one I was pretty sure that we were about to witness Tom make poor Katie Weinner feel bad about herself for the next couple of hours. Current score: Tom 1, Katie 0.

About the time I was having that thought, Katie issued her retort. Banana-infused polenta topped with bacon-wrapped Italian sausage and baby bok choi. I can't say that this dish objectively tasted better than Tom's pork belly, because it didn't, but this was what I paid for - interesting combinations that are way outside of my culinary lexicon. Next time you find yourself reaching into the fruit bowl for a banana, consider wrapping it with a touch of bacon. You'll be pleasently surprised.

Tom's next course: pancetta and basil encrusted salmon with sliced fingerling potatoes and a tomato reduction of some sort. I was pretty bummed here. Number one, the salmon was a touch overcooked. Not dramatically, but I expect perfection from Chef Tom. Number two, the bacon was a side note on this dish. I'm not sure how the bacon factored into the encrusting here, none of us could find in the flavor or with our eyes, but there were a few nuggets of pancetta in the sauce. New points on the scoreboard: Tom 1, Katie 1.

Katie's final course came next. I momentarily lost myself and ate it before I took a photo, but here's the skinny: dark chocolate cake topped with.... bacon. The cake was great - very dense almost like a flourless cake, but I did not get topped with enough bacon. I was made to feel bad because the poor girl next to me received exactly zero bacon on her cake. If you took the bacon on my piece of cake, you could have fit it onto a dime about 6 times. Bacon battle was starting to fizzle.

Next came Tom's final course. Given that we had just had chocolate cake I was ready for some mind-blowing bacon dessert. Maybe a thick sliced bacon strip dipped in home made milk chocolate or something totally unexpected involving bacon, sugar and no chocolate at all. What arrived was a pork tenderloin, wrapped in bacon, and served on a grilled pear and some winter greens. Was the pear a dessert? The truth is, I feel like there was a snafu in the timing here because this was no dessert course. Beyond that - it was only decent, not mind blowing. My tenderloin was again a touch overcooked, and it was cold. To be fair to Tom, I believe this was none of his fault - just seems that the Chef War crew did not have their act together.

Final Score: Tom 1, Katie 1 - contest rendered unjudgeable due to poor event planning from Chef War.

So that's the food, but there were other notable features of the evening. First, the only cooking we saw last night was in the first 10 minutes or so when Tom was out front. He was walking us through what went into the dish and then headed back to the kitchen... but he forgot to turn off his mic. Next thing we know we are hearing Tom's voice again, this time asking "Why the fuck is there no sauce on this? These all need some fucking sauce!". Far and away the comic high point of the evening - mostly due to the many families with children in the audience and their outraged expressions.

Second necessary info point: Chef War is billed as a culinary event, but it is really an infomercial for the sponsors. We tuned out but every few minutes a lady in a corset (yep...) came out and tried to sell us on a personal coach, new faucet or organic marketplace.

Finally, thanks to Joseph Welles Henderson the fourth, we drank the best wine in the room - 2005 Radio-Coteau Cherry Camp Syrah. I'm usually not a huge Syrah fan, but this one trends more towards Pinot characteristics while still being forward enough to complement fatty pork dishes (like bacon? indeed). This may be the perfect wine for a bacon pairing.

The Verdict? Chef War is a mess. They may be able to get their act together because they can clearly attract some top notch talent at these events, but until I see firm evidence that the event management skills have caught up to the culinary talent associated with this party, I'm out.

The Wild Grape

I've been going to The Wild Grape since I've lived in Salt Lake City. That being said, I think I had a mediocre experience once with an entree, and their bison burger is the best hamburger in Utah, so I've never ventured far from the burger since that first visit. Well, we were headed to a Jazz game and wanted something quick so we though Wild Grape for burgers would hit the spot. Walking in, it was about 4x busier than I had ever seen the place (this made me feel good as I've worried in the past about their traffic levels on weekend nights). The Outdoor Retailer show meant that we were offered to wait or take a seat at the chef's counter.

I can't imagine at this point that I'll ever NOT sit at the chef's counter when I go back to The Wild Grape. We started off with the Arugula salad. Super high quality Arugula that kept its pepper flavor without being bitter at all. I will stick to the signature "The Grape" salad in the future because it's the only time I find pickled grapes on my plate and I love them, but both of these salads are worth your time.

