It has
been a while since we have met our well-heeled and Southern fellow
food enthusiasts but the place has been on the book for a while and
we finally got our schedules together and headed to Crop Bistro and
Bar in the shadow of the West Side Market Tower. After an
unscheduled tour of downtown thanks to the construction on the
Carnegie Bridge (its amazing how far you have to drive until your
GPS figures out that a U-turn is not going to cut it and plots
another route) we found parking just behind the restaurant and
headed inside. |
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The New Fashioned Has A Nice Kick |
It is much snazzier inside than I had expected. Apparently a bank at one point, the interior is old world, historic and refinished bank. Intricate workmanship from floor to ceiling with loads of marble. The marble is very nice but it also creates an exceptionally loud space. We couldn’t really hear each other at the host station and expected to spend a couple of hours shouting across a table but once we were seated the din was much less problematic. Awards
from wine spectator had me considering a glass of vino but I saw the
bar offered a Maker’s New Fashioned. After the stellar Old Fashioned
from Hodges I was curious. Over all,
Hodges was superior but Crop’s added an
interesting touch. Sugar and bitters are muddled with citrus and
cherries and topped with ice and Makers Mark. The difference at Crop
is the cherries are cured with chipotle pepper giving the drink a
light almost cinnamony warmth and the cherries, when chewed, a nice
kick. Our server was professional and efficient, no more or less
than expected. |
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We started with three appetizers. I guess before we get into this I should mention that the menus at Crop are more inventive and original than most in the area. Not everything worked out, actually there were teeny to medium problems with every dish we ordered, but just looking at the menu gets you excited if you are a more adventurous diner. We started with popcorn, deviled eggs and cherry bombs. The
popcorn comes in three varieties, truffle, Buffalo or balsamic. We
went with the balsamic. I don’t know what I expected this to be but
it wasn’t what we got. I suppose I expected soggy and vinegary
popcorn. It was soggier than I would have preferred but in addition
to the vinegar there several other savory flavors, peppers, onions,
arugula, sun dried tomatoes and basil which created an interesting
amalgam of flavors. Weird, interesting, I would probably try one of
the others if I were to return. The eggs were deviled with the
addition of chile and were set on a couple of sauces, one of which
appeared to be beet based. They were okay. The little piece of
crispy prosciutto was nice. There wasn’t enough chile or ham or
sauce or anything else to set them higher on the ladder than
grandmas. Both interesting enough I was glad we ordered them even
though neither really paid off. Especially when we got to the cherry
bombs, which paid off with a bang. Okay, get this. Good sized plum
tomatoes, topped and cored. Into the void go chorizo sausage and
jack cheese. Sound good. It is. Oh Wait. Not Done. Wrap the whole
thing in wonton wrapper and drop it in the bubbling grease til
crispy and hot...place on some some fresh creamed corn and…BOOM. All
I can say is Steph doesn’t like tomatoes or any kind of sausage. She
really liked these. |
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Disappointing Duck |
Great Lamb...But Where Was It...Lots Of Sauce Though |
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Entrees arrived next. Duck, lamb, cod and pork. The duck breast was served with a white bean ragout and apples. The beans tasted pretty good, the duck just didn’t and I am still having difficulty placing why. It didn’t have the fundamental richness of duck, not enough fat had been rendered out of the skin, something about the seasoning just didn’t fit, I guess if you put a bunch of stuff together it would explain why it was easily my least favorite of the night. The lamb was better but suffered from a tragic flaw. Beautifully cooked, sitting on Israeli couscous, topped with grilled figs and coated with a fig demiglace it was so headed in the right direction, but the sauce. There was so much sweet demi on the plate that you had to scrape it off of the lamb or roll the pasta balls out of it to get a taste of what was underneath. It made for a nice pairing, there was just so much of one that it literally obliterated the others. A little
better still was the cod. The fish was magnificent, fresh, flaky,
devoid of fishiness. Topped with some Linguiça sausage and joined by
potatoes, corn, shrimp broth and little neck clams, this one was so
close. It was just missing a little something. Maybe salt, acid,
texture, it was good, just shy of really good. The pork was Really
Good. So good in fact that the egregious error in seasoning was
easily over looked. A chop crusted in cornmeal is a good start. Add
cheese grits, wilted greens and an orange chorizo gravy and it was
exquisite. There was so much salt from somewhere, most likely the
crust, it approached inedible but didn’t quite make the line.
Everything else was so delicious and the crunch from the salty crust
there was no stopping. So close. I will be stealing some version of
this plate. |
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Great Fish; Good Dish |
Too Salty But Exultant Besides |
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As is our
custom we shared four desserts for the four of us. Again the
creativity and reach of the menu truly shows through the list of
dessert options. The least successful was Blondie’s Elvis. Blond
brownie, honey bacon cream cheese, grilled banana, peanut butter
caramel and a strip of bacon. Sounds delightful, and to some degree
it was. Each component held promise but again a lack of balance
created a significant problem. At first I thought it might be the
bacon but it wasn’t the salt smoky meat it was just the smoke.
However they are incorporating baconicity into the cream cheese
resulted in something akin to licking a drop of liquid smoke which
continued to intensify bite by bite. The three remaining desserts
held no such defect. |
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Holy Smoke! Elvis' Hunk a Hunk a Burning Dessert |
A Picture Of Fall With A Sweet Umbrella |
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Holé Molé! Chocolate And Spice Play Well Together Here |
Inventive And Delicious Smokin' Hot Date |
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The
Caramel Apple Waffle was a fall spiced waffle, cider baked apples,
brown butter caramel and maple custard, all tucked under a sugar
cage. The mission of Crop focuses on fresh local ingredients and
this bowl was Fall plus sweet. Really well done. To some of our
surprises we got one called Holé Molé. Flourless dark chocolate
cake, a molé ganache, mole ice cream and what was supposed to be
blackberry coulis but ended up being blackberries. The chocolate was
nicely intense and buoyed by the warm heat of the molé components.
The cool temperature and reinforcing spice of the ice cream brought
everything together in a complex and satisfying dessert. My favorite
was the Smokin’ Hot Date. Warm date cake, sherry-cranberry chutney,
smoky candied pecans and smoked ginger ice cream. Not sure how I was
going to feel about this one but I was won over by each components’
contribution to the dish. Here the smoke supported instead of taking
over, varied textures and temperatures and an overall unique
combination finished our meal in a tasty and robust manner. I expect
we will be back, the menu changes as the availability of ingredients
change and who knows what they will put together next, and how good
it will be. Were issues a matter of concept or one night's
execution? Only one way to find out and there is enough awesome to
warrant further exploration. |
Ratings | |||||||
Food |
Service |
Ambiance |
What's Best |
What's Worst |
Overall |
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B | B | B+ | A | D | B+ | ||
Bomb Desserts | Duck | For The Stretch Of Menu In Spite Of Misses |