While Kirk and Cathy are still eating and writing and preparing posts, today ed (from Yuma) wants to tell you about something new in the desert.
March 2011 update: The Recession hit this place hard. The food went on a slow decline (the last calamari I had there seemed to come frozen right out the the Sysco truck). The restaurant is still in business, but recently hired a new chef. I have not tried it recently. If you have, please comment here.
About a month ago, I was a volunteer pouring wine at the Yuma Art Center, which was hosting a wine tasting to benefit its galleries and collections. A young man, who turned out to be the son of friends of friends, handed me several cards good for a free appetizer or dessert at the newly opened Market Restaurant. At first, I felt special until I realized that virtually every attendee had received several of these cards.
Truth be told, I was not even aware that we had a new Radisson Hotel in Yuma, much less that it housed a restaurant with serious pretensions. From the outside, the place looks very nice, and the restaurant is on the main floor on the right-hand side of this picture:
The inside of the restaurant is bright, tastefully brash, stylish, and comfortable:
Within a week, the Munch Lunch Bunch arrived for a Friday lunch. Most of the lunch orders looked positively yummy. This pizza with sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil leaves was a work of art:
Chip was very pleased with his burger and thought the light touch of blue cheese was a perfect complement to the beefiness of the patty. He was also extremely impressed by the french fries, ordered extra crispy. "The best I've had in town!" he exclaimed:
My sandwich was called shaved prime rib with boursin cheese on ciabatta (?) bread. While nothing earth shattering, this roast beef and cheese sandwich was quite tasty. The creamy cheese and the focaccia bread provided enough richness so that no other spread or topping was needed:
All in all, the food had been good enough so I wanted to return for dinners. One time, the first thing to hit our table was a rather unusual amuse bouche, deep-fried risotto balls served with marinara and a sprinkling of domestic Parmesan. The crunchy exterior set off the creamy rice goodness inside. On my plate, one serving looked like this:
Both dinners began with complementary pita bread, seemingly housemade, with a chewy texture and fresh-baked wheaty flavor. Paired with balsamic and olive oil, it hit the spot:
Also available was an appetizer choice of three spreads for the bread, one light Middle Eastern spiced tahini based, one centered on "Salmon caviar," and one dominated by blue cheese flavor.
Everyone was wowed by the blue cheese choice, the Greeky one provided a nice mild contrast, but I found the fish egg spread far too salty and fishy. And I love ikura.
My favorite of the appetizer choices has been the calamari:
It doesn't get any better than this. The cracker crumb crust was incredibly crunchy. The squid itself was tender soft and flavorful. Most of the seafood strips and circles were thick enough to provide a complete contrast to the breading. The deep-fried cephalopod pieces were accompanied by a small ramekin of mild chile aioli.
I have also liked the spanikopida and the shrimp appetizer, which features three jumbo shrimp bathing in a tomato/feta sauce:
One shortcomng to the restaurant's dinner menu has been the limited number of entrée choices. My favorite of the pastas is this creamy vegetarian orrechietti:
The restaurant prides itself on flying in fresh seafood daily, and I have had a very good chunk of sea bass wrapped in prosciutto with a mild red sauce the color of old bricks that tasted of sweet tomato. Though I would have preferred a more neutral side starch than the risotto it came with, it was a successful and flavorful plate. You don't want to see the picture, trust me. Greg had some well prepared Hawaiian yellowtail with a nice vegetable medley, although the mashed potatoes didn't strike me as the best of accompaniments.
Another strategy is simply to make a dinner out of the small plates. On my first evening visit, I ended up with an appetizer for a main. So these lamb riblets became my entrée:
My apologies for the quality of that picture, but the curse of fine dining (for those of us who like to take food photographs) is that fine dining does not equal fine lighting. The three lamb chops were perfectly prepared, cooked to an exact medium rare, and generously portioned. The only thing not to like was the bed of overly salty deep-fried onions on which the chops lay.
On that same evening, I tasted a truly incredible dish. When I heard that the soup special was a mushroom bisque, I just had to order it; plus it would be interesting to compare their version with the truly fine one that I had eaten at The Better Half over Christmas break.
But I wasn't prepared for this:
This soup was OMG outstanding. Seriously, I don't have enough superlatives to describe how good this tasted. While a certain creaminess and a touch of marsala wine lay in the background, the dominating flavor was porcini mushroom. That's not quite an adequate description; the taste of porcini mushroom was intense and pervasive. It was not hard to find the reason for this intensity because every spoonful of soup turned up slices of chewy fresh porcinis:
Along with some good cannoli, I was impressed by one other dessert, the deconstructed bananas foster. While the banana slices were nothing to rave about, the chocolaty brownie, topped with sweet mascarpone, golden brown caramel syrup, and a fresh raspberry was very good:
I have no copy of the menu with me and poor notes, so I can only provide a general idea of prices. Except for the pastas (which were $15-19), mains were in the $20-25 range. The small plates run $5-10. To my mind these prices are fair, if not a screaming deal.
The restaurant is also building up a wine list and already has several excellent bottles to choose from:
I should point out, however, that many early diners at The Market restaurant were disappointed by the lack of any listing of wines. Several people felt that they paid far more for wine than they should have. Although the markups on the wine are now very fair (a $30 retail bottle selling for $55, a $19 bottle selling for $35, and a $58 bottle selling for $99), the list is still tilted toward the high-end consumer. In these economic times, I think many individuals (not just us poor folk) would appreciate a wider range of value choices.
It's far too early to anoint the Market Restaurant at the Radisson as the culinary King of Yuma, and who knows how long the restaurant will continue to provide some truly outstanding food, but nonetheless, I must say that they have served me some of the finest fine dining dishes I have ever tasted in Yuma (hey, in some cases, anywhere). I can only wish them the best of luck and continued success.
The Market Restaurant at The Radisson Hotel Yuma, 1501 S. Redondo Center Dr, Yuma AZ 85365, 928-373-6563