Fun Playing with Sophisticated Yet Whimsical Food at Trentina, Cleveland OH

Jonathon Sawyer's new restaurant Trentina is an homage to the food styles of Trentino Italy, but also celebrates locally procured products with exquisite preparations. Executive Chef Matt Danko matches Sawyer smash for smash as they execute and deliver intricate dishes that appeal to all of the senses and reinvent familiar foods (eggs, pasta, fish, meat) through ingredient choices, cooking methods and presentations rather than chemical or gadget-based razzle-dazzle. Forager Jeremy Umansky sources the local mushrooms and herbage.

We were invited for a "Friends and Family" preview of the 12-14  course tasting Menu Bianco. My opinions, as always, are my own, and in this case, they are: if you love beautiful food that you can't possibly prepare at home, food that is both simple and complex in the same bite, and if you can step away from your food taboos (or identify them to the restaurant so you aren't served any), you must try Trentina!

Though Trentina will accommodate food allergies and honor preferences (including requests for vegetarian and vegan menus), the best experience will come from letting the kitchen do it's magic without restriction. 

The "by the glass" wine menu paired three glasses to the 12 course tasting menu for $40. Bob enjoyed two Fevertree soft drinks, and we both appreciated the sparkling water that also accompanied the meal.

Located in University Circle, Trentina is set in a former carriage house adjacent to the Glidden House (where Trentina will eventually take on catering responsibilities). The entrance is a little abrupt - it is a small space and a sharp turn. But the staff instantly makes you feel welcome and comfortable. Service is at a high level but the experience is leisurely.

Primi Assaggio
Smoked black cod, Crusto di Polenta (crusted polenta), celery root puree, pickled green beans, romaine root, carne asada  with heirloom beans

This plate was a share for the two diners, a series of single bites to awaken and challenge the palate.

Caviar + Ciccoli
Pasta stuffed with house-cultivated cream cheese, topped with caviar.

Each diner received one of these creamy-dreamy bites. 

Crustaceo Crudo
Vintage Ohio Apple & Citrus on the left, spicy Asian flavors on the right

Delivering this course, Chef Sawyer explained that each diner in the couple might receive a slightly different variation on the given dish, and that couples were encouraged to share. I joked that it would take a pretty gymnastic slurp and bite to share the Asian-flavored oyster, and he immediately sent another plate of two oysters to the table so Bob could also taste the Asian flavors. This is now policy (the extra plate, not the gymnastic slurp): Trentina calls it a "re-visit," where you may return to a course you would like to try again or perhaps one you didn't get to have yet and another party at your table had. A terrific solution for the dish that isn't so easily shared. 

Crustaceo Crudo
Vintage Ohio Apple & Citrus - Scallop

How rare is it to get the whole scallop, coral, shell and all? No packaged scallop can match one taken directly from the shell and this one was no exception; the delicately cured porky bits added another dimension of deliciousness without overwhelming the pristine shellfish.

Sable Fish Al Cartoccio
Each diner had a different preparation, though I believe both featured pea puree.

Bob's had Chicken O The Woods Mushrooms, lentils and shredded egg, Mine was greener - might even have had cucumber - but the flavors all melted into the silky fish with none predominating. 

Bread Service with Crunchy Salt and spice

Bread 'n butter is bread 'n butter, right?

Edible Candle
24K Gold Honey, Aged Beef Suet, Crunchy Salt

The combination of salt, spice, crunch, creamy-beefiness and bitter citrus took this "bread service" to a whole different taste and textural place than bread and butter (or olive oil) ever could.

Pasta Alla Chitarra with Ohio Farm Egg
Carbonara style with yellow lentils and pork skin, and yes, mushrooms.

This freshly made pasta is cut on a chitarra (a "guitar" stringed pasta cutter) then combined with porky richness and the luxurious egg-lentil-mushroom sauce that transformed the rustic into a complex flavor and texture combination.  And it wasn't even the best pasta dish of the evening. 

Pasta Alla Chitarra with Ohio Farm Egg - Bob's

The egg is cooked on a wooden spoon in embers, and a bit of the ember is placed on the diner's plate. The chitarra pasta was cross-cut into perfect little squares and paired with Chicken-O-The-Woods mushrooms and pork. This wasn't the pasta winner either, fabulous as it was.

