Second Helpings: Slice

I love food. I love fixing it, eating it, and writing about it. After finding out that I would be one of the bloggers for this year's Birmingham Restaurant Week, I was excited for the excuse to eat all the food. But I was also extremely relieved to reach my last meal for BRW.

Slice is a great place to go for date night. Splitting a pizza, talking over a couple beers, enjoying either the AC or the patio -- there's not much that can beat it. Their Restaurant Week entrée is meant to be split, and it's enough food for even the hungriest couple. There are also a lot of different possible meals that can be put together since the meal is your choice of a salad, a pizza, and a dessert.

Adam and I chose the Summer Salad to start. This massive pyramid of watermelon, snap peas, tomatoes, feta, and peach vinaigrette brought together a lot of different flavors in a great was. The watermelon brought the cold sweetness, while the tomatoes and balsamic glaze added a bit of acid for balance. The feta rounded it out with a bit of fat and richness.

We decided on The Chilton. Almost every summer food I look forward to every year topped this pizza: braised pork shoulder, Chilton County peaches for sweetness, peppery arugula, well-cooked caramelized onions, and three types of cheese. All of it was topped off with a generous drizzle of balsamic glaze.

As the last dessert of BRW, we went with the salted butterscotch cheesecake drizzled with molasses. The texture was spot on: creamy and smooth, but not mouth-countingly fatty or sickly sweet. I'm not usually huge on butterscotch, but this worked for me. Adam and I spent the first few bites savoring it with lots of nodding, but without talking. The bit of saltiness balances any bitterness from the other ingredients (it's science), and made the filling's texture seem richer without adding weight.

While we were eating, the sun was getting lower. If we'd been on the main patio, we could've watched the sun set behind the Slice building, but we had places to be and things to write. Next time, we'll stay and watch.

For more Restaurant Week and Second Helpings coverage, check out the BRW website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist. 

Second Helpings: ROJO

At one point in my early adult life, Rojo was a line item in my budget. Almost every Wednesday, I went to play trivia in their side room. I'm not great at trivia itself, but I'm awesome at making up snarky and inappropriate non-answers. Even if we didn't win, we won a few things for being imaginative. They're also participating in Birmingham Restaurant Week's Second Helpings. Until the 29th, their BRW special meals are still available at the same price. Because it's still patio weather, we sat outside on theirs. It was packed out for Sunday brunch/lunch, and there was a line to order food for the entire time we were there.

Since Adam went with me, our two appetizers together covered six of the seven dips you can choose from for their appetizer. Queso is one of my favorite dips that exists, and Rojo's is classic and delicious. If you're in the mood for something a bit sweeter, the pineapple salsa is sweet without being spicy. The guacamole is also well-balanced, with a varied texture and just enough cilantro.

Out of the entrées, Adam and I both preferred the tomato and basil quesadilla to the tilapia sandwich. Tilapia isn't my favorite, so I'm a bit biased against it to start. I like the creamy sauce that comes with their mahi mahi tacos and this sandwich, but it didn't save the sandwich.

The quesadilla, on the other hand, was like a warm caprese salad between two tortillas. The cheese was creamy, with a nice acidity from the tomatoes and a bit of spice from the basil. With a touch of salsa and sour cream on the top, the variances in temperature and texture were tasty.

For more Restaurant Week and Second Helpings coverage, check out the BRW website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist.

Second Helpings: Moe's Original BBQ

During Restaurant Week, I've talked a lot about how fortunate I am to get to check out my friends's work. Believe it or not, Moe's Original Bar & BBQ (my tenth stop) was the second place I'd checked out that I didn't know anyone. But by the time Adam and I left, we'd made friends and are already planning to make their patio our hangout for football on Saturdays.

Located in a hundred-year-old house in Lakeview, Moe's is a bar-b-que joint with a thing for local beer. Though the night's music hadn't started yet, the continuing patio weather made their porch an easy choice. If it hadn't been for a late night Friday and Adam thinking about going for a run, we would probably would have hung out for longer over a beer or a Bushwhacker.

This year was their first time to be part of Restaurant Week. According to General Manager Cody Sellers, Moe's wanted to participate to get more involved with the community. "The atmosphere puts us in a different niche than a lot of other restaurants in town," he says. Out on the patio, it's definitely true -- with the swamp cooler going and a mild breeze, it almost felt like the beach.

Then the food came. One of my favorite things that I've had before is the Redneck Nacho plate. On its own, it's a full meal. The last time I had eaten it -- potato chips made in house and seasoned with dry rub, cheese, meat, jalapeño, and tomato topped with both red and white sauce -- was Sidewalk Film Festival 2013. Its name might not be my favorite, but it was as delicious as I had remembered.

