Vacation+ Salt lake City=Great Food

Over President's Day weekend Pat and I went to a boardgame convention in Salt Lake City, UT but took the opportunity to eat at some really good restaurants.

The first place we had dinner at was at the  Oasis Cafe.  You can see our selections for dinner below.
We had an amazing Salmon Bruschetta appetizer.

I had a grilled Salmon with a honey lavender polenta cake.  I thought the lavender might be overpowering but it had this great balance.  Pat had the wild mushroom risotto.  Both of our entrees were delicious and me with my sweet tooth was looking forward to dessert.

We ordered the apple cashew crumble.  A nutty take on an apple crisp that was warm and wonderful and topped with vanilla ice cream.

We also ordered the Lavender infused panna cotta.

While the presentation was wonderful:  the taste...not so much.  The overpowering lavender flavor was there and it was intense.  Eating it along with the berries made it palatable.  We highly recommend the Oasis Cafe(just steer clear of the panna cotta)...everything else we had was scrumptious!

Saturday, on our way to the Capital building we stopped at Wild Grape Bistro.  Pat had the Wild Beef Burger and I had the House Smoked Turkey Sandwich.  Pat's burger was very good.  My sandwich was good, although it definitely could have had a higher brie to everything else ratio.  The brie, one of my favorite cheeses, got a little lost in the sandwich.  We both splurged for the Parmesan truffle fries, which were well worth the extra dollar.

Sunday we had a hard time finding food.  The entire city practically closes down on Sunday mornings.  We waited until 11ish and tried to find an open Mexican restaurant without any luck.  While driving around searching for any type of food we happened across Caffe Molise.  An Italian restaurant that serves brunch.  Pat ordered the Salmone Benidictus(Eggs Benedict with smoked Salmon).  Unfortunately the eggs came overcooked.  The runny yoke that makes an egg benedict was a fully cooked yolk.  After eating one of the eggs we did finally tell our waiter who brought out two eggs cooked correctly.  Pat said it realy made a difference and enjoyed his second egg much better.  I ordered the Anacardi Tostata(an italian take ok French Toast).  The pieces of bread were crusted with chopped cashews and Frangelico.  It was served with a sweetened ricotta cream and maple syrup and it was delicious.  The chopped nuts got all toasted during the cooking and it was this rich nutty piece of bread.  The sweetened ricotta was a nice touch.

Sunday night we had dinner at Bambara.  We started with a local cheese plate.  It had a coffee crusted cheese that Pat really liked as well as goat cheese I thought was delicious.  There was also a parmesan and a blue cheese that were both good but not our favorites. For our entrees Pat had the Filet of Beef.  It was served with duck fat roasted fingerling potatoes and a leek puree.  It was a melt in your mouth steak and the mushrooms that were served alongside were the perfect accompaniment to the steak.  I got the venison with a wild Oregon huckleberry syrup.  It was served with a celery root puree, something I have had a couple times recently and have taken quite a likening to it.  The venison was paired with a cipollini, fingerling potato huckleberry hash.  The whole plate had a great balance to it.  Even Pat, who is not always a fan of sweet and savory being mixed thought it all melded together well.  We finished off the meal by sharing this:

 I know it's a little blurry but it's a turtle ice cream sandwich.  It was good but the ice cream was over frozen so it was really hard to cut off a bite without having the ice cream crumble.  I think if the ice cream had been that perfect creamy consistency then it would have been an A+ dessert.  Instead it was more of a B dessert, but we did eat it all, so obviously it was still tasty.

    Monday, we ate at one more Salt Lake City restaurant before heading back to Vegas.  We had lunch at Cedars of Lebanon.  It was a great middle eastern restaurant.  We had a very attentive server(possibly since we were the only ones in the restaurant).  We had their hummos as an appetizer, which was smooth and creamy.  I have yet to figure out how to make my hummos that creamy.  We both had the creamy red lentil soup.  Apparently a specialty that is only made a couple times a year.  It was very good, and I'm sometimes picky about my lentils.  Pat had a Chicken Curry dish.  The chicken was so tender and moist.  It was amazing.  I had the kafta Kabobs.  They were really good as well(although I think the winner of the better lunch went to Pat this time).  After our main entrees we did split a piece of baklava.  It was not the best baklava I have ever had.  It was homemade but it was the simple syrup the cook put on top that I did not like.  It had a strong citrus flavor, which just didn't enhance the flavor.  I also felt like the nut layer wasn't as toasty as I would have likied.

    So all in all Salt Lake City was a great place to go visit but more importantly eat!  Ok, ok, I like the Lake a lot too.