Opening Night!

Benedict’s Ithaca had a smashing grand opening on Wednesday Night.  Our menu was well received, but the local food critic did have several important tips for improving the flavor, texture, mouth-feel, and presentation of our dishes.

 Grade =  86

We enjoyed the names and descriptions of your menu items – very clever!  The website was pretty cool too; who’s the dude in the black tee shirt?

Course commentary
First:

Good hot soup served in a hot bowl!  Generally I don’t care for garnishing the rim of a bowl or plate, but the arrangement of the chives looked like the rim had been hand painted – very attractive!  The soup itself had good flavor and was well seasoned.  The only recommendation would be to get the dice size of the salmon and potatoes smaller which would have improved the appearance of the soup.

Second:

The rice itself was cooked well but the dish was too dry, it needed more stock to loosen it up. The color was attractive and the risotto had good flavor.

Third:

This was an attractive plate and the visual play on words of “backstabbing” the chicken with the rosemary sprig was fun.  As we discussed at lab, we found the chicken to be a little overcooked and dry and the filling leaned toward the salty side.  If the artichokes were canned (which I presume they were), be careful of the salt contained in the brine and don’t over season.  Finishing the dish with some chicken jus would have helped to contribute some moisture to the dish.  The beans were nicely cooked as were the potatoes, the latter needed salt and pepper however.  The quantity of both seemed a bit excessive on the plate.

Dessert:

Nice presentation here too.  The crust was a bit thick and detracted from the overall dish as the amount of crust relative to the pastry cream and berries was excessive.  Since the crust could be corrected, using more pastry cream would have been good.

Bread:

The monks did a nice job on their Aquitaine rolls!

Overall we’re happy with the results and look forward to buying lots of cool kitchen toys in the near future!

Ithaca Grand Opening

Benedict’s is expanding! Please join the Benedict’s Team in celebrating the grand opening of Benedict’s Ithaca, April 30, 2008.

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