Some Southerners might say that cornbread with sugar in it is cake, but I enjoy a bit of sweetness. It was toasted to a slight crunch, and was one of my favorite parts of the meal. Though the pork was delicious, I favored the turkey over the pork. It's well smoked, and drizzled with both red and white sauce. Paleo friends, rejoice: their meats and their slaw can be served without sauces. Another highlight was the wings. Before being fried, they're brined and then smoked with white oak (previously hickory). They're spicy, vinegary and all around tasty.

We also got to try all of the sides. All of them. Though they were all tasty, we did have a few favorites. The sweet potato casserole side was sweet and buttery and creamy with a bit of crunch from the nuts and corn flakes on top. The mac and cheese was creamy and rich, while the potato salad was creamy and refreshing. If you're feeling extra Southern, the collards are salty and meaty with a bit of acid.

In eating so much food, we wanted to get to the desserts, but we were both so full that we just couldn't. We ended up eating the leftovers and desserts for dinner. At that point, we figured out that the banana pudding is a tasty blend of fruit, baking spice, and vanilla. It's banana flavor is much milder than most others, but it's still very tasty. The Mississippi Mud Pie dessert is a delicious chocolate mousse with chocolate sauce and Oreos.

Moe's porch is a great place to hang out. It's obvious that their employees are passionate about their food: several different people told us about coming back to work after the Snowpocalypse a few years ago. The common thread was that they had missed the food so much during the storm that they came back and ate all of their favorite dishes in one sitting. Many of the employees have been there for years. Their passion shows -- in Sellers' words, "I just want guests to love this place as much as I do."

For more Restaurant Week and Second Helpings coverage, check out the BRW website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist. 

Birmingham Restaurant Week: Second Helpings

"But, Clair," you might say, "Why are you still posting about Birmingham Restaurant Week? It ended yesterday!" You'd be partially right since Restaurant Week itself ended yesterday. But 11 local eateries are extending their special menus until Saturday for a good cause. Called Second Helpings, this limited BRW extension gives people the chance to keep eating for a good cause. A portion of the proceeds from every meal purchased between now and Saturday at these locations will go towards to REV Birmingham's Urban Food Project's Farm to Corner Initiative.

During the ten original days of Restaurant Week, we bloggers managed to hit most of the Second Helpings participants. Links to reviews that have been published are included below.

Black Market Bar & Grill - Five Points South Chez Lulu (review is of the Continental Bakery DT menu) East 59 Café The Grill at Iron City Little Savannah Moe's Original BBQ - Lakeview Oscar's at the Museum Primeaux Cheese + Vino ROJO Silvertron Café Slice

For more Restaurant Week and Second Helpings coverage, check out the BRW website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist. 

Birmingham Restaurant Week: East 59 Café

East 59 Vintage & Cafe was founded in Eastlake as a place for community members to hang out, grab a cup of coffee, and check out their vintage offerings. I'm not usually able to work in coffee shops because of the music/friends/acoustics, but everything about this café was extremely laid back. When I got there, I was also surprised to see that the shop was quite full. It was on the early side -- about 11:30, but there was already a bit of a wait to get food. Their Restaurant Week lunch special, a grilled cheese with a side of tomato soup, was a grownup spin on a childhood favorite. The nostalgia was compounded by the use of American cheese and white bread, but the addition of cheddar and pepperjack added a touch of spicy heat. The cheese was pretty melty, and the bread was toasted to a light crisp.

The tomato soup was a bit heartier than I was expecting, but while I was eating, it started pouring down rain outside. As I've said before, rain makes me crave tomato soup, and Saturday was no exception. Unlike a lot of other soups, the tomato wasn't puréed into oblivion, so the texture was varied all the way through.

I was apprehensive about the white chocolate blueberry cookie since I'm not huge on white chocolate, but it was vanilla-y and not overly sweet. It fit perfectly with the trend of remaking childhood treats into grownup food, and seemed to be sized so that you could nibble on it for a quick treat at the end of the meal.

Though it's a bit out of the way, I'll probably be going back the next time I need to get out of the house and knock out some work. I'm also looking forward to poking around their vintage store, since there are very few things more satisfying than finding a one-of-a-kind piece to complete a room or wardrobe. With Counter Culture coffee and tasty looking pastries, who wouldn't?

Check out the Birmingham Restaurant Week website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist for more Restaurant Week coverage. 

Birmingham Restaurant Week: Primeaux Cheese + Vino

After thinking about Primeaux for a while -- and if you taste their cheese plate, you'll be thinking about it too -- I've come to the realization that it wasn't what I was expecting. They're located out at the Summit, but aren't in a ridiculously large space. Both their food and wine are top-notch, but none of it is pretentious. Considering the people involved, I shouldn't be too surprised. Full disclosure: Chef Cory Bolton, his wife (!!!) Ashley AKA Primeaux's pastry chef, Sous Chef Grayson Taft, and Front of House Manager Melissa Pickering, all worked with my husband at Ocean. They're friends, and they know their shit, so it's not too surprising that my friend Taylor and I had a fantastic meal.

