I recently got a chance to dine at Shaun’s a few weeks ago & got damn did I walk away impressed; impressed by the food & the atmosphere. As it was a beautiful southern spring evening, we sat outside on the patio. It’s a comfortable enclosed setting out back, thus its separated from the traffic & noise of the street. Its well decorated with flowers & plants & the tables are appropriately spaced to give you the sense of privacy & intimacy you want at a place of Shaun’s caliber.
So lets get to the apps. I’ll start off by saying that the duck fat fries were the worst thing we had. That’s how damn good the appetizers were! Duck fat fries rock & if they’re the worst of the lot that is most definitely saying something. The fries were excellent, don’t get me wrong, but for me they just weren’t as incredible as the other 3 apps.
In addition to the fries, we also had the pork buns, which are Shaun’s take on the traditional dim sum pork bun. It was a perfectly cooked slice of pork belly with some cool greens tossed in a dressing that tasted sort of caesaresque, topped with a touch of this fabulous salt, all sitting in a traditional light, airy & delicious dim sum bun. Each bite was this marvelous combination of porkiness from the porkbelly, a slightly crunchy bite of the cool, creamy greens, followed by the airiness & sweetness of the bun & then rounded out by this incredible salt flavor. I love salt & damn this was some cosmic ass stuff. It was just fantastic.
Next we had the chopped liver. Yeah, I’m a southerner & I love chopped liver & let me tell you, Shaun’s definitely didn’t disappoint. It was a rustic preparation that just blew me away. Nice big chunks of chicken liver & egg & then pulled together with a fantastic mayonnaise. All served with this great rustic, artisan bread, grilled to perfection. The mayo is really what set Shaun’s chopped liver apart. It added a creaminess & depth of flavor that I’d never really had before. All of that smeared on that fantastic bread & I was in flavor overload.
The last app was the asparagus & once again, I was floored with the incredible flavors of the dish. A plate of perfectly cooked asparagus served slightly cool/bordering on room temp, topped with a slightly piquant & lightly textured cream sauce & finished with a healthy heaping of crawfish. A damn near perfect combination of flavors! You had the nice cool, earthiness of the asparagus, topped with a delicious & slightly spicy cream sauce that was nice & light… not the heavy cream sauces you’re use to seeing with pastas.. & then topped with succulent & sweet crawfish. After we’d finished the asparagus, I sopped up all the sauce with some bread it was that damn good!
For the entrée we went with the Salmon. It was a seared filet of Sockeye salmon, topped with a bourbon sauce & served with a mustard mash & grilled ramps. The mustard mash was incredible. The mashers had just the right amount of mustard to pep them up & get them the right flavor w/o being overpowering. The ramps, while a very simplistic preparation, were also fantastic. I never knew a grilled ramp could taste so good… I’ll definitely be adding them to my grilled vegetable repertoire. For me the salmon was a bit overcooked (I like mine mid-rare) but my dining companion thought it was perfect… so what the hell do I know. But it was topped with a delicious bourbon sauce that certainly helped compensate for my issues with how the fish was cooked.
All in all, I freaking loved Shaun’s & will be back very soon. You should get there at your earliest convenience!
Pros: INCREDIBLE food, awesome patio
Cons: a touch expensive
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