The Second Birthday Dinner

**Note from Vicki -- As you can see, every one of us forgot our cameras that night.  The food, however, is still fresh in Mike's memory :)

After taking Vicki to celebrate her birthday at Travail, my father offered to treat his daughter-in-law (and by extension, his son) at an establishment of her choice in the north-eastern suburbs, provided he and my mother get to tag along.  Vicki, as always, was aglow at the kindness and hadn’t the slightest idea of where we should go (do we go to Acqua again?  Ingredients?  Dock Café?  Look into the authenticity of the Bavarian Gasthaus?).  Thankfully, a new restaurant recently opened in Mahtomedi (okay, technically Willernie) that peaked my father’s curiosity.  My parents wanted to know if this new “Hanger Room” was all that it was cracked up to be, especially since the prices – in my father’s words – made Acqua look affordable.  Nonetheless, the reviews had been positive and we decided to have a fun evening enjoying and exploring fine dining in the northeast.

A small note before we get into the food.  I’m quite certain my parents are astounded that there son is this intrigued about food.  They probably attribute it to V, but I’m sure it still amazes them.  Seriously, I was the kid who ordered a variation of cheeseburger-with-only-ketchup-and-maybe-bacon or pizza-with-meat every time he went out.  Maybe pasta was occasionally allowed at Italian restaurants, but even meatballs were not in my repertoire at the time.  And this was when I was in high school!  No, my interest started much later and I’m sure it is nearly inconceivable that the boy-who-only-ate-meat would be expounding on the balance of ingredients in a tartare or how the cucumbers and caviar where prepared in such a way that they were the spotlight in that dish (not that his opinions are correct in any stretch of the imagination, simply that he would try). 

Anyway, without further ado, The Hanger Room.  Honestly, I do not know much about the genesis of this restaurant beyond that it is located in a former bowling alley and it is unique is its price points for this community.  However, V and I do love food, so we are always open to any suggestion of fine dining.  After settling in and looking at the menu, my dad suggested we all go for the Chef’s five course tasting menu.  No one objected.

Our experience started out with an Oyster shooter with dill and sea salt.  At first we were unsure how to eat this amuse bouche.  To we drink it like a shot?  It is in a shot glass and labeled a ‘shooter’.  But, there’s a spoon that comes with it.  What are we supposed to do with that?  Dad took a small sip and informed us that it was salty.  When the waitress came by with our wine, she let us know that our first opinion was correct – spoons be damned. 

I must say, this was a nice amuse.  When I saw the oyster floating in the glass, I expected to get a lot of that unappealing ‘ocean’ flavor.  I like oysters, but that flavor always accompanies them.  That was not the case here and the oyster shooter had a nice balance of flavors (okay, maybe a little salty for some palates) that reminded me of ocean (the good aspects), smoke, salt, and dill.  Overall, a success in my book.

The wine paired with this course was an Austrian Grüner Veltliner.  It was supposed to be a German semi-sweet Riesling, but the wines from the amuse and second course were accidentally swapped.  The Veltliner wasn’t bad, but I do think the more forward flavor of the Riesling would have stood up to the shooter better.  Oh well.

The first ‘real’ course of the evening was a Salmon Tartare.  I do think that all the flavors of this dish work, but the problem was proportion.  The main part of this dish was a rather large tartare (dad helped mom finish hers) with salty greens on top.  Now, the greens would balance the tartare out well if you could get them together.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  Trying to get that one ‘perfect’ bite simply eluded me.  If the greens were chopped smaller and would ease onto the fork with the tartare, this could be an entirely different story.  The Greek Assyrtiko wine that came with was fine, but altogether, it seemed like a good starting point in need of a few revisions.

What I really enjoyed about this dish were the cucumbers and sauces on the side.  Normally, I am not a big fan of cucumbers.  This has been an issue in Germany at times, but I am not a big fan of pickles, gürkens, cucumbers, whatever form they take.  I am always willing to try them, but a large plate of cucumber salad with cucumber sauce for lunch is a serious challenge for me.  The cucumbers on this plate, though, were wonderful.  They were subtle, they were clean, they had a texture of squash, and they high quality product.  The caviar on the sauce droplets matched that ‘high quality’ label by having a saltiness that wasn’t overbearing.  It was just what the sauce needed. 

The second course was another winner, like the shooter.  V has often thought that she simply doesn’t like scallops.  The requisite bit of grit aside, she just doesn’t like that slimy nether texture that scallops take on (and this coming from an Asian girl!), but this scallop was another story.  It was meaty.  It was rich.  It had a texture and a flavor that we loved.  The pork belly and foie puree were okay, but didn’t seem to make the scallops any better.   Once again, I wonder what this dish would have been like with the right pairing of wine, but V really liked this Riesling.

For the third course we got to the flagship piece and namesake of the restaurant: the 28-day aged steak.  Now, I have no idea how long or short steak is normally aged, how long you want it to be aged, or how it become better when it is aged, but The Hanger Room touts its horn on their hanger room where they dry-age they steaks in house.  This was the litmus test that my father was looking for, what most patrons from the northeastern suburbs are looking at.  We from the northeast are steak people.  We like are steaks and know what a good steak is.  Unfortunately, this one didn’t measure up.

I suppose it depended on what your first bite was, because mine was delicious.  The dry age had a real depth and sophistication to it, and the steaks were nicely cooked.  But, as I worked my way through my steak (and V had in her first bite), I ran into quite a few tendons.  Talking to my parents afterwards, we all had the same experience.  I guess we didn’t say anything at the table out of Minnesota Nice-ness.  I really am sad to say this, but the inferior cuts of meat really impeded our enjoyment of the supposedly higher quality dry-aged meat.  Too bad, because I’m sure this is fatal blow for many that even the meaty scallops can’t save.

After the steaks we had a cheese course of manchego and house made garnishes paired with some sherry.  Cheese is one of those things that almost always pleases V and me (thank you Germany!) and the garnishes were tasty.

Finally, for dessert we had a cardamon and vanilla Crème Brulee with a Sauternes.  You definitely tasted the cardamon in this dish, which I thought was nice at first.  After a while it got to be a bit much, though I enjoyed this dish.   The Crème Brulee connoisseur was not much of a fan and I know not to disagree with her opinion.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at The Hanger Room.  It really is a lot of fun to try nice food, talk about its different elements, and enjoy each other’s company, all while celebrating V’s birthday.  At the end of the day, though, we probably will go back to Acqua next time we’re in town.