For my second night of the Taste of Hartford’s Restaurant Week, I visited Dish Bar & Grill.
Dish, owned by partners Dan Keller (president) and Bill Carbone (executive chef), was the subject of a Jonathan Braverman review on April 10, 2008.
After you pass through Dish’s foyer, the walls of which are festooned with numerous awards, you come upon the maître d’ station on your left and the pastry staging area on your right.
I point out the latter because Dish is one of the few restaurants that hasn’t eliminated its pastry chef in this constricted economy. Keeping a pastry chef on hand is a terrific decision, because the pastry department produces some of Dish’s top attractions. Among such attractions are its superb Parker House rolls,
and desserts like this one being plated by pastry chef Jason Truscio,
both of which I will show you closer up before I’m done.
If you proceed straight from the maître d’ station, you find yourself in Dish’s very lively bar area, where many customers choose to dine.
The back wall provides stylish wine storage.
On the other hand, if you take a right turn at the maître d’ station, you access the comfortable regular dining areas, all done up in an appealing industrial chic.
The Restaurant Week promotion seemed to bring out a lot of customers, including these lovely ladies.
Dish also offers other appealing promotions, like 12 different entrées for $12 on Sundays, or an amazing $50 dinner for two that includes three courses each and a shared bottle of wine.
My companions and I began dinner with those irresistible Parker House rolls, and I must confess all thoughts of restraint went out the window. I lost count of how many I ate.
For the first course, Elizabeth ordered organic field greens with cherry tomatoes and blue cheese in a lovely sherry vinaigrette.
Robert selected crisp flour tortillas served with a spinach dip laced with aged Pecorino and Fontina. Spinach dip is a starter that a number of chain restaurants offer, but Dish gets it right.
I delighted in a bowl of New England clam chowder with Benton’s bacon, littleneck clams, new potato and sweet cream.
Five entrées were offered, of which we regrettably were able to try only three. The two we didn’t get to sample were chicken rigatoni with housemade chicken sausage, broccoli rabe and toasted garlic, and a tomato pie with heirloom tomatoes, basil pesto and housemade ricotta. For her entrée, Elizabeth selected perfectly grilled Atlantic salmon in a hollandaise sauce with sautéed garlic spinach.
For a $4 supplemental charge, Robert chose certified Angus London broil with grilled garlic bread and blue cheese coleslaw.
I relished a juicy grilled Berkshire Farms pork chop served over a potato-and-corn purée and topped with bacon-infused onions.
There were two desserts from which we could choose. Robert enjoyed a deconstructed chocolate cream pie,
while Elizabeth and I exclaimed over the best strawberry shortcake either of us had tasted in years.
All three of us came away absolutely thrilled with our dining experience. With generous, high-quality offerings such as we enjoyed, Dish Bar & Grill undoubtedly rewarded a number of loyal customers and won over a great many new ones.
Dish Bar & Grill, 900 Main Street, Hartford, 860-249-3474
I want those rolls!!