Friday, September 2, 2011

Touch Supper Club Farm to Table Dinner

On Tuesday night, "R" and I attended the Touch Supper Club Farm to Table Dinner at Stone Garden Farms in Richfield. The setting was gorgeous, and it was a perfect late summer evening (you know, one with just a slight chill in the air once the sun went down).They were also unveiling their new food truck, which is about to hit the streets of Cleveland serving up tasty tacos.Touch had set up tables of 8 on the grounds of the farm, surrounded by interesting old buildings and beautiful gardens. Before the dinner started, we explored the buildings......poked around the gardens......and made some new friends.Then we settled into our table for a seven course meal served family-style, inspired by Stone Garden Farms. Many of the courses included produce picked fresh from the grounds, and our sixth course was a suckling pig right off the farm. But first up were Assorted Deviled Eggs with Fried Green Tomatoes.I love deviled eggs, and these did not disappoint. The kimchee and blue cheese eggs were my favorite two. The lightly battered fried green tomatoes were also a big hit at our table. This course was paired with a light, summery Cucumber Melon Margarita.

Second course was a Heirloom Tomato Panzanella Salad with wild lamb quarters (a green, as our table learned), arugula, and goat cheese.Paired with it was a Ketchup Martini- my least favorite drink of the evening (whoa, strong and spicy), but fun. I really enjoyed this salad, and it included some of the sweetest and flavorful tomatoes that I've had yet this summer.The third course was a Stone Garden Salt Roasted Beet Salad with romaine, candied walnuts, strawberry rhubarb vinaigrette, and Danish blue cheese. This was a table favorite, but the salt-roasted beets were just a tad too salty in my opinion. I think it lost some of the great earthy flavor of the beets. But the five different varieties of beets were picked straight from the farm, and it doesn't get any fresher than that! Next up was the Garden Beans with toasted cumin, lemon and feta cheese, tomato salad, and toasted pine nuts. It was paired with a sparkling white wine, and is the chef's "favorite summer side dish".

Now we moved into the "main courses", which started with a Grilled Smoked Salmon with heirloom tomato bread pudding, oven dried cherry tomatoes, and a leek corn slab bacon compote. This dish was paired with a refreshing Lynchburg Lemonade.Let me state that I typically hate salmon. It's always too "fishy" for me, and I would never, ever order it out. This was my favorite course of the evening. The bread pudding was outstanding, and I absolutely loved the Rose Hip Gastrique that Chef Fisher had whipped up for the meal. The fish was mild, with a nice crisp to the outside.

Now it was time for the main event, the Roasted Suckling Pig.This was served with smoked sweet potatoes, house-made BBQ sauce, and a slightly sweet red wine. The sauce was exceptional, and several of us dipped our utensils into the jar to savor just that flavor by itself. My first piece of pork was very fatty and too tough to cut into, but the platter kept refilling itself and I enjoyed some delicious smokey, tender pork.

The last course was a Blue Berry Pie with white cheddar cheese ice cream, and was supposed to be served with a Ginger Peach Cobbler cocktail. Unfortunately, as our server made his way to our table he tripped over a chair leg in the dark and down went the tray of drinks. Alas, we didn't get to try the cocktail but it sure sounded good! I am not a pie lover, but I did pick at a few bites and watched as everyone else at the table happily cleaned their plates. So it must have been good, because we were all feeling stuffed at that point.

With our bellies full, we wandered over to the roaring bonfire and continued to listen to the beautiful live folk music that had entertained us all evening. It was a perfect ending to an unique, and delicious, meal on the farm.For more pictures from the evening, check out the album on my Facebook Fan Page.

Thank you to Touch Supper Club for providing me with a media pass to come check out the event and the debut of their new food truck. It was a fun and tasty meal, and one that we won't soon forget. The opinions above are 100% mine.

2 comments:

Ben said...

Sounds like a really enjoyable meal. Salmon, with the exception of smoked, is hit or miss for me, with about 70% "miss" because of fishiness, oiliess or leathery texture. Getting it perfectly done can make for a great meal, though. We need to try Touch sometime soon, but we've been getting lazy about crossing the river. Your review of the dinner made me want to make the trek.

Bite Buff said...

Touch is one of our go-to spots! Worth the trek. :)