One of my favorite things about Mission Street Food is the level of creativity it breeds.  I’ll give you an example: while planning this meal I sent Anthony home with a collection of home brew ingredients, instructing him to play around with them, and find a bit of inspiration. One of the dishes he came back with was this dish: Buttermilk Pannacotta with Coney Island Lager Funnel Cake and Malt Powdered Sugar.

 

 

He took the two types of malt  - carafa, a pitch black malt, and crystal 40, an amber toasted malt, and blended them with powdered sugar to create a malt infused garnish for the Coney Island Lager funnel cake. At dinner, Elianna was in back managing the fryer for these, mixing the batter with the Coney Island Lager on the fly, ensuring every funnel cake was fresh. It was this sort of attention to detail, with fresh made beer batter, malt sugar, and paired with the classic MSF buttermilk panna cotta that made the night really shine.  This was a common thread that ran through every plate.  But I’m getting ahead of myself – let’s go back to the beginning of the evening, starting with the line out front, and work our way back to dessert.

 

By six o’clock, the line in front of Lung Shan was huge, reaching down the street.   Inside, we were scrambling to get the finishing touches on everything, and taste a few sample of the food with the waitstaff so everyone could talk intelligently about what was being served tonight.  We also poured samples of the beer and talked about a few pairings that might be solid recommendations. Moving into service, Elianna shifted from frying latkes to frying funnel cakes.  We had arrived early in the afternoon to start preparing everything.  Eli set about frying latkes, while I sorted out the logistics of beer service with Karen for the front of the house.  Karen devised a great system of dim sum style checks for the beer that allowed Zak and I to help with beer service, without disrupting too much of the rest of the front of house operation. 

 

 

 

 

In the kitchen Eli was fighting a beast that would haunt us all night – the poor electricity in the back of the house required constant resetting of the circuit breaker, and only one electrical appliance could be used at a time.  The tabletop deep fryer, electric skillet and food processor were all vying for watts, and had to be swapped out as needed.  In spite of these obstacles, she did a great job powering through, first assembling the latkes with an initial fry session (they were then refried extra crispy to order during service.) 

 

 

 

Once the door were thrown open, the hungry masses descended into the small restaurant space and barely controlled chaos ensued. Zak and I rushed out onto the floor to start taking beer orders, and recommend a few pairings.  In back, another Zach was on-hand to assist with pouring the beer lineup.  The beer flights were there then loaded up into six back caddies and delivered to the tables. 

 

 

 

 

Our beer lineup for the night:

HE’BREW Messiah Bold – 5.6% alc.
Recommended Pairings: Olives, PB&J, Dumpling Soup, Brisket
HE’BREW Origin Pomegranate Strong Ale – 8% alc.
Recommended Pairings: Scallops, Dumpling Soup, Mushroom Salad, PB&J, Grilled Cheese, Funnel Cake, Ice Creams
HE’BREW Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A – 10% alc.
Recommended Pairings: Olives, Mushroom Salad, Grilled Cheese, Ice Creams
Coney Island Lager – 5.5% alc.
Recommended Pairings: Olives, Scallops, Brisket, Sausage, Funnel Cake

The pairings really seemed to come together.  The small pour flights encouraged pairing experimentation, which was the idea behind the night.  As for the food, Anthony really knocked it out of the park: 

 

 
Scallop Crudo with Beer-Carbonated Pomelo, Fennel, and Upland Cress

 

This was the one dish that I actually helped cook. I prepared the carbonated pomelo, which really popped.  The salad and scallops provided a great complement, and the final dish did a great job of highlighting the citrus and beer components, which is a great feat, given that it was sitting on a plate along side some really fresh seafood which could have easily overshadowed the rest of the dish. 

 

Caramelized Maitake Mushrooms with Farro, Grape, Walnut, and Malt-Aged Balsamic Vinaigrette

 

Another beer-inspired play on a MSF classic, this salad was a great vegetarian dish.  I was particularly fond of the grapes, which added a bit of sweetness and texture to the salad. Speaking of classics, we also served the street food standard, the PB&J. 

 

 
PB&J: Berkshire Kurobuta Pork Belly and marinated Jicama with pickled jalapeno and cilantro aioli  

 

“Don’t you have enough pictures of that sandwich?” remarked Emma when I poked in with my camera during service. Yes, Emma, I do.  But I figured one more couldn’t hurt.  Emma, by the way, I think is the unsung hero in the Mission Street Food kitchen.  She acts as the sous, making sure all of the details in the kitchen are taken care of, and greasing the wheels to run smoothly and enact Anthony’s plans for the night. She really contributed to help pull off the special beer-focused menu, including the IPA bread, which was a major component of one of my favorite dishes of the night.

 

Grilled Stilton Sandwich on IPA bread with seared Broccoli Rabe

 

A favorite pairing of mine is a big beer with stinky cheese.  This dish played off of that using the stilton, and the bitter rabe was a great counterpoint. It was fantastically rich and easily stood up the the RIPA beer, which at 10% alcohol needs a big dish to balance out the pairing. 

 

 
Brown Ale Brisket, with potato pancake and caramelized onion compote

 

I’ll just admit it: Anthony’s brisket was better than mine. The latkes, of course, were fantastic, since Eli personally hand made every one.  (Learn how to make your own, here)

 

 

Lager-Braised Sausage with cannelini beans, scallions and garlic confit

 

The sausage was the sleeper hit of the night.  While other dishes had more pizzaz and flourish, this rustic plate of beans and sausage was a soulful and rich dish that I heard raved about all through service.  When a sample was sent out for the wait staff to try at the beginning of the night, they descended on it like a plague of locusts, and licked the bowl clean in a matter of seconds. 

Finally, there was dessert.  I mentioned the funnel cake above, and we also had Humphrey Slocombe‘s great ice cream.  We served their Guinness Gingerbread ice cream, as well as a special batch made just for the night of RIPA ice cream, with a toasted caraway brittle folded into it. Jake was kind enough to furnish us with some extra brittle, which was sprinkled on top, and really brought out the rye character.  The brittle tasted like a candied loaf of rye bread – it sounds strange, but it worked. I have a empty five gallon tub from selling out ice cream to prove it. 

 

Lenny’s Rye IPA Ice Cream with Toasted Caraway Brittle

 

By the end of the night, I was exhausted.  My brain was turning to mush, which really came to fruition when I was taking a beer order, and discovered I was having a lot of trouble counting to 15 to write down the table number on the ticket. Doing front of the house work was hard, and gave me extra appreciation for the hard work that servers and hosts do.  The staff at Mission Street Food was a pleasure to work with.  Anthony and Karen have but together a great team, whose professionalism and energy really carry through onto the plate. They welcomed our intrusion with open arms, and made us feel like a part of the team. We just did out best to stay out of the way.

All told, I think everything worked out. We shoe-horned a beer dinner into the MSF food format, with great success. Anthony and the kitchen seemed to find inspiration in the beers, and delivered great dishes that reflected both the Mission Street Food and Shamltz brewing attitudes. Karen and her front of the house team adapted to the additional challenges of a complicated beer menu, and klutzy beer geeks helping with service.   I even saw a few tables who brought in wine (everyone loves a fair $5 corkage) go for a beer flight to share after seeing all of the other tables enjoying the brew.  From talking to patrons, we managed to introduce a lot of people to beer pairings that hadn’t been exposed before, and changed a few minds about this whole beer and food pairing thing.

Tags: He'Brew, mission street food, MSF, shmaltz

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 6:52 pm and is filed under Pairings, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.