Restaurant Bloom

Last Friday Janna and I had dinner with my folks, my brother and his wife at Restaurant Bloom at 40 Monroe Center NW. (There is a current menu on their My Space blog) My brother was in town for an interview of one kind or another which allowed for this little get together. He lives in Cincinnati so we rarely get to visit with him.

In any event, Bloom is a relatively new restaurant with a husband and wife team operating the kitchen. I would say the style is modern, though not quite the avant garde modern of TRU, Charlie Trotter's in Chicago or French Laundry in San Francisco. Nevertheless, for Grand Rapids this is about as close as we're going to get and we will all smile and enjoy it.

Our dinner started off with an amuse bouche of salmon belly in a maple sauce. I love the concept of providing guests with an amuse bouche and I loved the salmon belly but the maple sauce was over powering and way to sweet. I am not a fan of sweet dishes not called desert and even in desert I'm not a fan of to much sweet so perhaps my aversion to the maple sauce is rooted in that. But Janna, who has a sweet tooth, also thought the sauce was to sweet. Good concept, maybe they need to try something else.

For an appetizer I ordered the tuna tartar, roasted peanut, hot sauce sorbet and parsley. The tuna was absolutely perfect and the roasted peanut and hot sauce sorbet perfectly complimented the delicate tuna. The sorbet, while different, added a nice coolness to the dish while at the same time providing a hot zing. This dish alone made the evening worthwhile. Janna started off with a baby spinach salad with crispy ham, aged cheddar and cider dressing. She will attest that the salad was very good, presented beautifully.

My main course was a roasted duck, swiss chard, rutabaga and roasted concord grape juice. The duck was perfectly cooked medium rare and the grape juice provided just the slightest hint of sweetness to this otherwise savory dish. Janna got lamb sirloin, chanterelle mushrooms, red cabbage and hazelnut. She's been raving about the lamb ever since Friday. It was perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned. Other dishes enjoyed included salmon and ribeye, I'm told both were quite good.

Desert alone is worth going to Bloom for and I understand they have a desert lounge which we will no doubt be frequenting. I got pumpkin cake, coffee ice cream and dates. I'm here to tell you that on its own the pumpkin cake wasn't very good but put together with the ice cream and dates and the pumpkin danced in my mouth. Janna got chocolate goodness, ginger sorbet, hazelnut and sea salt. The chocolate tasted much like a dull Nutella if a bite was taken without the sea salt, with the sea salt the flavors were enhanced and it turns into a wonderful desert. My mother got the most interesting desert of the evening, peanut butter mousse, bacon, bananas and chocolate sorbet. I tried a bit of hers and the bacon went perfectly with the peanut butter mousse, it gave the flavor a certain smokey saltiness that was absolutely wonderful.

Bloom is a great new restaurant downtown and I highly recommend it. The only drawback is that the wait staff wasn't up to par for the quality of restaurant Bloom is. Our waiter when asked simply told me that everything on the menu is good. Well, no kidding, care to provide me with a dish that is particularly good? The woman who brought out all of our dishes felt the need to announce herself by declaring 'look what I found.' One wonders where exactly she found it. In time, I'm sure the chefs will have their wait staff better trained. The food is good enough though to shine despite the waitstaff. Out of a possible 5 stars, Bloom earns 3 stars.