A Delicious First Taste

You can only have so much beer before you need food. And sometimes food is just food, to fill the hole, to soak up the beer. But other times the food is equally as important, equally as good, perhaps even more so than the beer.

Tonight I had the chance to check out a place I had been hearing some buzz about - The Rookery, housed above Raven & Rose, in the hayloft of the Ladd Carriage House which is not only one of the few remaining buildings in the U.S. of the English Stick style of architecture but is also on the National Register of Historic Places AND an LEED certified building.

Starting next weekend they will offer a new family-style Sunday roast supper. This week's version of it featured two amazingly prepared meats - wood-fire roasted lamb and slow-roasted pork. Both were meltingly juicy on the inside with crispy exteriors. As a bonus the pork included the extra deliciousness of crispy chicharrones. The rich meats were accompanied by a well-rounded assortment of sides, my favorite being the beef fat-whipped potatoes. Yes, beef fat.

The Widmer/Logsdon Belgian pale ale collaboration, Ensemble, I had ordered before the group happily descended on the feast was a perfect palate cleanser. I could have spent hours alternating between bites of the luscious varieties of fats and refreshing sips of the pale ale.

The meal will be offered at $35/person 4:00 - 9:00 pm in the dining room and while they pour wine and cocktails, I highly recommend having your meal with a beer.

I'll also be recommending that my friends and I meet up either at Raven & Rose or the Rookery Bar to try more of the food I have no doubt will be equally as delicious as the Sunday Roast preview. Perhaps I'll be back next week on April 12th for the Samuel Smith's Brewer's Social. Who's in?