Highlights from The Shed at Glenwood Media Dinner

Date Cake with Vanilla Chantilly - best saved for last!

Last week I attended a media dinner at The Shed at Glenwood. We started with a wonderful foie gras torchon with blueberry jam on country bread and a tasty chicken liver & bacon bruschetta. I would order the foie gras again any day. After sitting down we were served watermelon sorbet as an amuse bouche. This was a bit strange to me as such a sweet sorbet seems more fitting as an intermezzo between the appetizer and entree courses or as a dessert. Still, I really enjoyed the concentrated watermelon flavor and ate every bite! The following photos are highlights of the meal.

Yours truly with Chef Lance Gummere.

Roasted Beet Salad, Goat Cheese, White Balsamic.

I usually love beet/goat cheese salads but I think the white balsamic overpowered this one and the cheese was not strong enough to compete. I'd like to see a more flavorful goat cheese paired here and the white balsamic toned down a bit. Still, I really enjoyed the yellow beets' wonderful flavor.

Watermelon salad, Feta, Aged Balsamico.

This salad really worked well. I loved the pairing of the feta and watermelon here and the balsamico and mint added nice extra touches. A bit more mint would have been welcome, maybe even chopped and tossed with the melon prior to plating.

Steamed Mussels, White Wine, Garlic, Cream with Frites.

Loved these mussels. Great flavor - a shame there was no bread for sopping, although I'm sure I could have asked for some. I was trying to save room for everything coming up!

Fried chicken sliders - we also tried housemade pastrami and pork schnitzel sliders.

After hearing so much about Wednesday slider night, these were a disappointment, although I did like the pork schnitzel one quite a bit and the pastrami was tasty. The problem seemed to be an unevenness of saucing and a lack of other condiments - no tomato, lettuce or other inventive toppings? The bread was also rather thick and made these taste dry. I wish we could have tried the scallop sliders with jalepeno slaw.

Pan Seared Trout, Crystal Farms Organic Summer Squash, Pesto.

I really enjoyed this lighter dish, especially the squash and pesto. The fish was tasty but did not blow me away. Perhaps I have been spoiled eating fresh mountain trout in NC.

Ribeye, Jumbo Lumb Crabmeat, Roasted Sunchokes.

The steak was okay (I am not a huge read meat fan) and the crabmeat is an interesting touch, but the sunchokes (AKA Jerusalem artichokes) blew me away. I never had these before and they were so tasty - like a combination between an artichoke and a potato. I want to find out where to buy them so I can cook them myself. Definitely a great idea to include them in this dish, giving it a uniqueness unusual to beef entrees.

We also tried a chicken dish, which was juicy and tasty, but not really what I go to restaurants to order. I would have enjoyed trying one of the more unusual entrees on the menu like the swordfish or the pork dumplings rather than chicken, but those who like to order chicken out will enjoy this well-executed dish.

Housemade Ding Dong.

I preferred the date cake (first photo) although I think the ding dong is a cute idea. It didn't really taste as rich or flavorful as I expected. We also tried the chocolate peanut butter bar, which had dark chocolate layered with peanut butter. The dark chocolate was a bit overwhelming for this dish and although I prefer it to milk, it seems like a milkier chocolate would have worked better. I was disappointed we did not get to try any ice cream (especially since it was about 95 degrees out) - the profitoroles with espresso ice cream I saw on the specials board sounds like a winner.