I was beyond excited to visit the Butcher and the Boar for our anniversary dinner this year. It opened during the last half of 2012 and I have been reading about it ever since and trying to think of an excuse to visit. It is not often a restaurant lives up to all of the hype surrounding it, but the Butcher and the Boar was everything I expected, if not more impressive.
The interior was rather understated with a large wood bar on one side and the dining room and kitchen on the other side. The floor is covered in pennies, which add a bit of shine and texture to the floor.
We started with the smoked olives. Wow, who knew you could smoke olives. They had a light smoky flavor with some garlic cloves in the dish as well that added to the flavor. These are a very tasty snack.
We ordered the highly recommended smoked beef long rib with Tabasco molasses BBQ sauce. The meat was very tender and delicious, though a bit fatty in some spots. The crispy edges were especially good. The sauce was amazing; savory, sweet and spicy all at once. I think they could apply that sauce to almost anything and it would taste amazing.
The blackened cauliflower seemed to be seasoned with cumin. It was very delicious and just lightly sauteed.
For dessert we tried the s'mores which are molten marshmallow, manjari chocolate ganache inside, dogwood coffee ice cream and graham crackers. The s'mores were awesome and had great flavor, though they were barely warm when they arrived at the table. I wish the marshmallows had been hot. The bits of chocolate ganache inside the marshmallows were a fun surprise. I enjoyed the coffee ice cream more than I expected, mostly because the coffee flavor was not too strong.
The service was very good. We had a short wait when we arrived, but once seated everything went very smoothly. I think we used a lot of restraint in ordering and did not over-order on the entrees. There were a lot of items we wanted to try! It was the perfect amount of food and our bill was not as expensive as we thought it might be. I am looking forward to returning soon. I'd really like to try some of their sausages because there were a bunch of interesting combinations not commonly seen in this area.
A word of warning, we made our reservations over six weeks in advance in order to get in at a prime time on a Saturday night. I would recommend planning ahead as well as I am sure they will be very busy for some time to come.
The Butcher and the Boar
1121 Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403
(612) 238-8888
No comments:
Post a Comment