I was in Idaho visiting family this past weekend. So Saturday night a group of us got together for dinner at Brick 29 in Nampa. Click here for my previous post about Brick 29.
In an unusually adventurous move on my family’s part, we put ourselves in the hands of Chef Dustan Bristol and allowed him to create a four course meal for us. My only request was that bacon make an appearance at some point during the evening (obviously).
Dustan took my request and happily ran with it. The results were superb.
Brick 29 places emphasis on the use of local ingredients, so our first course was a “grilled cheese” from Ballard Family Dairy and Cheese in Gooding. When I say grilled cheese, I don’t mean in the traditional grilled cheese sandwich sense. Ballard’s award-winning “Idaho Golden Greek Grilling Cheese” is a Halloumi-style cheddar cheese that you can throw directly on the grill for a couple minutes to soften the cheese without melting it. Dustan topped the cheese with crispy prosciutto bits and served a pomegranate and walnut remoulade on the side. All of the flavors combined really well – just the right amount of sweetness and saltiness.
For our next course, we had a pumpkin bisque topped with bacon bits, maple creme fraiche, and roasted pumpkin seeds. The creme fraiche was really delightful and matched nicely with the pumpkin and saltiness of the bacon. This course had Fall written all over it.
For our main course, we were served duck confit on a bed of creamed corn with bacon. Creamed corn is another sweet tasting vegetable that goes really well with salty bacon. And the mixture complemented the duck confit perfectly.
Dessert did not include bacon. Which is probably just as well since this was my first time introducing my family to a multi-course dinner with bacon in every course. I’ll work them up to bacon desserts eventually. But in the meantime, we did have some very nice desserts – the white chocolate bread pudding was particularly addictive. I had to stop eating before I exploded.
On the whole, this was yet another fine dining experience at Brick 29, a restaurant that is quickly establishing itself as one of the best in the Treasure Valley.