Pasta Cuscino - Stuffed Pasta Course - Bob's

This one had much mushroom, crown tipped coral fungus was mentioned, so I was glad it was served to Bob. The only dish I didn't love, and was a tad oversalted. But my Pasta Cuscino plate, OMG . . . 

Pasta Cuscino - Stuffed Pasta Course - mine
Trangolapreti (pasta dumpling) stuffed with Formaggio Che Cola and served with cabbages, onion & Spicebush.

This may have been one of the best bites of pasta I've ever experienced, and the cheesy center took it even higher. Yes, the type and quality of the cheese matters. Here, it complimented a perfectly textured pasta dumpling and a cabbage-onion reduction seasoned with a foraged berry called spicebush.

Game Birds - mine
 Breast & Leg of Guinea Fowl, fowl liver, sauce of Oxidized Wine, Morels, candied grape and garlic scape and, I think, barley.

The silky taste and texture of the Guinea Fowl foie gras belied it's game bird origin. The breast and leg meats were tender and perfectly flavored, with just a hint of gaminess, but not enough to detract. Chef Sawyer explained that the wine was deliberately exposed to air to give it a Madeira-like quality that complimented and tamed that touch of gaminess in the meats. 

Game Birds - Bob's
Confit leg & thigh, and rare breast of Squab, Squab Liver-Pork-Rice Blood Sausage, cake of Acorns, Hickory Nuts & Orzo

Chef Sawyer is a little too young to remember Euell Gibbons, but all I could think of when he described this dish was Richard Dawson on the Match Game intoning, "Hickory Nuts Can Be Fun." Sawyer described this dish as served with the primary components of the Squab's diet or, you are what you eat! We especially enjoyed the blood sausage, which sounds intimidating, but is really just another type of sausage. 

Beasts Roasted Over Embers - Bob's
Venison two ways, Braised Shoulder & Medium Rare Loin. Dehydrated olive, roasted eggplant.

Red meat, eggplant, olives - seems on the surface to be ordinary. But this version played with each element to magnify the flavors then put them back together in a seamless fashion.  

Beef over Painted Plate (jus) with Cauliflower Pudding

Chef Sawyer explained that by dragging the meat and a dab of the liquid through the "paint" on the plaint, more sauce would render from it. The steak was beautifully tender and richly flavored, and a chewy counterpoint to the creamy pudding. 

Primi Dolce
Strawberry Sorbet, Yogurt, Pistachio

Dolce- mine
Apricot Strudel alla Trentina w/gelati

Dolce- Bob's
Pear Strudel alla Trentina w/Gelati

Diners even got a slightly different take on dessert. Both were solid.

Grazia
Gold Chocolate

The perfect ending to a delicious meal: simple chunks of house-made chocolate.  

Part of what makes Trentina so amazing is that by the time you read this post and perhaps try Trentina, your menu may be mostly or entirely different from what we enjoyed. Chefs Sawyer and Danko are committed to using the most exquisite products they can source, focusing on the local, which necessarily is always in flux. 

According to information provided by Trentina, in addition to Menu Bianco ($100 per diner, purchased non-refundably in advance or $115 if at time of dining), a Pasta Degustazione (pasta tasting) menu ($60) is now available at the restaurant, though not through the website. Tax and gratuity is added to either menu choice. Pizza and other items will be available al la carte on the patio shortly, but they haven't given an ETA just yet. 

Trentina is fun playing with food at it's best, pampering the diner with small tastes of creatively imagined, painstakingly prepared and carefully sourced culinary delights. 

No Fun Playing with Iced Tea Today

A series of trips in May and June have put me way behind in blogging (and other things). A topic I very much have been wanting to share involved a fun discovery I made at McDonald's, of all places, on one of those trips. I'm writing about it today because of another, not so fun experience I had at a McDonald's this morning.

Though I don't have much use for the food served at McDonalds, for a lot of reasons, I have become enamored of the iced tea. I am drinking a lot of iced tea these days, as I try to wean myself off of diet soda and its many chemicals. The problem is that packaged iced teas are, ingredient-wise, almost as bad as the pop. Also, the  pasteurization doesn't help the flavor. So, I really prefer freshly brewed tea. 

