Too caught up in the buy local story /BlauEnte

Y (April '23, written in April '23)

SCORE: Suck it and see (horses for courses, worth trying out but maybe don't bring the boss or hot date the first time you go)

ORDER: Any of the local swiss spirits (including a single malt!)

VALUE: CHF 350 / 2 with alcohol pairing

I found out about this place while looking for local places to try in Zürich. I was hoping for something more authentically Zürcher. Turned out, this place was LOCAL local. ie, nothing that's on their menu (including alcohol) comes from outside the country. They even try their best to restrict to the canton itself! I did not know this going in, but glad I didn't because that may have impacted my decision to come here to try it out.

It is housed in an old flour mill, and the centerpiece in the dining room is a steam powered coal transporter from ages ago. You're welcomed in, and the friendly staff share with you the core concept, about how local everything is, and even one whole side of the menu shares the exact farm(s) that the produce being hilighted comes from. Being completely new to swiss produce, I decided to go with their tasting. Then I realized it had been several meals since I had eaten anything remotely green. So I call back the friendly gentleman and ask if there's a salad in the tasting. Apparently true to the trend I've seen in this part of the world... noone seems to (or seems to need to) eat anything green! How their bodies handle this much fibre-free, hearty beige substances meal after meal will always be a source of amazement for me. Thus I add on a salad to the tasting menu

Amuse bouche is a spoon full of beet salad, topped with what appeared to be their take on nori. This was way too sweet, and perhaps more of the nori would have been a good addition. 

For the appetizer we had a green garlic soup - which was quite a nice sharp yet creamy soup, topped with crunchy croutons. Dunking them for long enough got them to the soggy texture I usually fancy for my croutons (cue to laugh / judge as you might) I wish they could reduce the soup down to a mayonnaise like texture and bottle that. Really like me some green garlic

Then came the start of 3 dishes in a row that essentially made this meal unpleasant, partly due to the service, partly due to the quality of the food itself. It was a braised beef stuffed pasta. 3 giant pieces, with a section of it that was just plain pasta with no stuffing (see below). Now if you've been to piemonte - braised beef stuffed pasta = agnolotti, a delicious and hearty dish, with just the right balance of pasta to meat. These giant stuffed shells before me were neither balanced nor delicate, and many bites were just me gnawing on pasta with no seasoning or flavor.

It was at this time that I finally decided, no they actually HAD forgotten my salad add on - initially I was thinking maybe they wanted to time it somewhere in the middle of their tasting menu. The server apologized and brought it right out. The crunchy greens were nothing special, with a kind of honey mustard dressing. Suffice to say the sole intention was to get some fibre in my diet, and the greens definitely served that purpose.

Then came the dish that was just so awfully bad that it made me wonder why they didn't spot it. it was a half chicken served on an asparagus risotto and a morel mushroom sauce. The good: perhaps due to my love of morels, this was delicious, and the morels were cooked just right. The bad: the chicken was so over cooked and rubbery that chewing on it made squeaky noises on my teeth. My buddy reminded me that it was very similar to costco's rotisserie chicken.. and that's saying something. The ugly: The risotto was just a goopy mess and just went pbbbt on the plate. No texture, no al-dente, and the asparagus just didn't really sit right with the rest of the risotto in any way whatsoever. Honestly writing this the next morning still brings up the frustration of why the $%#! did you serve me that.

Finally for dessert was a cube of sour cream ice cream, and it was decent, not overly sweet. I had a pour each of the hazelnut liqeur and the chocolate liquer, both of which were dangerous (tasted like they barely had any booze, but were ~ 40% each.)

I liked the idea and novelty of having everything locally grown more so than the result. Perhaps my opinion was colored largely by the chicken and the pasta, that I would highly suggest friends to not go there. However, if you want to try someplace where everything, like including the wines and the snacks are regionally grown / farmed, give it a go.