At this point the chefs just started plating up small plates for us to check out some of the things they were up to. The memorable appetizer was the small portion we received of the Gnocchis. Braised beef in what tasted like a bourguignon sauce then sauteed with spinach and truffle oil. That dish, in full size, is now on my hit list for next time.

Feeling like we were in for something special, and seeing that my first impression may have been wrong (these guys can cook), I decided to spring for the scallop entree that I've always lusted after. My wife gave permission (she doesn't eat scallops and we almost always trade plates halfway through a meal), so I went for it. They were fantastic. Served on a spinach puree and a bed of root veggies, thick sliced bacon and spinach - the scallops were cooked perfectly. Dead Guy Ale complemented the really variable meal well. We grabbed a bread pudding dessert and hit the road, where my Mavericks embarrassed the poor Utah Jazz.

The Verdict? The Wild Grape should get more credit than it does. The meal we had significantly outshined what we've gotten at several much hyped foodie hangouts in the neighborhood (Pago) at half the price. We spent less than $75 for a three course meal (plus a few small plates on the house) and had a great time talking with the sous chefs all the while.

High West Distillery

We jumped into High West during Sundance last week. I've worked in Park City for a couple of years now but have never stopped into Utah's only distillery so I've been anxious to check it out. We were greeted at the door with news that wait would be "at least two hours" (this was Tebow time, after all). I looked deeply into the hostess' eyes and decided that she was likely trying to scare people away, so we put our names into the had and 20 minutes later had a table.

The experience was a mixed bag from there. We tried a few varieties of the house brand spirits and then turned to the meal. There is a single predominant technique used in the cooking at High West: salt. Sometimes that turned out great. The house salad was dressed with salt and pepper and some olive oil. It looked like the chef salad from my elementary school cafeteria, but getting past the presentation, it actually tasted great.

Our waiter talked me into the special - a Bison wellington served with potatoes au gratin, spinach Florentine and some baked carrots. The Bison was plentiful (32oz) and the Wellington was done right - mid rare and with a nice wild mushroom glaze. Everything else was like thanksgiving in Texas - salt and butter completely overwhelmed the potatoes and the spinach was not edible. If it was just for this dish, I'd say that High West got their hands on some great Bison steaks and that was what kept their chefs from flopping on their faces. But, we had a few other dishes that boosted the overall impression. The black coffee and bourbon glazed cod had a great flavor. If they amped up the presentation, that would be a go-to dish for me. The brussel sprouts with marcona almonds and pomegranate seeds were pretty much flawless. The burgers that a couple of folks ordered were good - nothing stand out but a solid effort.

The Verdict? I will go back to High West. I love their Whiskey and there are a few menu items that I'm itching to try (Whiskey Cheese Fondue for 3... yeah). I'd be aware that they seem capable of doing some very interesting things right next to some failures, but the small plates seem like they were generally all winners.

Faustina

Faustina may be the upscale dining experience most representative of Utah in existence. That is to say, they are trying, and on some fronts doing OK, but Faustina falls short of the mark. I didn't have my camera so all the pretty food shots come straight from faustinaslc.com.

The good:
1. The stuffed beef tenderloin medallions were top notch. They don't use a strong stuffing to get by - the treat here was the beef (as it should be).
2. The decor. The restaurant has its own feel, which is different but ultimately pretty fun.
3. $7 corkage fee - reasonable and particularly necessary given the wine list. Do not head to Faustina without a bottle of wine if you're planning to partake.
4. Blueberry souffle dessert - he or she who reads my reviews knows that I do not believe dessert can save the chef, but it did help us take a deep breath and leave without being upset about the evening. Really interesting dessert done well - and probably worth stopping in for this alone.

The bad:
1. The service was horrendous. We counted 12 minutes before our server (or anyone else) came by for the first time, and then it was to tell us that he'd be by just after opening a few bottles of wine for another table. If it hadn't been a special occasion we would have up and left but I was trying to stay mellow given the circumstance.
2. The signature rabbit appetizer was not good. Overcooked and served lukewarm. Nice presentation but overcooked rabbit is not delicious.
3. The seabass was below average. If you're going to pan saute a whitefish, you need to sauce with something interesting, and they did not. This dish was very light on flavor and this is me warning you off of the seabass.

The Verdict? If you had ordered the tenderloin, a salad and the blueberry souffle, you'd come away thinking Faustina was a top 10 SLC option. Unfortunately everything else we tried fell flat, so I'd say there are much better options for similar or less coin. Thumbs down.