I'm not sure how I stumbled on McDonald's unsweetened iced tea, but during the summer a very large cup costs only $1 (depending on which outlet you buy it from - technically it is the sweet tea that they are promoting, and some franchisees only sell the sweet for $1), and it tastes good. I've sampled the iced tea offerings from other fast-food outlets since, and there is no question that McDonald's has the superior product (the Burger King outlet in Solon doesn't even sell unsweetened tea, only sweet tea - shame on them!). Though I could have looked up the info on Micky D's website, I never did - I knew a good quality product when  I tasted it, though I wondered about how processed it was - it was McDonald's, after all. My thought process was, just because it says "freshly brewed" on the cup doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't processed in some fashion.

 

Well, it was during one of those road trips that we stopped at an interstate rest stop. We stepped into the McDonald's to purchase beverages, and I ordered a large, unsweetened iced tea. As with most rest stop food outlets, we were handed empty cups and directed to the self-serve beverage station. As I started to fill my iced tea cup, however, the dispenser (which I realized was not attached to a soft drink machine, but to an air pot on steroids, which is to say, a giant air pot) began to sputter - it was empty. I returned to the counter, and the person there apologized and said they would bring out a new supply. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Someone retrieved the empty airpot from the service line, and still we waited. Where was the replacement already - how long could it take to fill a serving container with a prepared product?

Finally, it dawned on me - they were actually brewing a giant supply of tea from scratch! This was confirmed by the manager, who appeared every few minutes to apologize for the delay, and who then presented me with two huge cups of iced tea to take with me, even though the air pot hadn't returned to the serving line. I asked her and she confirmed that the tea was brewed from scratch in a large quantity and, the laws of physics being what they are, it takes some time. I left a happy camper; it is nice to know that something you consume so much of is truly made from scratch with honest ingredients.

 

Fast forward to today. I stopped at the usual drive-through for a morning cup of that freshly brewed iced tea. $1 later, I was on the road again. I don't think I'll ever be this grateful for a red light holding me up at the corner of Richmond and Miles Roads - because I took a big drink from the cup only to taste - iced coffee!!!!

What is the big deal, you might think. Even if you don't like coffee, you just turn right back into the parking lot and change the drink out, right? Well . . . not exactly. You see, when I was a toddler, I had a very un-fun experience with hot coffee. Mom had just put a steaming hot cup down on the kitchen table when the doorbell rang, and she went to answer it. Little Nancy just had to toddle over to see what was in the steaming cup. She put her tiny hands around it and lifted - and seared by the heat of  the steaming cup, tossed it up out of her hands. To this day, I don't know what happened to the coffee cup, but I do know what happened to the coffee - it landed near the bottom of my left shoulder, where a souvenir of the severe burn (and trip to the ER) remains to this day. Something else remains to this day - a total aversion to all things coffee. 

Ironically, I had commented to a lunch companion at B Spot just two short days ago about how it seemed like the aversion had lightened up a little - I truly adore Michael Symon's Coffee BBQ Sauce and Lola Ketchup - both of which are full of coffee, 

 

and I really loved the Shortrib with Redeye Gravy (read: loaded with coffee preparation) that Chef Jonathon Sawyer made for the recent Chefjam event. 

Indeed, a sip of hot coffee did accidentally cross my lips about ten years ago at a hair salon, when a helpful assistant re-filled my tea cup with the wrong beverage - but at least, that was just a sip, and it had cream and sweetener in it. The gulp I took this morning was just straight coffee, and I'm still feeling it. Yuck - fun playing with food fail.

Oh well - at least I now know, having finally looked it up on the McDonald's website, that the unsweet tea is made from only "Orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea," and the sweet tea is the same with sugar (NOT high fructose corn syrup) added. Except that I will remember to inspect it a little more closely before I drink it next time. Because it really is fun to get something inexpensive, tasty and fresh from the drive through, but today was not my day!

