Tacos &Tastings

 
The evening started off at Hamilton’s Tavern and their second Saturday celebration.  Every month, Hamilton’s showcases a different local brewery and offers tasty (and free!) food-pairings to match that month’s beer selection.  

I was lured there by the promise of tacos from El Camino, the as yet-unopened Mexican tapas restaurant located just a few blocks from my house. El Camino was supposed to open in May of this year next to Rebecca's on Juniper in South Park.  But the butcher paper is still covering the front windows and no “Coming Soon” sign has yet appeared, so the tease of getting a sneak preview of their food was too tempting to pass up. 

I called up Alice and, adventurous foodie that she is, she gamely arrived at my house within the hour and we headed down to Hamilton’s.  Even before we had parked the car, we could see a line down the block.  Apparently I’m the last to know, but these Saturday celebrations are extremely popular and getting more and more crowded every month.  Josh was already inside, having wisely arrived at 3:30, and had managed to secure both a table and a spot in the taco line. 

After a 15-minue wait, we were in, but the crush was even worse inside and it was about 100 degrees in there.  On the pool table in the side room I could see women making tortillas by hand and arranging platters of meat and toppings. 

By the time we had navigated the line at the bar and gotten our drinks, Josh arrived with plates full of tacos.  There were 3 types of tacos: lengua, birria, and carne asada.  The birria was my favorite—juicy and flavorful meat wrapped in tender, fresh tortillas.  

We escaped the heat and headed up to Ritual Tavern.
This month Ritual is celebrating its first anniversary and all through September they are featuring local artisan brewers and winemakers, guest bartenders, and concluding with an Alesmith 5-course dinner on September 30.  (Events aren’t always listed on their website, so if you want to find out what’s happening, it’s best to sign up for their weekly email.) 

But that night we were there to check out the charcuterie plate.  I discovered Rey Knight of Knight Salumi Company at the Thursday North Park Farmers’ Market a couple of months ago and have fallen in love with his salumi. Every week Rey experiments with something different and is more than willing to give samples of the 5-6 things he has for sale every week.  I’ll write more about this in my next post, but I was curious to see which of his products Ritual Tavern was offering.

The plate (left) included three types of salumi (El Fuego, Coppa Molina and Sopressata), feta cheese and olives from “the Greek guy at the farmers’ market,” and Ritual’s house-made mustard. I could have eaten the whole thing by myself, but I was polite and shared with others. 

After we polished that off, our server slipped us some lardo, too.  Apparently it had been served on the previous night’s charcuterie plate and although it wasn’t on that night’s rotation, there was enough of it to give us a small taste.  It was a cut a little thicker than I am used to—more like the thickness of American bacon than the silky, paper-thin slices of Lardo di Colonnata—but it was delicious nonetheless.  I asked Rey about it afterwards and he definitely recommends slicing it thinly.  He uses a truffle slicer and eats it on toasted bread. 

I wasn’t as crazy about the Onion Rings I ordered.  I prefer thicker, old-fashioned breadcrumb-style to these tempura-style onion rings, which were too greasy for my taste.  (I know, it’s crazy to complain about grease after eating a chunk of lardo, but there is a difference!)
 
Luckily, we had something to help us wash it down.  We happened to be there on a night when Brewmaster and consultant Lee Chase was on hand doing a blind tasting. 

I’m no beer expert—I don’t really even like beer that much--but it sounded like fun and a good opportunity for me to educate my palate.  After all, years ago I didn’t like coffee or wine either, but the more I learned about them and the more I learned what it was about them I did (and didn’t) like, the better choices I was able to make when ordering them. 

So Alice and I teamed up and shared one tasting.  For $6 we received a tasting sheet and 4-4 oz. glasses of mystery beers.  The tasting sheet gave us some general guidelines about appearance, smell, taste and mouthfeel and offered some key words (toasty, biscuity, dank, herbal, grassy, spicy, citrusy) that we might use to describe the beer’s qualities.

Despite my limited beer knowledge, I was actually able to make some pretty good guesses, at least as to the types of beers we were drinking.  The first was pretty light and clean-tasting, reminiscent of some German beers I seem to recall from a very hazy period of a junior college year abroad.  The second one I immediately nailed as a wheat beer, not too difficult given its cloudy appearance. I had no idea what the third sample was, but reminded me why I don’t like beer—very hoppy and extremely bitter.  The fourth was pretty carbonated, definitely had the highest alcohol content, with a nice fruity, yeasty flavor I actually liked. 

Lee encouraged us to try to identify the beers by name, but I had absolutely no clue.  We pored over the Ritual beverage menu, knowing that the answer lay somewhere on that list.  However, considering there were over 50 beers to choose from, that wasn’t much help to me.  The only exception was beer #2, the wheat beer.  Since there were only two wheat beers on the menu, at least I had a 50/50 shot with that one. 

And the winners were:
#1 Sam Smith Organic Lager
#2 Ayinger Brau-Weisse Wheat Beer
#3 Oscar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale
#4 Uni Broue La Fin du Monde Belgian-style Strong Ale

So I learned something that night.  I definitely don’t like pale ales—there’s something about the bitterness of the hops that I can’t get past.  And I actually liked two of the beers I tasted—the Brau-Weisse and the La Fin du Monde. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge beer drinker, but at least now that I’m beginning to learn the different types of beers, I won’t feel so overwhelmed when I look up at the board at Hamilton’s or Tornado and wonder what the heck to order.

After Ritual, we headed over to Eclipse Chocolate for dessert and coffee. Not all of Eclipse’s wild combinations of flavors work for me--I’m a real traditionalist when it comes to chocolate—but I always look forward to seeing what owner Will Gustwiller has come up with.  I like the fact that he’s willing to push the boundaries and experiment with bold flavors and ingredients.  Also, he runs his business in ecological and community-minded manner, so I want to do everything I can to support him and encourage more artisan businesses like his.    

That night Josh, Alice and I split the summer seasonal dessert tasting platter.  I went straight for the chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.  The cookie was fantastic--the saltiness of the dough and crunchy cocoa nibs were a good contrast to the creamy gelato.   But at that point in the evening I was too full to eat anything else, especially the grilled boysenberry-goat cheese panini (a substitution for the grilled white chocolate almond-kumquat cake pictured here).

That’s another lesson I’m trying to learn when it comes to food: I don’t have to eat everything.  Better to enjoy one or two bites of something I really enjoy and savor that taste, rather than trying to do too much and regretting it later. 

Sometimes the best course is knowing when to stop.

Comments

[Alice Q. Foodie]

Yay! I'm so glad you wrote about this! We really had a great time - I think the best part was it was so spontaneous. I can't believe I'd never tried Ritual Tavern before, but I will definitely be going back! Poor Will, taking a beating for that panini - but some of that stuff just doesn't work for me. I love him for trying though!

[Jennywenny]

Cool, thanks for the reviews! I think I've finally persuaded my husband that north park is a fun place to be.

I'm not much of a beer drinker either, I've discovered I love hoegarden and the wheat beers and honey beers and I stick to them. This new trend is a very good thing for me!!

[Angie]

Jenny:

Thanks for stopping by and posting a comment.

I love the sunflower cake on your blog, by the way. http://www.forayintofood.blogspot.com/

[Little Miss Contrary]

I definitely agree that you can just enjoy a few bites and not eat everything. Although I still struggle with that notion, having been raised by a grandmother who would not let me leave a grain of rice in my bowl. I really enjoyed this post--I've been meaning to visit The Ritual and this just heightened my enthusiasm. Thanks!

[Angie]

Thanks, LMC. Hope you make it Ritual soon--let me know what you think. I really like their shepherd's pie.