strawberries in paris

Delicious Cuisine at Corner BYOB

Last Friday night Alayne and I cooked up an idea for a nice dinner out together. She chose Hampden as the location and knew about this newly opened restaurant, Corner BYOB. When I took one look at the menu outside I knew it would be a good meal! And as the name says, it was BYOB so Alayne had a bottle of white in her fridge that we took!

Since we didn’t have a reservation (Look! I didn’t plan something! This is normally very tough for me to do…)  there was a two top right at the bar and right by the big window. It was perfect!!! The waitress was sweet, there were a ton of specials that she explained charmingly. The entree Alayne and I got was amazing, and dessert was good too. But there was one hang up… Go for the jump to see more details!

They printed the menu on long sheets of paper and folded it creatively. Simple but creative. Standard foodie dishes here, not too many local meats, much to the chagrin of Alayne.

We got the ???, a mediterranean white fish, which was crusted and placed atop sauteed white asparagus, truffled roasted potatoes, and caviar of plum. These weren’t any old fish caviar, it was made from fruit! Using the sodium alginate technique where you do a reverse process with calcium ions. Sounds fancy, but its really simple if you have the chemicals! I once helped N (aka Voldy) make them…  The sweetness of the plum caviar really paired well with the hearty white fish. And the truffle on the potatoes was just amazing. Most delicious thing I have eaten in a long time!

Here’s a close up of the lovely caviar. I was happy to see a little restaurant in Hampden using this technique!

And then as the night wore on, Alayne and I decided to get dessert! When we looked at this list, nothing really popped out, but then the hostess mentioned that they had profiteroles and I literally screamed out! I swore that she had said they were OUT of profiteroles. Happily, they weren’t, and we got it to share. Lots of chocolate, not enough ice cream and I didn’t know what was up with the sprinkles… Profiteroles don’t need sprinkles!! The pate a choux were good though.

And then came the bill… Alayne decided to use her card and I gave her cash. But they dropped a small bomb on us, there is apparently a $2 convenience fee for cards… Although after I checked their website this morning, it did mention that, but it was nowhere on the menu! They should have added it to the menu!  The food we got there was great, and the service was good too, so basically its a win win! Go check it out if you are in the neighborhood!