Spotlight On: Flavor Bistro

This post is pretty much a continuation from our Safari West Weekend. You can read Part 1 here. I broke this weekend up into smaller chunks to avoid one massive post. Those are hard to write and I’m sure they’re hard to read. Anyway…

Walk about half a block down from Sweet Spot Pub & Grill and cross the street to your left into Courthouse Square and that’s where you’ll find Flavor Bistro. The first thing I noticed when walking up to Flavor Bistro was a big banner promoting the fact that they’re now open on Sundays. Seeing as it was a Sunday when we strolled up for a visit, I was mighty glad they made that change.

First of all, I have no idea what a bistro is. It looks like any other restaurant, just with a French sounding name. The very first time I ever heard of a bistro was on Three’s Company. After all those years of going to culinary school, Jack finally opened up his small restaurant unoriginally named Jack’s Bistro. Unlike the set on TV, Flavor Bistro was anything but small. It’s not huge by any means but it was certainly a lot roomier than I was expecting.

What prompted me to search out Flavor Bistro for a visit was their beer selection. To be specific, they serve Moonlight Brewing Company beers exclusively. Finally, what looks like a casual, fine-dining restaurant that pays attention to their beer list as much as they do their wine list. On the day they showed up they had four of Moonlight’s beers on tap: Lunatic Lager, Moonlight Special, Death & Taxes, and Twist of Fate (I would link the beers from Moonlight’s website but they’ve redesigned it using Flash so I can’t link to them directly).

Sammy and I ordered a beer each. I had the Moonlight Special (seasonal) called “Out to Lunch”. The beer is burnt gold color, slightly hazy with a white head. At the time, the beer was pretty cold and I wasn’t picking up much aroma. A little bit of malt sweetness with a spicy, peppery flavor from either they yeast or the hops. This beer has very low hop bitterness. This could be Moonlight’s interpretation of a Belgian Wit, although it was too clear for the style. I felt it was medium bodied with medium-low carbonation.

The bartender wasn’t too knowledgeable regarding the Moonlight beers, so I didn’t have any information regarding “Out to Lunch”. Imagine how retarded I felt when I looked it up and found out it was another hop-less beer, much like “Working for Tips”. *sigh* So much for my credibility. According to The Thirsty Hopster, “Out to Lunch” is a “golden colored ale brewed with blood oranges, cherries, and black pepper”. At the very least, I got the spicy, pepper flavors right. I wasn’t picking up on any overt orange aromas or flavors but I may have picked up on more sublte citrus notes when the beer was cold, hence me calling this an attempt at a witbier. I didn’t pick up any cherries at all, though.

Looking back at my notes and comparing them to what I was able to find out about the beer, I would have to say Brian Hunt, Moonlight’s brewmaster, did an excellent job with this beer. Not conforming to the defined style of beer, he experimented and pushed the envelop of what beer is. “Out to Lunch” managed to dupe me into thinking it was one thing when it was something else entirely. This raises the question of “what is beer”? If we stick to the strictest of interpretations, “Out to Lunch” is more a malternative not unlike your Smirnoff Ices or Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Yet, if we follow common sense and the tried and true idom, “if it walks like duck and talks like a duck”, “Out to Lunch” is more of a beer than the standard American lagers I was first exposed to. In any event, this was a great beer and in retrospect, I regret not having another.

Sammy ordered the “Reality Czech-style Pils”. When compared to the Lagunitas Pils from Sweet Spot, Sammy feels that “Reality Czech-style Pils” was a little more hoppier, light in body but heavier than the Lagunitas. The beer is a hazy, straw color with a white head that left good lacing on the glass. After the beer warmed up a bit, the Pilsner malt aroma started to come through and the flavor had a sweet, grainy character to it. Between the two, she favored the “Reality Czech-style Pils” over the Lagunitas Pils because it was more complex.

It’s a shame that no one in the South Bay carries Moonlight beers. If I ever open my own place, you can bet I’ll do what I can to bring Moonlight down to the South Bay. From what I’ve heard anecdotally, Brian Hunt is basically a one-man company. He brews all the beer, kegs it and distributes. I will sometimes stress out over a brewing a batch of extract-based beer. Extract! He’s working all-grain… sometimes no hops. It’s all a matter of perspective, really.

Even though I found the beers to be really excellent, what surprised us all was the quality of the food at Flavor Bistro. To tie us over until we headed back to the condo for dinner, Sammy and I ordered a 3-cheese plate (marscarpone, triple cream and blue cheese) garnished with honey and fruit compote and caramelized nuts. As simple as this dish was, the flavors were awesome. I found myself going back to the wine poached pear and other fruits. They were the unexpected surprise of this dish.

We also ordered an endive and pear salad with balsamic glaze and topped with walnuts and Dolce Gorgonzola. Not sure why but I was expecting Belgian endives. Belgian endives remind me of bok choy in the way they are cupped and can be stuffed. Endives have a slight bitterness to them though. Even though the gorgonzola was creamy, it retained it pungency. This was an interesting counterpoint to the slighly salted walnuts and greenery. A simple salad with complex flavors.

Sam (Sammy’s sister) ended up ordering a grilled chicken salad with bacon, avocado, crumbled blue cheese, tomato and egg while her husband Mike ordered the fish of the day. I didn’t get to taste the grilled chicken salad but I did try the fish. It was a white meat fish served with skewered shrimp and served on a bed of mashed potatoes (creamed, more like it, soo smoove). Mike wasn’t sure what to make of it until he tried it. OMFG. I love seafood and this was one of the best dishes I’ve had in a long while. It was soo good that it’s a little over two weeks later and I am still craving seafood, that dish in particular. The fish was slightly buttered with a little lemon flavor. It practically fell apart as soon as you put a fork to it. The mashed potatoes where a different texture to the grilled shrimp and fish but held their own without over powering. I have to say that when I return to Santa Rosa, Flavor Bistro is definitely on my list of places to visit.

While not technically a “beer bar”, Flavor Bistro does pour out a few beers from what I consider to be the most underrated micro brewery in the country. Moonlight Brewing Company continually brews up beers that push the envelop of what beer is without compromising good taste. Just that by itself is reason enough to go but we found the food to be excellent all the way around, from appetizers to salads to seafood. Not sure if it was because we were sitting at the bar or not but the service was excellent. I would definitely call Flavor Bistro a “must visit”.

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