Cheeseplates

Zola (but not really)

This was no normal evening at Zola.  Last weekend we had a friend in town for a professional association conference in which a particular unnamed industry took great interest -- said industry having bundles of money with which to wine and dine conference participants.  We scored guest passes to one of their Saturday evening  shin-digs, which happened to be at Zola.

I have never actually ordered a cheese plate at Zola,  but when we walked into the restaurant, there was literally a 10 foot table of cheese laid out before me: brie, blue, cheddar (white and yellow), manchego, smoked gouda, chevre, pecorino, something called petit basque, and a few more that are really just a haze to me now.  Be still my heart.

On the down side, it became readily apparent that hard alcohol and cheese really don't go together.  Or at least I found no cheese whose flavor was  complimented by a cosmopolitan. 

Best cheese plate of the evening (in my opinion) -- manchego, petit basque, and pecorino.  All semi-hard to hard sheeps' milk cheeses, so different flavors, but the same family. I'd never had petit basque before either, so that was a splendid introduction.  If only someone had told me there was a cheese table before I ordered a drink! A glass of fruity red would have beat the cosmo, hands down!

Viridian

I should say first and foremost that I really like this restaurant. Viridian does some pleasantly creative things with seasonal ingredients, especially in the winter.  Since I like the place so much, I decided to give their cheese plate a second try.  The first time I had cheese at Viridian, it was just after they opened, and it turned out to be a disappointing single cheese on a plate (which I suppose adheres to the technical definition of cheese plate, but not really the spirit).  Happily,  this time a more appropriate range of three cheeses appeared: a drunken goat, a creamy blue (cow's milk), and a hard manchego (sheep's milk). 

To be honest, I wasn't particularly excited. The chopped apricots and cranberry chutney accompaniments were terrific and each cheese was fine on its own (our friend Katie insists I mention how much she liked the blue) but it was kind of a silly trio of cheeses.  The manchego was mild and pleasant, but you almost couldn't taste it if you had just finished a mouthful of the blue.  Drunken goat can be nice with manchego, but it's tanginess and the blue's tanginess are different enough that they kind of fight a bit.

Sometimes I suspect that people think they HAVE to put a blue cheese on a cheese plate.  How awful!! Blue is a great cheese, but it can completely overwhelm milder (or similar) cheeses.  Worse yet, it can make other cheeses taste funny, even if they are actually quite delicious. 

All of this said, Katie and my husband really enjoyed the plate, and it was nice for picking through leisurely with the remainder of the dinner wine. 

Lima

The cheese plate at Lima caused me to verge into the dangerous zone of wondering if it was acceptable to have cheese as a main course. We had gone for restaurant week, but the idea of making a meal on ceviche and a cheese plate was just too good to pass up.

The cheese plate itself was a collection of five Spanish cheeses.

• Mahon (cow)
• Drunken goat
• Manchego (sheep)
• Idiazabal (sheep)
• Cabrales (cow)a the blue

I loved the combination of the first four.  The cabrales was a really nice  deep tasting blue (and great on its own), but a bit of a dissonant flavor along side the mellow earthy, tangy personality of the others.

The hilight to me though -- the full range of things to eat with the cheese: figs, dates peeled almonds, walnut halves, and a nearly crystallized natural honey.  yum.   Too many restaurants give you  nothing but a plate of cheese and some bread or crackers. Maybe most folks only want their cheese to strike a single note -- me, I want to try a cheese by itself, with a piece of fruit, with something salty, etc etc.  Kudos to Lima for respecting all the different ways you can taste a cheese!  I would recommend this cheese plate to anyone.

Corduroy

I went to Corduroy for my friend Jessica’s 30^th birthday. She had raved about the scallops for the last year, and they -- to her credit -- lived up to the raving. Truffle oil and a nice combination of mushrooms made them really creamy.

When the dessert menu came, a cheese plate led the list, and thus, graced our table. Five cheeses in total, with quite a range:

• A semi-hard cheese cow’s milk with a reasonably mild flavor.  A bit manchego-ey.
• A second version of the hard cheese with slightly stronger flavor. I suspect this was older that the first.
• A chevre -- nice and light and very mild flavor. It was delicious with the roast apples in Jessica’s desert.
• A gooey non-pasteruized cheese -- which I loved, but no one else seemed to.
• A reasonably standard brie.

It was a nice sharing cheese plate, and since there were three of us, I can’t complain. (also Jessica and Lara are exceedingly tolerant of my cheese obsession so we actually discussed each chesse, which was a lot of fun). There was pleasantly bland bread on the side, although no fruity accompaniments.

Ardeo (Vague recollections)

For folks overwhelmed by a full cheese tray, Ardeo has a nice compromise: choose from among the 5 or 6 cheeses on their menu. I imagine you could have all 6 of them if you wanted, but that seems a bit extreme. Seriously, how are you going to taste 6 different cheeses?