To start the meal, I ordered the budget-friendly rosé. With summer still in full swing, rosé is one of my favorite ways to cool down. It was dry with a nice bit of acid and a mineral-rich finish, which you may have guessed is what I like in wine. After a bit, Melissa replaced that with a glass of the Domaine Gueneau Sancerre Rosé which was exactly what I wanted but didn't know I wanted. Trust your servers, bartenders, and industry friends, y'all.

The apps came next. I started out with the charcuterie and cheese board, while Taylor chose the crabmeat cheesecake.* For the Restaurant Week version, they scaled it down to be closer to a single portion. Cured meat and cheese are two of my very favorite things, and the speck (a type of prosciutto) and salami were on point. Then there was the cheese. Oh my goodness, the cheese.

The cheese board itself included tastes of D'Affinois and a slightly firmer cheese, but Cory also let us taste the sottocenere di tartufo, a soft cheese made from raw cow's milk that had pieces of black truffle. Ridiculously good. I was enjoying the food enough that I forgot to take the photo until after a couple pieces had been eaten. Oops!

Taylor's appetizer was a riff on a crab cake. Instead of adding new ingredients to simple crab cakes, the crabmeat was worked into a rich, savory cheesecake with a pecan crust. It was rich, but the crabmeat was tender without being rubbery. It was also so good that both of us were discussing the likelihood of the existence of an entrée-sized version of the dish.

We'd both ordered the Cubano as our main course. Like the cheesecake, it's also a riff on a classic dish. It's pretty much cheese, housemade pickles, and spicy mustard with as much meat as can be physically stuffed into a sandwich, but it's done intentionally, and it shows. This sandwich is not a traditional Cuban sandwich, nor is it meant to be, but it hits all the notes of what you want a sandwich to be.

To finish, we had two desserts. The lemon icebox pie isn't on their Restaurant Week menu, but the well-spiced crust set off the tart and sweet filling just right. To be honest, I barely touched the pie because I was too busy contemplating and devouring the bourbon cherry dark chocolate tiramisu. At many other places, desserts flavored with bourbon use it very subtly. This dessert is bourbon-forward, with the tangy whole cherries and dark chocolate flavors filling out the flavor of the light, fluffy cake and rich filling.

With great food, better friends, and an excellent wine selection, I'll be back for more. Who wouldn't?

*These appetizers are available at both lunch and dinner. The Cubano is part of the lunch menu, not the dinner menu, and the desserts are only on the dinner menu.

Check out the Birmingham Restaurant Week website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist for more Restaurant Week coverage.

Birmingham Restaurant Week: Oscar's at the Museum

Oscar's at the Museum is one of my favorite places to grab lunch. If I'm with a friend or by myself, it gives me a good excuse to wander around the Birmingham Museum of Art after I finish my meal. As with most places (for food or art), I don't make it out there as often as I'd like. When I saw that Oscar's was participating in Restaurant Week for a third year in a row, adding them to my list was an easy choice. I've wanted to see the "Rising Up," the Hale Woodruff mural exhibit that's in town, and this was my chance. It's awesome, incidentally.

So was the food. Since this is the week of visiting all my restaurant friends, I got to see Caitlin and Audrey during my time at Oscar's (hi guys!). It was a rainy afternoon, so I wanted something a bit heavier than what I might normally get. Though the fish taco and salad combination looked delicious, the pepperjack chicken sandwich with fries looked to be more filling.

The choice was definitely worth it. Even if my diet didn't consist of "Hey, that looks tasty, I'm eating it," I probably would have sprung for the chicken sandwich anyways. According to Executive Chef Christopher Cobb, they had only offered fish dishes for the past three years and wanted to mix up their offering with tacos and something completely different. His sous chef brought this sandwich this him, and it was delicious enough that it has stuck around.

Though I bolted down a good portion of the sandwich more quickly than is probably healthy, it was good. The grilled chicken gave a slight spice, white the creamy red pepper aioli and pepperjack cheese gave it a bit of richness and more spice. The bacon gave a further hint of smokiness (and, let's be honest, was a huge part of my choice). With the crispy, zesty fries as a side, it was exactly what I needed to get through the rain.

Then came the pie. Oh my goodness, the pie. The filling was light and airy and creamy. Drizzled underneath was a bittersweet lemon sauce, and the whole thing was topped with a goodly dollop of whipped cream. As a whole, it wasn't as overpoweringly bitter or sweet as some of the icebox pies I've had in the past. I ate until I couldn't, and the took the rest home for my husband.

Check out the Birmingham Restaurant Week website and James Martin's blog The Sipologist for more Restaurant Week coverage.