First-time participant J Restaurant/Bar of Hartford decided to hold a trial run of its menu planned for the upcoming Ninth Annual Flavors of Connecticut benefit. This year’s Flavors event on behalf of the American Liver Foundation will be held at 5:30 on Tuesday, April 13th at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington, as this poster at J Restaurant/Bar attested.
J Restaurant/Bar is located just across from Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and boasts its own generous parking lot.
Enlightened owner Jordan Dikegoros
remodeled and renamed his parents’ Pizza Plus a couple of years ago, taking the 37-year-old restaurant upscale with tremendous results. In hiring talented Jennifer Krascella as executive chef, he found someone equal to the challenge.
My companion and I were among the fortunate individuals invited to attend the practice dinner. Guests hung out in the bar area
until everyone had arrived, then moved upstairs to the private function room,
made all the cozier by this fireplace,
where Krascella and a wine representative were studying possible food and wine pairings in the back. This back table held some of the wines we would be trying out with our food.
The wine representative was knowledgeable Joe Amato of Allan S. Goodman, Inc.,
who came up with some very interesting suggestions.
J Restaurant/Bar’s well-trained wait staff took good care of guests.
We began with fabulous seared scallops in a luscious soy beurre blanc sauce with seared bok choy and incredibly flavorful roasted shiitake mushrooms.
Amato gave us to try a Liberty School Chardonnay, Central Coast, California and a Saint M Riesling produced for Chateau Ste. Michelle by famed German winemaker Ernst Loosen. Both were lovely in their own right. My friend and I felt that the Chardonnay was the better match, its light aging in oak playing off the soy beurre blanc, but a number of other guests preferred the Riesling as a “palate cleanser.” That was highly questionable logic in my eyes, but each to his or her own.
Our second course was a salad of haricots verts tossed lightly in an aged sherry vinaigrette, resting on confit tomato, and topped with frisée and a gaufrette potato.
There was universal agreement on the wine to pair with the salad, a Valent Pinot Grigio from Veneto, Italy.
Our third course was a sumptuous soup of hand-gathered wild mushrooms enriched with Taleggio cheese and garnished with seared trumpet mushrooms.
The soup was incredible, my only suggestion being a garlic crostini to accompany it. It turned out that, due to the garnish’s tendency to sink into the soup, Krascella had already decided to use a garlic crostini to support the mushrooms when she recreated the dish at the Flavors event.
As for wine, the soup was paired with a Candor Zinfandel and a Layer Cake Shiraz, but my experience is that creamy potages don’t marry well with red wine, even when they’re over-the-top reds like these two. I asked Amato to let me try the soup with the Riesling, and after everyone else followed suit, there seemed to be a consensus for reverting to the Chardonnay with the scallops and saving the Riesling for the soup. We were back on track.
Our fourth course was nothing short of amazing, confirming Krascella’s considerable talent. It was a seared rare beef roast served over a tomato and olive compote with potato dominoes, shaved asparagus and shaved Parmesan. On top of the beef was an “eggless béarnaise relish.” Who even thinks of such things?
The dominoes might have been the best potato preparation I ever encountered, and that would really be saying something.
With the beef we tried four amazing red wines. They included a Groth Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, a Joseph Carr Cabernet Sauvignon also from Napa, a Tornesi Brunello di Montalcino from Italy, and finally, a Col Solare from Washington’s Columbia Valley. The Col Solare was the biggest vote getter, but any one of those great wines would have been tremendous with this meat dish.
Our final course was the dessert,
a mocha fudge cake topped with a candied rose petal from Saint Tropez,
a crème fraîche panna cotta,
and salted roasted hazelnuts in chocolate.
This delicious and beautifully balanced combination convinced us that Krascella is as gifted with the sweet as the savory. With the dessert we were given a captivating Brachetto d’Acqui from Piedmont to drink.
The fortunate guests couldn’t have been happier.
Krascella came out to discuss the meal, joking that we shouldn’t criticize her too harshly because she was extremely sensitive.
In fact, her tremendous culinary skills render her almost impervious to criticism, as the happy faces of some of the guests attest.
Even though we had been privileged to preview Krascella’s menu, I think each of us was a bit jealous at the thought of the dozen or so Flavors guests who would get to enjoy the dinner for real. There is an extraordinary group of chefs participating in the Flavors event, but I can guarantee that anyone who winds up at the J Restaurant/Bar table is in for something really special.
J Restaurant/Bar, 297 Washington Street, Hartford, 860-527-7764