Third Time's A Charm At South Market Bistro

Up until now, I have not had good success in obtaining a meal from Wooster's South Market Bistro. The first time I went, I had mistakenly used information from the Yahoo page I looked up on the Internet and hadn't verified that they still had lunch hours. Upon showing up to their doorstep (yes, yes, gentle reader, I should've called to confirm) for a mid-day meal, I quickly learned that no, they did not have lunch hours. Of course, this led to the wonderful discovery of both the Broken Rocks Bakery & Cafe and Tulipan Pastry & Coffee Shop just across the street. My second attempt at having a meal at South Market fared no better. While I did show up during the correct business hours, unfortunately, the entire restaurant had been booked for a special event and they weren't able to accommodate guests not on the list. Sigh.

So now, more than a year later, I decided to give my luck just one more try and showed up on a Friday night at 5:45 PM with no reservation. I hoped that I would be early enough that I could slip in and out before the tables filled up. As I drove past the restaurant, I was happy to see that most of the tables by the front window were devoid of patrons: a good sign (at least for me). I parked on the street and walked north about a block until I was standing outside the front entrance to the restaurant:


South Market Bistro was located at 151 South Market Street, Wooster, OH 44691 and can be reached at 330-264-3663. Parking was pretty much wherever you could find it, but fortunately, if you manage to find a spot on the street, there appears to be a generous three hour limit, so you shouldn't feel rushed to get in and out.

As I walked in the front door, I was greeted with a single room, longer than wide, and an semi-open kitchen at the rear of the room just past a small bar area. As my eyes adjusted to the new level of light, I realized that other than myself, there were only two other patrons currently in the restaurant and they were both sitting on stools at the bar. Unless the restaurant had lots of clients showing up right at 6:00 PM, I reasoned that accommodating a walk-in would be just fine. One of the servers greeted me with a smile and when I asked if they had room for me, she responded with an enthusiastic, "Absolutely." I have a funny feeling that her enthusiasm was due more to the time of my walk-in as a four top did the same thing an hour later and there was some consternation as to whether they could be sat. Handling walk-ins can be a tricky affair since you want to accommodate everyone without penalizing other customers who took the time to call and make a reservation.

Regardless, the server showed me to my table, told me of the daily specials, and left me with a menu to examine:




One of the draws of South Market Bistro was chef and owner Michael Mariola's focus on using local, seasonal ingredients in his dishes. The restaurant's menu felt small in some ways (at only two pages), but looking through the courses, there were at least four or five dishes in each category from which to select. I guess I've gotten so jaded over the years from having to make selections from menus that have entire pages (or two) dedicated to just chicken entrées that finding a menu which was succinct, yet complete, was quite refreshing.

While pondering my dinner choices tonight, my server brought over the bread and butter. Here was a shot of the pre-sliced breads thoughtfully served on a wooden carving board:


As soon as she sat the board down in front of me, I was highly suspicious of the bread on the left. Even though it had been a year and a half since I had eaten it, it looked very much like the European sourdough breads that Broken Rocks was serving. The minute I picked it up, inhaled deeply and took a bite, I was convinced it was the one and very same. The bread to the right was a thinly sliced focaccia with rosemary and crunchy grains of sea salt. When my server stopped back in to take my order, I think I surprised her a little when I asked if the sourdough had come from Broken Rocks. She admitted that it did and then further went on to tell me that the focaccia was made in-house. Both were absolutely tasty and fresh.

Along with my bread, a triangular wedge of softened butter accompanied the board in a small bowl:


I did try the butter on a bit of the sourdough and it tasted, well, buttery. But as Broken Rocks sourdough bread was a truly fantastic bread all on its own, I ended up using very little of the butter.

Seeing as all of the entrées came with a house salad, I decided to order a starter. As I scanned the menu for something suitable, I came across what the menu described as "mussels and fries," but I knew far better as moules frites. Having had this dish at several other Cleveland eateries (including L'Albatros Brasserie), I was excited to try South Main Bistro's version. I was a little concerned because of my disdain for poorly executed hand cut fries, but I put my trust in the kitchen.

