bluezoo treats

On Thursday of last week, we went to dinner at Todd English’s bluezoo with our friends Lisa & Andy (we were celebrating their 45th Wedding Anniversary… congratulations!)… In addition to our dinner, Chef Ryan brought out two surprises for us and we wanted to share them here.

First treat was braised duck leg quarter served with brussels sprouts, braised radishes, and a chile paste glaze.

Andy’s photo before the attack…

Sorry! I remembered to take a photo with my iPhone after we’d already attacked our plate

Lisa was really impressed with the teeny tiny vegetable dice (sorry, I can’t remember what it’s called). The braised radishes (the pink looking vegetables) were very good, I was impressed because I wouldn’t have thought of cooking radishes (although pickling them seems to be obvious). The brussels sprouts were good.

BUT the real standout was that braised duck – NOTE to bluezoo… Please put duck on your autumn/winter menu as a special now and then. We’ve had an ongoing conversation with Chef Ryan in past weeks about Korean Chile Paste (I have recently bought some from amazon… Sunchang Gochujang) and about how he’s been using it in glazes… This glaze was out of this world, just a hint of sweetness and a hint of spice. I saved my bit of glazed crispy thigh skin as my last taste – yummy.

And, I can’t stop here with the duck. Andy was really impressed and made sure to let Chef Ryan know that this was the best duck he’s ever eaten (even better than the duck in Bordeaux). The next morning, we were all still going on and on about how good that duck was.

So, if you see braised duck as a Chef’s Special at bluezoo — ORDER IT

The second item was a perfect bite (or two) of beef…

Beef and Burgundy Truffles

You see, we’d seen a tweet from Chef Ryan (@r_ratino) on October 1st of “House 50 day aged 4 story hills beef” and even though we don’t consider ourselves beef eaters, we had to ask if it was featured in the Chef’s Special or somewhere else. It wasn’t. Chef Ryan was able to provide us all with a small taste – the perfect size. Each of us had a two bite size piece of beef, medium rare with three slices of Burgundy Truffle (I had already eaten one slice by itself when I remembered to take the photo) and fleur de sel. I believe this is the first time Nick and I have had slices of truffle, so I wanted to see how it was solo – very earthy.

The whole composition was very tasty. Rich and flavorful (the duck was better <grin>).

So here’s a heartfelt “Thank You” to Chef Ryan and a “Good Job!” to the entire team at bluezoo.

Oh, I did get a photo of my dinner. Nick and I split the Chef’s Pasta – Housemade Garganelli with lemon butter sauce, brussels sprouts, radishes, and lobster… Quite yummy as always. If you haven’t tried pastas at bluezoo, you’re missing something quite nice.

Half portion of Chef’s Pasta