It's a chilly late evening in the Arts District, with waning lights from surrounding restaurants and galleries as they tuck in for the night. Among them Baroo remains abuzz with mood lighting and a hushed but lively atmosphere. It's 8:45 PM on a Tuesday but there isn't an empty seat in the house.
A single tasting menu keeps it simple, and all you have to decide is whether you want a drink pairing and/or the supplemental beef. It's the kind of menu where I have to google 75% of the ingredients, and every item is enchanting.
The nonalcoholic pairing is hand-crafted kombucha, and I think it's even better than booze because of its uniqueness. We start with a glass of "rose" (like the wine), a kombucha that smells like the real thing but finishes sweeter with a little mulberry tang.
It pairs with the starter snacks, a small bowl of squash soup, sweetness supplemented with a darker, foamy tea. It's topped with a seedy, puffy crisp to add some texture and earth.
The other bit is a bread base, like mochi with crispy edges. The chewy texture is perfection paired with a nutty hint of gouda and uplifting berry sour.
A single seared Scallop is spectacular in a leafy green liquid with seaweed and rice puffs. Use your spoon to scoop up every drop - it finishes with a surprising hint of horseradish, and my delight turns to obsession.
A sweeter quince kombucha accompanies the Ssam, a beautiful spread of leaves encasing a wedge of sole. The fish is buttery flakes, and the skin is a seaweed crisp. The leaves are aromatic, much like shiso, with a slightly citrus lift.
The next kombucha is barley-based, savory with shiso and sweet potato notes.
It accompanies a melt-in-your-mouth black Cod, with a lightly pickled radish and crispy fried green papaya. The sauce is sweet and savory, with buttermilk to make it rich.
A beet kombucha resembles red wine, made to complement the meats.
The Pork Collar is impossibly tender, in a savory red jjigae sauce. The show-stealer is the creamy dollop of white kimchi that adds even more flavor than the sauce.
A small supplement gets you Beef Short Rib, the tenderest you'll ever eat. Same sides, but you get a burdock jus that tastes a bit like a sweet soy. A delicious dish but not much of a standout compared to the creativity of everything else on this menu.
I thought I couldn't be more blown away, but I was wrong. The final savory course is absolutely the best rice bowl in the world and possibly the best dish I've ever eaten. Every grain of rice is dotted with bits of aromatic mountain greens. A pickled paste of perilla leaves with lotus and sunchoke are fragrant from fermentation and a dollop of XO sauce brings on a fishy umani that makes every other flavor explode. It's all topped with fine-shredded crisps of the most amazing seaweed.
A sweet kombucha with passion fruit, mugwort, and pine nut accompanies the Melon panna cotta. The creamy classic occupies one side, sharing with a smooth ice cream on the other. The topping is a bitter sorrel bingsu that almost mimics matcha.
I looked forward to trying the new Baroo, but I did have my doubts. I wasn't sure how those mom-and-pop rice bowls would translate into fine dining, and I never could have guessed they'd do it all so well. The food is fancier, but it still conveys the warmth and comfort of their hole-in-the-wall, open-counter, grab-your-drinks-from-the-
No comments:
Post a Comment