Sunday Supper, part 2

My first experience with Sunday Supper at JCT Kitchen came about a year ago. After saying a thousand times that I want to go again, we finally made it back there, using Bulgaria's Independence day as an excuse. Even though she's not Bulgaria, Snooki also tagged along.

As before, the table shared biscuits with apple butter and brown butter, a large salad and deviled eggs. And after what seemed like an eternity, we finally got our entrees. JCT Kitchen, you need to get your act together because it's not OK to make people 30 min after the salad to get their meals. I suspect our dished were just waiting on a counter somewhere because they were cold by the time we got them. Everything was still delicious, but I know it would have been a lot better if warm. Oh yeah, here's what we ordered: I had the pan-seared steak with mushrooms, Snooki had the pork tenderloin, my dad got the grouper with beets, and my mom ordered the fried chicken with cornbread. It's funny how it works out this way so many times, but I liked Snooki's dish (the pork) a lot more than my dish (steak). The pork was very tender and moist compared to my dry cold steak...  At least the mushrooms were great...

I think my favorite part of the Sunday Supper are the sides, especially the mashed sweet potatoes that we had last time. I've been dreaming about them! Well, day-dreaming ;) But they didn't have them on the menu this time! I'm outraged! Now I'll have to figure out how to make them myself. In the meantime, we had to choose something different and settled on mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, and mushrooms with Parmesan. However, our not-so-good waiter brought us mashed potatoes instead of mushrooms. Thankfully, he let us keep to potatoes and brought us mushrooms in addition to that. So in the end, we got a free side out of it :) Plus, the mushrooms turned out to be different from what we expected. We thought that they'd be sauteed mushrooms with cheese on top; instead, it was a mushroom risotto with cheese. It wasn't bad, but not the deliciousness I was waiting for. As to the other sides, the mashed potatoes were good, albeit too greasy; the Brussels sprouts were cooked perfectly, not bitter at all, and the mac and cheese was spectacular - very, very cheesy and with huge chunks of pancetta. By the way, if my parents like the Brussels sprouts, they must have been good. My dad especially is not too eager to try new foods.



And at the end of the meal came the dessert - caramelized pear pie. We were all complaining (in a good way!) how stuffed we were after the side overload. I was even telling myself that I'll have only a couple of bites of the pie. But boy oh boy! This pie is one of the BESTTTTT things I've ever had. The pears were soft and gooey, they were fragrant with warm spices (cinnamon, etc.), there was a little bit of custard, and the pie was sooo flaky and soft to the fork. It probably took me all but a minute to devour a pretty huge slice! At some point I did remember to stop for long enough to take a picture... It doesn't look that impressive, but you all should be jealous that you didn't try it. Well, that pie made us all forget about some of the mishaps earlier during the dinner :) And yes, it's up there on my list of amazing foods, right next to the French Toast at La Boulange :)

Sunday Supper

Over the last 5 weeks the lab that I work in had a visiting student from Denmark. One night, Cashew, my roommate Snooks and I decided to take Mette to a traditional Southern restaurant to introduce her to the food here. While trying to find a place that's open on Sunday, we accidentally stumbled upon the Sunday Supper at JCT Kitchen. The name, by the way, stands for "Junction;" we did ask our server about it... Every Sunday, the restaurant offers a special menu in a family-style dinner setting. What makes it even more special is that the majority of items offered on Sunday are not available on the regular menu.

No Southern dinner will be complete without buttermilk biscuits. The ones at JCT Kitchen were served with butter and apple sauce. The biscuits were moist and flaky without being greasy. I really liked them. This was followed by another Southern favorite - deviled eggs. We each had one half egg, but I wish we were given a lot more than that. The filling was surprisingly light considering that it contains egg yolk and mayo. The eggs this time weren't topped with prosciutto, but that made me like them even better. I'm not eating meat for Lent, so I would have had to remove the prosciutto anyway. Finally, we were served an amazing salad made with field greens, beets, carrots, radishes, and even roasted new potatoes! The overabundance of ingredients made it great for every taste. I personally enjoyed everything that was in it, and liked the contrast in texture between, say, the crispy beets and soft potatoes.

Yes, we got all of this food before the main course! However, we were all excited about the only item that we could pick for ourselves for the night. My selection was the fish (cod) and grits. Cashew got the fried chicken that JCT Kitchen is known for, Snooks wanted to try the sausage and seafood gumbo, and Mette ordered the cider-braised pot roast. I really liked the spice rub on my fish, and I didn't even mind it being a little too salty for my taste. I even ate all of the grits! If you remember from previous posts, I'm not a grits fan... But the ones at JCT Kitchen were so different that I completely forgot what I was eating until the very end. They were made from very finely ground corn and were more liquidy than other grits I've had. I couldn't try the other dishes because of the meat components, but they looked great for all that's worth... Plus, my friends seemed to enjoy them.

The main course came with three sides that we could also choose. We selected the kale with citrus, the mashed potatoes, and the sweet potato puree with candied pecans. Yes, that's too types of potatoes but we wanted to try both of them. The sweet potato puree was out of this world! It was incredibly delicious. It tasted as decadent as dessert. I could have eaten the whole bowl just by myself. I bet they had a ton of butter to make them taste that good, but who cares :P The mashed potatoes and kale weren't bad either. The mashed potatoes were perfectly light and fluffy, and the kale wasn't bitter. Unfortunately, their taste paled in comparison to the sweet potatoes.

Of course, there was dessert at the end of the meal. This time it was a brownie topped with mascarpone cream. I don't know if I was too full by this point, but I didn't like the brownie too much. It seemed a little stale, and the crust was too hard to cut through. The cream was delicious, but couldn't quite rescue the shortcomings of the brownie.

And you know what was the BEST part of this FEAST? It was only $24 per person! It's an incredible deal for the amount and amazing quality of the food we got, and I'm sure I'll be taking advantage of these Sunday Suppers in the future.