Since Leon's Full Service (leonsfullservice.com/) in Decatur opened, I have mostly heard "you really should go" but we always brushed it off. I had read mixed reviews of the place when it first opened: "great drinks, mediocre food". At that time, we weren't as into cocktails. Over the last few month though, the trail of "wow, you haven't been yet" has gotten rather loud. So yesterday, we went with Adam & Gabriel for a "late" Sunday lunch (1pm) which means that we could get alcohol without waiting. (If you are familiar with the law, you know that you cannot serve alcohol until 12.30pm on Sunday.)
All of the drinks we had there were very tasty and well-balanced. While I am biased, I did always think that my drinks were the best. I started off ordering off-the-menu, which I probably shouldn't do, but I like to test my watering holes. I got a blood and sand, which apparently was the special the night before, but they had to look it up. It was pretty close to the standard and came adored with a little bamboo toothpick with a luscious, syrupy brandied cherry. I would guess the cherries are not made in-house just because they are so wee, but I could be wrong.
To start, we got a bucket of fries and the goat cheese fondue and the madras curry catsup. Each bucket of fries is $6 and comes with two sides. And what a bucket! Enough for four hungry peeps to dig into without worrying about being a pig. And what great fries! Delicious. I really enjoyed the goat cheese fondue. The madras curry catsup was also good, although I didn't find myself draw to it as much.
We also got the goat cheese-stuffed peppadews which were okay. The taste was good, though could have used just a touch of salt or even balsamic reduction (yum) and were a little colder than room temp.
It was about this time that I ordered the High Proof Handshake which had Rittenhouse rye, angostura bitters, sorghum, amaro nonino, and something else I can't remember. It was delicious and incredibly strong. I sipped that one for a long time.
Then we broke into small plates with less sharing. I got the mussels which are cooked in witbier and lemongrass and served with toasty bread. The mussels were all good, the broth was incredibly light and tasty.
I tried some of Gabriel's zucchini-cheddar casserole which was pretty good. I also got the special flatbread which had smoked trout, lightly pickled carrots and celery, and ... something else. And you know, it was weird. No one else wanted any which means I ate the whole thing. And I don't know why I was drawn to smoked trout in the first place.
Josh got the burger (which I doubted the wisdom of since we had just gone to have the awesome Bocado burger the night before). He said it was okay. I think it's not a focus of their menu so it's just a burger, and lacks direction.
All in all, I had a really good time, and I like our server, Tyler, a lot. I definitely want to come back here for the drinks. The food is not bad, but I wouldn't come here for the food. Definitely the fries are on the top of my list.
Last night, I made paella again, more than halving the original Eric Ripert recipe I had. It all went well. I used boxed chicken stock (Pacific Northwest, what else?) and everything up to the rice stage went well. I cooked the rice more than last time so that it was more definitively done and almost all the broth was gone. I added a dozen clams, which, once they were pushed into the rice, filled up almost the entire pan! Eric Ripert had illustrated that you put the clams shell down but the mussels hinge down and I ended up turning the clams so that they spilled their liquor into the paella. I covered the paella until almost all the clams had opened, then added the monkfish pieces and covered again. Then I flipped the monkfish and covered it for another six minutes.
After all that, the clams had all opened and then monkfish was cooked. (I forgot to defrost shrimp, but there wasn't any room anyway.) I could see it was a little soupy because of the liquid from the clams and fish.
The taste was good though, the clams were delicious. The center of the pan was a little burnt -- not happily crisp as you want. I do not know how to get around this problem.
So, I don't know. It turned out well but it's just not satisfying enough. I think I even enjoy the paella at La Fonda more than my paella. Horrors! There is a paella book at the library (appropriately called Paella!) that I need to check out again and decide if we need to have it at home. Josh has been talking about replicating Cuerno's squid ink paella... He's crazy.
Today, we are home (again) because it's MLK. I am going to make Dorie Greenspan's veal marengo from her country French cookbook. I had originally planned to make cassoulet but had no idea that it calls for sausage, lamb, pork, duck confit (too much) and then two types of dumplings even though we had to make the skins from scratch (dekalb market didn't have the wrapper ingredients I needed) so I'm just back to my veal. Oh, and a roast chicken to base our lunch meals on.
And speaking of the Dekalb Farmers Market, they are always changing the brands of everything they carry, and it's really pretty annoying. There are some situations in which name brand really does matter and I think Chinese sauces are one of them. They used to carry the Lee Kum Kee brand of hoisin sauces. And then they stopped. And for years, they have been carrying the Kadoya sesame oil and now they have changed to some other brand that I've never seen or heard of. ARGH! What an inconvenience.
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