We decided to eat out today because the air quality is bad due to the wind patterns bringing smoke from the fires from northern california and oregon and we weren’t going to fire up the big green egg and add to the pollution. So we finally decided to try one of the newer restaurants in our neighborhood, Bistro Ember, a modern Turkish restaurant.
So we walked down, wearing masks. Air quality was about 150 or so. We had a 6:30 reservation and there was only one other table seated, although a few other tables seated shortly after we did and the restaurant did become pretty busy which is not bad for a Wednesday evening.
To start, we ordered the chickpea yeas bread which came with an interesting presentation of the butter that was molded into a honeycomb shape with some of the honeycombs filled with either spicy honey, rosemary oil, or olive oil. The bread itself was good, but not great, but the butter and oils made it interesting and enjoyable.
For first course, we had the little gem salad and the fish & raki. The salad flavors were good, but it needed more of the dressing. The fish & raki was cured kampachi, various presentations of melon (compressed, gel, vinegar) and a peach “caviar.” The salty cured kampachi and the melon made me think just a bit of a classic prosciutto and melon dish, but made of course with fish and the seasoning on the other components were delicious.
We then had the octopus, which was slow cooked and very tender with sides of muammara (a paste made with red pepper, garlic, spices)and some sumac chimichurri and a tasty roasted eggplant side.
For our mains, Andrea had the filet mignon and I had the 12-hour slow cooked lamb shank. The filet was cooked to the perfect temperature (although I’m not a fan of filet in general because it has no fat and is too bland for me) and nice layered potato. My lamb was very tender, but quite bland. It did also come with keskek, a rice stew (the waiter described it as similar to a risotto), but I found it very gluey and bland. The mushrooms and purees did add a bit of flavor to the dish.
We were pretty full at this point, but we still had to order dessert because that’s the way we roll. The most interesting sounding dish was the Burnt Chicken Pudding. The chicken part was a crispy candied chicken skin (small portion. we were told traditionally there would be more chicken). The dessert also included hazelnut cream, goat cheese ice cream, roasted sesame, and cinnamon crumble. Despite how full we were, we ate it all.
Service was uneven at times, esp. as the restaurant became full, but still good. Wine list was small, but decent enough. All in all, we had a very interesting and enjoyable meal and it’s nice to have another dining option with a different cuisine in our neighborhood.
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