Memphis Farmers Market Dinner at Restaurant Iris
I know. It’s been almost 2 weeks since the dinner. We’re horrible bloggers who care more about showing off our baby chickens instead of telling you about a really great meal. It’s true. We suck. A lot.
But we didn’t forget, and the Memphis Farmers Market dinner was truly a dinner worth writing about. Kelly and the crew at Restaurant Iris always provide a great dining experience, and this meal was no exception.
We started with the pate of West Wind chicken, Squirrel eggs and duck paired with a 2007 pinot gris from Lachini Vineyard in Oregon. This was a rich soft pate topped with pinot gris jelly that was absolutely addictive spread on toast points with a dab of Creole mustard. Yes, those were our eggs in there binding it together. We really were surprised, but thrilled, that our chicken-butt fruit made the menu.
The first course was warm Bonnie Blue goat cheese salad, Ripley tomato marmalade and kudzu paired with a 2006 albarino from Licia, Rias Baixis in Spain. This all sounds deceptively simple, but this was a breaded, fried round of creamy goat cheese with a dollop of rich tomato on a fresh green salad with a kudzu vinaigrette. I really like cheese, and this was literally melt-in-your-mouth goat cheese. The salad was nice and all, but who needs green stuff when you can eat cheese like that?
The second course was Gulf shrimp with Delta Grind grits, andouille and piquillo paired with a 2006 pinot nero from Peter Zimmer, Alto Adige in Italy. Kelly’s shrimp and grits are one of Squirrelly, Jr.’s, very favorite things in the whole world. His only complaint the whole night was that I didn’t let him have my serving of this one. The grits were creamy, the sauce was a perfectly piquant complement to the lightness of the shrimp.
The main course was Neola Farms sirloin, Allan Benton hash and a marrow “bone” paired with a 2006 rosso from Paolo Scavino, Castiglione Falleto in Italy. This was honestly the most fun course of the evening. Of course, everything is better with bacon, so the hash was naturally divine. But the true star of the plate was the marrow “bone”. This was a potato carved into a hollow tube and filled with a rich marrow mousse and short rib. It was beautiful and delicious.
Finally, we got to dessert. Kelly gave us a wine glass of Jones Orchard “cobbled” peaches. This was a scoop of Restaurant Iris’s wonderful ice cream topped with a fresh blueberry sauce and perfect bite-sized morsels of sweet peach paired with a 2007 moscato d’asti from Saracco, Piedmont in Italy. It was a perfect end to a lovely meal.
If you missed this dinner don’t worry. Restaurant Iris earned it’s 4-star rating by proving meals like this every day, and there are still 3 more MFM dinners in the series. We’ll be at all of them, so come on out and join us. We’ll be better bloggers next time. We promise.
Your chicks make some good eggs!
I snagged an extra. Kelly said he enriched it with a little somethin somethin. Why is bacon fat so so good?