Grand Cafe - December 30, 2015

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Jan 10

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Group dinners among friends can be fun, or they can be an exercise in patience. When dining with strangers, you don’t have history and you’re unsure if you’ll have future, you just know you have the now. With friends you have the thens and the now. You want to catch up, you want to hear how things are going, what’s been, what will be.

I personally prefer smaller groups, four or six is great. It allows for directional conversation to all the other diners usually without too much shouting. If there’s something interesting, everyone can hear it at once without needing it to be repeated down the table, heard later secondhand, or assumed to be known in the future because it was said at a larger table you were sat at, but at the other end away from the dissemination.

But sometimes larger groups are great. If you’re dining family style or trying to experience an entire menu, the more the merrier. There are some places I would recommend against for large groups, Surly Brewing being the prime example, they have a weird seating algorithm that prefers sharing a table for eight between two groups of four, so if you have a group of eight, it may take forever to seat you, it all hinges on whether two groups of four finish their meals and drinking at the same time. I’d recommend no more than four people to a group at Surly, unless you arrive immediately before anyone else right when they open. The beer and food are great, the seating is not.

Grand Cafe doesn’t have that problem. Kat is great at organizing dinners and get togethers, and when one of the restaurants we were considering couldn’t work out, she pivoted us to a new spot that was willing to handle our motley crew and the chef even offered to test out their new menu on us. It was the first time quite a few of us met, and contrary to my prior mentioned feelings about large groups, I think it worked out great. I think it was also the first time most of us ate at Grand Cafe.

(My lens was smudged for the first few pics and I ended up with some wicked lens flare. I picked the wrong spot to sit too, so my pictures aren’t great. To get a much better feel for how the dishes looked, please go to the ones linked for Kat & Shawn. If you’re logged into Instagram, and so inclined, give them a like?)

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Charcuterie Plate with Potted Pickled Herring and Beets with Ritz, Jagerwurst, Chicken Liver Mousse with Fruit Mostarda, House Pickled Veg, and Pecorino Fonduta with Grapes and Black Pepper: A good spread, the sausage was the clear winner with great spicing and a little heat. The fonduta quickly became difficult to portion and share as it cooled an solidified.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Roasted Yam Bruschetta with charred onions, pecans, and fried sage: An interesting concept, and I think with polishing it could turn into something great.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Scallop Crudo with poppy seeds, charred pineapple, pineapple juice, shaved shallots, and Calabrian chili oil: Good, a squeeze of lime away from being a ceviche instead of a crudo. I think the poppy seeds were distributed a little heavy handed for what they brought to the dish.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Escarole, gorgonzola, roasted apples, and sunflower seed salad: A good simple salad with good flavors.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Winter Citrus Salad with green olives, pistachios, red onion, ancho pepper powder, and first pressing olive oil: Really good. A great combination of flavors and textures. A little bit of tweaking the ratios and size of dices and crushes could catapult this to a really great dish.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Winter beet salad with tahini, avocado, sumac, and sesame crackers: The texture on the avocado threw this dish off for me, the avocado’s softness against the firmness of the beets didn’t play well to me. The flavors were great though.

(Kat’s Pic[really good] - Shawn’s Pic)

House Meatballs in tomato sugo: Probably the table favorite. Good grind, great flavor. Would definitely order again with a good Italian bread or fresh pasta.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Octopus with potatoes, saffron aioli, and Italian togarashi: Good. The aioli was good, the potatoes alright. Octopus is one of my favorite proteins so it has to be stellar to really impress me, this was good, but not near my favorites. One of the members of the dining party bit into a piece of potato and commented that the texture of the octopus was odd. Laughs were had.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Macaroni with mussels and Calabrian chili cream: A great dish, the liquor from the mussels must have been used in the sauce as well because the deliciousness was throughout the dish, not just the bites with a piece of the protein.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Agnolotti of celery root, ricotta, in a truffle vinaigrette: the pillows were a little loose compared to some of the others I’ve liked, but the flavors were good.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Bucatini with egg yolk sauce, pancetta, and pepper: great textures and most of the flavors were totally on point, I think it could have done with a touch less pepper personally. (And I love black pepper)

(Shawn’s Pic)

Smashed Potatoes with garlic: Sort of like a slightly crispier and flattened JoJo. Great if you like potatoes.

(Kat’s Pic - Shawn’s Pic)

Roasted Cauliflower with anchovy bagna cauda and hazelnuts: Great concept. The bagna cauda wasn’t quite uniformly applied so some bites were almost unbearably salty. Beyond that, great textures.