More Fun Playing with Green Food at the Greenhouse Tavern

We were invited to join some friends at The Greenhouse Tavern last Friday for dinner. Twist my arm!

Friday was an especially bad allergy day in Cleveland - I'd been coughing much of the day and nothing was helping. One of our dining companions, who'd also arrived a little early, suggested something with ginger might help - and gosh darn if he wasn't right!

Ginger Flip
Goslings Rum, Egg White, Ginger Beer, Powered Sugar, Fresh Nutmeg

This cocktail was simply amazing - rich and tasty, and deeply satisfying. And not at all too sweet (which was my concern when I almost didn't order it).

After our table of 8 was seated, we ordered samples of virtually all of the "Firsts" on the menu.


Bread Service: On the Rise Bread, Pork Rilettes



I love the concept of serving rilettes instead of butter or oil with the bread - and the pork was delicious. But I thought it was a little too dry and sparse to accompany bread. For that reason only, I still prefer the duck rilettes that were served previously. The server said they intend to mix it up - fine with me!

Organic American Prosciutto w/ grilled bread

We'd tasted this during the preview dinner April 7 - a little taste goes a long way - magnificent!

House Made Fromage Blanc w/pickled thyme & grilled bread

Another repeat from our first dinner - a unique treatment of the house made cheese.

Crispy Chicken Wings w/ jalapeño, scallions & garlic

The chicken was so tender, it was falling off the bones. Exquisite.



The caramelized jalapeno really makes this dish.

Red Wine Braised Olives w/ niçoise, alfonso & coquina olives, ramps

I knew ramps would show up someplace! These tiny olives tasted heavenly together with the smooth caramelized ramps.

French Breakfast Radishes w/ butter & salt

We'd tried this on our last visit to The Greenhouse, and I'd found the radish a little too bitter for my taste (I'm not a big radish eater). I was so glad that I decided to give it another try - this radish was sweeter and tastier - who knows, maybe I'll learn to like them after all!



Moving on to Seconds (though the Chicken Wings actually also come from that section of the menu) - Edsel opted for the Fanny Bay Oysters w/ horseradish vodka & meyer lemon mignonette. He pronounced them fabulous.

English Pea Fritter w/ mint, cilantro, butter beans & housemade yogurt

This is a new menu item - and because I adore spring peas, I had to try it. The portion was so large, however, that sharing was easy!









Yum! Creamy and pea-y on the inside, crispy and yogurty on the outside - I loved this dish.

Ohio Beef Burger w/ raclette cheese, pomme frites & house beer vinegar

Bob went again for the burger, and it was done to perfection.

I decided to combine 2 Halfs for my main, instead of ordering a Third.

Wild Ohio Asparagus w/ poached egg & fromage blanc

I had just read on a food blog about poached eggs over asparagus, and had planned to make it for my Saturday breakfast. No need, thanks to Chef Jonathon.





The cheese - the same stuff (with the pickled thyme) that we'd enjoyed as a first, happily married with the egg yolk and asparagus to make a satisfying dish.


Gnocchi with Brown Butter



I know that this looks like a small portion. And at eight pieces, it sounds like a small portion. But it was incredibly filling - the butter was browned to perfection, and danced around the ethereally fluffy pasta pillows, complimenting the crunchy bits of pancetta that accented the top of the dish. I could barely finish my plates.

Roasted Tea Hills Chicken w/ ohio asparagus, herb salad & natural jus

Edsel ordered this - my taste was succulent, juicy and flavorful. Tea Hills Farm makes you re-think your instinctive disdain for chicken.

As we chatted and digested, Chef Sawyer dropped by the table to say hello. Our companions ordered desserts, but Bob and I could not. Chef sent over a cheese course for the table to sample.



Unfortunately, I missed two people's descriptions of the cheese, other than it was a cow's milk cheese that is aged. It was so delicious, I couldn't help but nibble a bit, even though I was full. The candied almonds and walnuts were a delightful accompaniment.


Fresh Plum Clafoutis

Edsel's dessert, which he let us taste - fresh and fabulous!

And so, our third dinner at The Greenhouse Tavern was overall the best - they really seem to be hitting their stride on both the food and service; it was practically flawless. We look forward to playing with the food there again soon!