Park City or Foodie City?

Its been a while since I've blogged, but I have a treat for you, this was a true food adventure! I got to eat at a number of interesting restaurants and venues in Park City, visited the local distillery and wandered in on "Park Silly" which was a great little fair down town where I had some delicious homemade coconut and almond ice cream. For those of you who are as dorky as me I had a great time and learned a many interesting things at the Rickettsiology conference I attended. For those who may not know me that well, I study these nasty little bugs which are responsible for causing serious morbidity and mortality in both humans and other mammals (dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc). Feel free to ask questions if you want to know more. Lets get started with the adventure!

The first night we were there we ate at the Squatters brewery which I told Matt was the "Sasquatch brewery," until I looked it up. Close, right? Oh well, the food was good and they had some great names for their beers and that's all that matters!
Here is their link:
https://www.squatters.com/park-city/location.aspx

We started out the evening with their Pub pretzel which was served with Pale Ale mustard and 3 cheese dipping sauce. YUM! I particularly liked mixing the 2 dips on my plate and sopping it up with the pretzel. 
For dinner,  I ordered the Squatters Burbon burger and it was pretty good, but the real joy was in the tomato bisque. DELICIOUS! So good that instead of ketchup and mustard on my burger, I used it as a condiment.

We followed up dinner with a black and tan brownie which all 4 of us shared. Not a whole lot left to take a picture of, so this is a pretty good testament to how good it was!

Here is a selection of the beers they offer, kindly borrowed from the brewery's webiste

After a meal like that we could only follow it up by going to the hotel and watching some Olympics before bed!

While we were there we went into town and did a little shopping while attending the Park Silly street festival and we found the Mountain Town Olive Oil company. LOVE LOVE LOVE this place! And good news foodies, they ship!

Here is their link: http://www.mountaintownoliveoil.com/

This is a full service olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting room where you can buy what you try! They also sell a variety of spices you can purchase.

Spices!

More Spices! This is a very well laid-out shop with spices on one side and the olive oils on the other

Olive oils in their stainless steel containers with tasting cups in front. The oils tasted so fresh and delicious!

The balsamic vinegars came in so many flavors, like White Peach, Cinnamon Pear, Lavender, Coconut, and even Chocolate!

One of my lab mates demonstrating on how to properly taste the olive oil.

So after much Hmmmming and Hawing, I chose these 2 flavors to bring home.

Yes, that is ESPRESSO Balsamic vinegar!

Mmmmmmmm! So good!

 So what does one do with an Espresso balsamic vinegar? You can use it for desserts and have it over ice cream. You can season beef or pork with it and grill the meat, and I'm sure I'll be able to think of a few more fun things to use it for! The Wild Mushroom and Sage olive oil was so fragrant and delicious I couldn't leave without it and can't wait to try it in the different ways they suggest. Check out the website and peruse all their fabulous oils and vinegars. I'm pretty sure they have something for everyone and the prices are very good for artisan products! Plus it looks like they have a vinegar of the month where you can buy 60mls of vinegar (1/4 c) for $6. Not bad if you just want to give it a taste, but to be honest, a full bottle is $15 and is 375 mls (just over a cup and a half) so it might be worth it to get a full bottle. There really wasn't a flavor I disliked, and I tried nearly all of them!

The last stop on this food adventure is the High West Distillery and Saloon!
As always, here is the link: http://www.highwest.com/
Diner was AMAZING! We all had something a little different and sadly I was so pre-occupied with how delicious the food was that I didn't take pictures! Horror of horrors! It wasn't until the dessert and whiskey portion of the evening that I remembered I ought to share my delicious adventure!
But I have been spending some quality time on their site so I hope they don't mind me borrowing some of their photos and portions of their menu!

This is a lovely picture from the website. It was not snowy when we were there, but it was delightfully cool and breezy. I'd say the weather was pretty much so perfect while we were there!

Just in case you ever make it to the distillery, my favorite dish was the elk with the chanterelle mushrooms that Shane was kind enough to share. Below is the list of foods we all tried and everything was fabulous! The short ribs succulent, the steak juicy, the salmon cooked to perfection and the soups and salads exquisite!

After this sumptuous collection of tender vittles, we finished the evening with whiskey and chocolates!
Now there was quite a conundrum, The dessert offering only had 3 whiskeys while the flight had 4. So to get the most out of the tasting I bought the flight and the chocolates separate!

Chocolates! I added the labels to the chocolates so you could ID the flavors. Unfortunately the patter is backwards, but I fixed it in the last picture! The lightest whiskey was paired with the Key Lime and Meyer Lemon while the more flavorful one was paired with the Aztec spice and Beehive Honey. So yummy! The last whiskey on the flight was a scotch-whiskey blend which was nice, but didn't have any chocolate paired with it.

The whiskey's on the flight. They also distilled 2 vodka's at the distillery which were quite nice.

0.5 oz pours of whiskey paired with their respective chocolates. Delightful bliss!

Well, this brings me to my last item of the trip. I picked up a nice Utah cookbook put out by the Junior league. This is a tradition of mine. Everywhere I visit I pick up a cookbook, so don't be surprised to find some of your local favorites on this blog in the future.

 I'll be making a few dishes out of the cookbook this week and will share all the details with you later!
Until then, happy eating!