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| RER 7.18.15 |
It’s funny when a salad is your favorite dish of the meal,
especially when you’re gorging on gastropub fare. It happens, and it happened
at Park& Sixth Restaurant and Drinkery. You never would’ve guessed that a beet
salad would be the star of your show when cheesy pulled pork mac and cheese,
succulent scallops with dense risotto, and garlicky oil-drenched chorizo and
scrimp sidled up to your table.
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| RER 7.18.15 |
But it was. It was fresh and it was last. And it was
beautiful. Sweet ruby beets, velvety in texture and in color, resting on
emerald mesculin lettuce, provided a cool kind of warmth with a royal delicacy.
Pale pink rings of pickled onion and herbed goat cheese shone like diamonds
against the darker richer hues, while the salad glimmered, sparkling with
cayenne candied almonds. This was just a salad, but the combination of the
flavors from the sweet beets, the spicy nuts and aromatic cheese was magic,
only rivaled by the raucous textures and crunch.
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| RER 7.18.15 |
Everything looked just as scrumptious as that broach of a
salad, but flavors fell flat, textures were off, and execution was a shadow.
The pulled pork mac and cheese, a special for the evening, was hot and melty,
just like you like it, but the meat was so sparse in the sea of fluctuating
cheese.
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| RER 7.18.15 |
But the two scallops had promise, the sweetness of the sea
and salt with a healthy dose of pepper. It was the truffled risotto dotted with
wild mushrooms that held back the small starter. The rice was not cooked
enough, with dry chewy centers, and the risotto was lacking the creaminess you
were expecting.
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| RER 7.18.15 |
Shrimp and chorizo go together, forever, but the oil became
spicy almost until you could not bare it. The crunchy bread dulled the heat and
softened with the oil, enabling the shrimp and fatty chorizo.
Park & Sixth’s (gastropub)
refined renegade menu offers classics with a twist to amp up “dive bar bites,” but
the lovely beet salad wove into your memory as those gem tones emanated in the
night.
RER
7.18.15
