Thursday, October 15, 2009

10/9/09-City Steam, Hartford, CT

After a crazy week, we finally got to relax with a night out with my friend Gina and her boyfriend. They wanted to go to City Steam, which works for me because I wanted to check out one of the restaurants participating in CT restaurant week (although this was not my choice place for CTRW, nothing else worked out this week!).

We arrived at 730 and there was a 20 minute wait, so we went to the bar. The boys decided to start their evening by ordering a pitcher of the Naughty Nurse Ale, which is Tom's favorite of their beers. Shortly thereafter, we were brought to our table. Our waitress was very prompt, bringing us drinks (Naughty Lemonade for myself and Gina) and bread. For appetizer, we started with nachos with grilled chicken and the plate was huge! Next for our entrees--Gina ordered the Cheddar Chicken Sandwich with waffle fries which she really enjoyed (and it looked great!); her boyfriend ordered a rack of Baby Back Ribs with waffle fries, mashed potatoes and vegetables; Tom ordered the Top Sirloin Steak served with sauteed mushrooms, french fries and vegetables-he seemed to enjoy it very much; I ordered off the CTRW menu--started with the Fall Back Salad-with mesclun greens, gorgonzola, mulled local apples, charred red onions, toasted cashews, cider vinaigrette and sweet potato strings--all the pieces of the salad were great but the salad was a bit overdressed. My entree choice was Brown Sugar Brined Pork Tenderloin with smashed Yukon potatoes and braised spinach finished with a bourbon butterscotch glaze--the pork was plentiful and very sweet with the glaze--excellent! I was not a big fan of their mashed potatoes because I prefer mine to not have chunks of potato (I know, weird) and the spinach was decent. The boys had also ordered another pitcher, this time of the Octoberfest, which they weren't thrilled with. Our waitress also stopped by with a glass of the White Rabbit beer that the bar mistakenly poured--tasted very similar to Blue Moon--very enjoyable.

We were all stuffed after our entrees but I still had dessert coming, which I gladly shared with the table--White Rabbit Napoleon-with strawberries macerated in our own Belgian White Rabbit beer, vanilla bean ice cream and crème patisserie layered in puff pastry-drizzled with basil syrup--sounded interesting but honestly, I don't get the basil syrup part--you got used to it after a few bites but it really threw the whole dessert off for me and the rest of my party. In all, it was a great night--good place to hang out with friends and relax.

www.citysteambrewerycafe.com

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