In just a few days we will be heading back to Walt Disney World to experience our second Food & Wine Festival. This is less a vacation and more of a pilgrimage. Dozens of adorable kiosks from around the world dispensing epicurean delicacies as well as tasty libations.
This cute as a button, thatched roof cottage houses my Guinness and Fisherman’s Pie!
I’m afraid, however, that I’ve set myself up poorly for this event. In the past several weeks we have had the pleasure of enjoying some absolutely marvelous meals right here in our back yard. The bar has been set quite high. Our Beer Dinner at Nosh Tavern was just stunning and more recently we celebrated our daughter’s birthday at Tastings Wine Bar and Bistro. Truth be told, Tastings is a venue that we were interested playing, but she really wanted to go after she saw the menu. We did get the gig, but it has no bearing on my review. Honest.
Tastings is located at Patriot Place in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Football fan or not, this is a great take. Adjacent to the stadium is a 1.3 million square foot shopping/dining bonanza.
Gillette Stadium
Most of the restaurants here are absolutely humongus and seat hundreds of people. This makes perfect sense due to the 65,000 seat stadium next door. Tastings stands out among these people-eating behemoths. It’s a small, intimate wine bar offering American Haute-Farm cuisine. They focus on the use of fresh, seasonal ingredients that are sourced from local farmers, ranchers, and fishermen who follow sustainable practices.
Tastings exterior. Very inviting
I have to confess that I wasn’t expecting our dinner to be as fantastic as it was. While I typically take photos of everything we order out (there’s got to be a twelve-step for this), I didn’t take any interior shots or make note of things like what wine we chose. Had I known how much we would enjoy everything, I would have noted details. As a result, I’m winging it a bit.
Our server helped us choose a lovely cabernet. Our daughter was celebrating her eighteenth birthday (Hooray! we got two through to adulthood!). The bartender prepared a non-alcohlic cocktail that was just perfect for the birthday girl.
Blueberry Sage cocktail
Our meal started with an amuse bouche. This was a cold beet soup with goat cheese and a pumpernickel crouton. Despite my aversion to beets and it’s unfortunate Pepto Bismol color, it was quite good.
It was better than it looked.
We had been recommended to try the popcorn. This seems like pretty strange thing to order in a Bistro. Friends, this ain’t the stuff that litters the floor of your local honky tonk. This popcorn is buttered with DUCK FAT!!!
Looks can be deceiving.
Our server helped us to decide on this next dish. It was by far the best thing we sampled, and that’s saying a whole lot. What we have here is an egg, poached in a spicy tomato broth with duck and chicken confit. Exquisite. The flavor of the broth was phenomenal and the egg was cooked perfectly.
Slurp!
We followed this concoction up with some calamari, but again this dish had a different twist.
“Now, that’s a squid of a different color!”
This is described on the menu as: Point Judith Calamari with Tarragon-Pistachio Pesto, Sauce Gribiche and Greens. The green hue was a bit jarring, but oh the flavor! The tarragon was subtle and not overpowering. This dish educated me because I had never even heard of Sauce Gribiche. All I can say is “where have you been all my life?” This is like mayonnaise-zilla. It’s a creamy emulsion with chopped hard cooked egg, pickled cucumber, capers, parsley chervil and tarragon. Plate-licking delicious! According to Wikipedia, this sauce also goes well with calves head. I’ll have to take their word for it.
Meghan chose the “Award Winning Mac and Cheese”. This contained a variety of local cheeses, finished with truffle oil smoked bread crumbs. I swiped a bite and it was quite good, but I preferred the Mac and Cheese at Nosh Tavern, although I wouldn’t refuse a bowl/tub of this either, that’s for sure.
Mac and Cheese
Jeff and I decided to show some temperance and just split a burger. This was dressed with caramelized romaine, porchetta di testa, smoked tomato aioli, Grafton Village cheddar and served with hand cut fries and house made local pickles. It was marvelous. I have only two critcisms. One, it was a bit over-done. We requested rare to medium-rare and it came out decidedly medium. Second, I was psyched about the house made pickles (I’m a bit of a pickle addict) but they were actually pickled BEETS, and you know how I feel about beets. Sad trombones. Despite my nit-picking, the flavor of the beef combined all the accompaniments (beside the beets) made for an outstanding burger.
Beet juice on my burger. Grrrr!
Remember when I mentioned that I’d take a pass on the calves head? Well, come to find out that the “porchetta di testa” is actually rolled pig’s head. I didn’t know this at the time, it just tasted like the best pancetta I ever had. I will not post a link. If you are faint of heart at all, DO NOT search google images. You’re welcome.
Speaking of offal, on to the next course! I’ve always wanted to try sweetbreads. For the uninitiated among us, these breads are not from the bakery.
Chicken Fried Sweetbreads
If you’re going to try something of this nature, I feel it’s best to have it deep fried, but there was really nothing to be afraid of. These were just lovely. The batter was light and crisp and delicately coated in a honey-cayenne glaze. The sweetbreads were so tender. They were accompanied by pickled kale and a tomatillo jam. I wasn’t crazy about these additions. Nothing wrong with them, I just preferred the sweetbreads on their own.
We didn’t even look at the dessert menu due to the fact that I made the girl a pretty rockin’ birthday cake…from scratch. Judging by the rest of our meal, there’s no reason to believe wouldn’t be outrageously good. Next time.
The girl had two pieces, we ate the rest.
Gratuitous cute photo of my baby girl. Happy Eighteenth!
You certainly have to be up for something different if you’re headed to Tastings. For food nerds like us, it was a delightful surprise that expanded our knowledge and palates. We’re sure to be celebrating something here in the future. How about National Offal Day?