2013-03-10 - 11:03 p.m.
Food Review of the 50th Street Bistro 5.19.12
I was the recipient of an 8 course meal recently at a local restaurant in East Sacramento called �The 50th Street Bistro.� The eating space can best be got at in the sweet spot between the words �homey� and �science project.� Homey because it�s like eating in somebody�s living room and science project because the first thing patrons see when they walk in the door is a fish/fertilizer filtration system. When the owner intimated to me that all of the vegetables you will be eating tonight have been fertilized with this �natural system��a not so subtle euphemism�this supertaster experienced a brief vision of himself lying in a local hospital dying from some type of insidious fish to mouth disease. But after a glass�or two�of wine and a few xanaxes all qualms of fish to mouth were quickly put to rest.
Open since August 2007, the word eclectic doesn�t do the menu justice. From hearty vegetables grown onsite�owners enthusiastically offer patron tours of the green space�to fresh vanilla pods in a creamy, low sugar ice cream, that is honestly the best ice-cream that I have ever had west of the Mississippi. And I can speak with a great deal of authority as I have had a lot of ice cream west of the Mississippi.
It is best to comment briefly on each dish in the order in which it appeared before this supertaster. I must preface this review with a bit of biographical information. As a child of the 1980�s, and a helpless victim of Ronald Regan�s anti-drug campaigns, I pride myself on my ability to just say no. When it comes to food, I usually say no to meats and to desserts or sugary foods. But for one night, all rules were off. I cheated, and am all the better for it.
The evening left me feeling slightly giddy. Was it the mesquite grilled carmelized beef ribs� ribs so appealing, a mere glimpse instantly melted this ascetic supertaster�s decade long prohibition against all things beef? Perchance it was the local beer from an artisan
1. Cheeses/ almonds/ figs/ dates/ olives
The cheese fancier emerged with three of the finest cheeses. He fetishitically prepared a blue cheese, drizzled in honey. The second cheese was a salty stinker. A relative of parmesan. The third cheese was a so-so gouda. Fairly run of the mill in comparison to it�s far more talented cheese brothers
The dates were delicious strips, served in aesthetically pleasing strips
2. Salads
Two salads were offered. A gorgonzola pear with spring greens and drizzled in a tarty, yet not unpleasant vinagrette
The second salad was a vegetable medley. Radishes, greens, and all bathed in a homemade vinagreete served tastefully in a mason jar
3. Grilled corn
Corn girlled n the husk. The delicious niblets, succulently exploding in the mouth. The first corn of the year
4. Potatoes and grilled zucchini
Blue potatoes, red and yellow all kissed in a delicious yet light butter sauce. The potatoes were al dente. The cook achieved that perfect mix of tenderness that only a person with a long Irish lineage and a name along the lines of �Danny O� Donovan� or Ravin Pan can achieve
5. Peanut Soup
6. Beef
7. Homemade Vanilla Ice cream
using Vanilla pods flown in from Madagascar. More vanilla pods per square inch. The vanilla density was unheard of. Creamy, fluffy, unsugary. Not to go Rudyard Kipling but it was a white, heaven.
8. Mango salsa with fried plantain chips
