A year's worth of dining

Reviewers compile their top picks

Sunday, Dec. 23, 2007

Twelve months of exciting work together on food: dining out, discussing flavors, recording and transcribing our notes, chatting with servers, interviewing chefs and owners, writing, reading each other, arguing, rewriting, arguing some more.
What were our best bites — or sips — of 2007?

January
— Stuffed Chicken Breast. Haymarket Grill.
Pan-roasted. Chewy-crisp brown skin and an inspired stuffing of Camembert cheese, avocado, prosciutto ham, fresh garlic and baby greens that merged into a deliciously textured savory goo with a slight bitter- lettuce edge and marvelous toothsome bits of dark- caramelized cheese, $19.

January
— Chocolate Sauce. Legacy Chocolates.
Potion No. 9. Combines rich red cocoa from Belgium (28 percent cocoa butter!), astonishing heavy cream from the Pride of Main Street dairy in Sauk Centre, Minnesota (40 percent butterfat) and fine unsalted butter slow-churned by the old-fashioned Hope Creamery in Hope, Minn.
This sauce has what the great chef Thomas Keller calls 'the texture of luxury.' It is silken and lush, creamy-thick and pillowy, elegant, sensual, soothing. Eight ounces, $4.95.

February
— Dal Makhani ('buttered beans'), Flavor of India.

While mourning the closing of Flavor, we console ourselves with memories.
A masterpiece of India's brilliant vegetarian cuisine: an elegant concoction of black lentils slow-cooked for six hours in butter, yogurt, ginger, onions, garlic and soft spices, then ennobled by double-thick cream and fresh herbs, $8.95.
Ordered mild, the sweet, pure flavors of lentil and butter predominate. Ordered medium-hot, additions of green chili and other spices balance the richness with gentle warmth and notes of mustard.

February
— Chilaquiles. Tacos Juanita.
Our favorite breakfast platter, classic and comforting. Thick house-made tortilla chips are transmuted into delicious noodles by infusions of mild (tomato-chili) or spicy-hot (green chili) sauce, then topped with sour cream, onions and the superb queso fresco (fresh Mexican cheese), $6.99, with refried beans and crisp-fried potatoes.

March
— Italian Sausage. Fischers' on the Green.
Chicago-style Italian sausage, served at lunch, hand-crafted in-house with a secret herb-and-spice blend taught to Dave Fischer by his longtime friend Pete Garza, owner of the late and legendary Pete's Blue Diamond Supper Club near New Auburn.

The sausage is astonishingly lean and finely ground, with whispers of fennel and murmurs of red pepper that slowly build, bite by bite, into a soft chorus of good flavors.
We like it best served with onions and bell peppers in a lightly thickened, herbed gravy, $7.95.

April
— Friday fish fry. Whiskey Dicks'.
Most Wisconsin restaurants do a decent job of beer-battering and deep-frying fish. But very few fry as consistently near to perfect as Whiskey Dicks'.
This is as close to fish-fry heaven as we're likely to get: high-quality Alaskan cod, moist and steaming, sheathed in a thin, reddish-golden, craggy-hard batter shell that cracks apart under your fork and stays crisp for a long time. All you can eat, $8.

May
— Pizza Bianca ('white pizza'). The Stone Barn.

Customers are encouraged to BYO — Build Your Own — for the traditional wood-fired brick oven, $14 and up. After consulting with chef-owner Pam Taylor, we did — and created a delicious favorite: handmade dough lightly drizzled with good olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and much fresh garlic, then topped with a Taylor-made mix of minced herbs fresh from her garden and four cheeses — mozzarella, provolone, feta and Parmesan.

July
— Hefeweizen Dunkel. Das Bierhaus.
An outstanding dark wheat ale with residual yeast; malty aroma; a dense, creamy head; and a spicy, fruity middle — banana and baked apple — that lasts and lasts. Half-liter, $4.50.

July
— Sea Bass Acapulco. Manny's Cocina.
A study in tenderness. Impossibly light, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth flakes of milk-glass-radiant fish, $22 (market price). Served with a chilled salsa of fresh mangoes, oranges, mint, red bell peppers and jicama.

August
— Baby Back Ribs. J & J Barbecue.
Jim Grandy makes the best baby back ribs we've had anywhere.
They're not pretty. They come smoke-blackened and speckled with smoke- blackened grit from his light pepper-and-salt rub. But sliced into individual ribs, they reveal glistening meat with lovely deep-pink smoke rings.
Jim must be a patient man. He smokes his ribs far beyond merely done to a state of tender inner moistness, a remarkable absence of fat and perfect tug and chew. He beautifully balances smoke, salt, spice and porky flavor. Full rack, $15.

November
— Salted Caramels. Obsession Chocolates.
A honey-infused hunk of dark caramel dipped in soft milk chocolate, then garnished with crystals of Fleur de Sel from France, perhaps the best sea salt in the world.
In this gooey-thick, wonderful mélange, the salt's incisiveness and crunch shock and delight the mouth and intensify each flavor, $1.98 a piece. It's a Milky Way bar reinvented by a genius.

December
— India Pale Ale. Sand Creek Brewing Co.
Wild Ride IPA: bright amber beer exuberantly cloudy with yeast. Spicy aromas, vibrant tension between hop-bitter and malt-rich, and an unforgettable long finish of citrus, piney resin and flowers, $1.50 a bottle, or $7.99 for a mix-and-match six-pack, at Just Local Foods in Eau Claire.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.