After only a short time, I saw my dish placed on the pass and my server grabbed it and walked it over to my table. As she set it down, some pretty amazing scents wafted upward:


Consisting of mussels steamed open in a wine and butter broth with the addition of garlic, leeks, and spinach, it was then topped with super crispy slightly thicker than shoestring fries. The smell was amazing. As I dug into my first shell and retrieved the small nugget of mussel meat, I was rewarded with an incredibly tender and flavorful bite of food. I next turned my attention to the fries. They had clearly been seasoned when they came out of the fryer as the salt was nicely distributed along the entire surface of the fries, not just on the top. I tasted my fries and came upon what would turn out to be a theme running throughout tonight's dinner: salt. The chef running the kitchen liked aggressive seasoning. Not overly salted where I would send it back, but probably more salty than I personally would've used.

Regardless, I hoovered up every last mussel and fry and then used the leftover sourdough bread to mop up as much of the steaming broth as I could muster. It really was that good. Toward the end of my appetizer, I heard my waitress talking to a nearby table who obviously saw what I had ordered and asked her about it. When I overheard her say that the mussels were accompanied with the restaurants signature truffled fries, I thought to myself, "Did I miss something? None of these fries had any truffle flavor of any kind to them."

In fact, when she stopped by to pick up my empty plate, I asked her specifically about the statement she had made to the other table and she confirmed that they were indeed truffled fries. I didn't disagree with her, but it did make me think that maybe I should've tasted them more carefully. I reviewed the photograph of the menu I had taken earlier on my smartphone camera and the menu listing said nothing of truffled fries, even though they were available as a side item.

The mystery was solved when she returned with my house salad with mustard vinaigrette:


It seems that when she took my plate back to the kitchen, she actually asked the chef and he confirmed that the fries served with the mussels were simply seasoned with salt. Phew! I thought my taste buds had taken a hiatus on me. As I turned my attention to my salad, I was happy to see that the greens were only lightly dressed. The croutons appeared to be a small dice of the focaccia I had eaten earlier and then toasted. Several thoughts popped into my head when I started to eat the greens.

While I could definitely tell that the greens were dressed, I got almost no flavor from the vinaigrette. This let the bitterness from the greens shine through. The olives, a welcome addition, added mouthfuls of more salt. On the occasion when I would get a crouton or two, I would get more hits of salt and rosemary. So, as I sat there and ate the salad, the two flavors that kept returning to me were bitterness and salt (there it was again). I don't know that I would call this salad unbalanced, but it definitely could've used a sweet component to it, perhaps some dried fruit.

When my server stopped to check in on me, I asked her which of the gentlemen in the kitchen was in charge.

"Oh, that would be Eric."
"Eric?" I responded. "I thought Mike Mariola was the chef."

She then proceeded to tell me how he rarely spends much time in South Market Bistro anymore after their sister restaurant The City Square Steakhouse opened up two years ago across the street. And, in fact, the chef wasn't spending much time there either since he was looking to open up a new venture, a beer and burger joint, in Fairlawn fairly soon. So, it seemed that he left Eric in charge of the kitchen at South Market Bistro with Eric's wife Liz taking care of various front of house tasks (bartending, hostessing, managing).

She returned just a few minutes later with the risotto I had ordered for my entrée:


Layered into the risotto were some of the same Killbuck Valley shiitake mushrooms I had eaten before at the AMP 150 Mushroom Dinner, fresh spring peas, corn, Mascarpone, garlic, and Parmesan. In addition to the ingredients listed on the menu, fresh greens and carrots had been folded into the risotto as well and it had been topped with a fine chiffonade of fresh tarragon. While I could have had the kitchen add some grilled shrimp for a small upcharge, I decided to go with the vegetarian version that was listed on the menu.

Texturally, this risotto was about as perfect as they come. Creamy, rich, and with just a little resistance in the rice, the bowl of starchy goodness didn't fail to deliver. The individual components such as the corn and green peas exploded with just a bit of vegetal sweetness when I tasted them. This sweetness was critical because as my previous two courses had been, the risotto was once again aggressively seasoned. At first I thought it was okay, but as I dug around to find one of the mushrooms to try on its own, I realized that it had given up its own earthy flavor and had been overtaken by salt.

While I had been fine with the prominence of salty flavor in my first two courses, by this point, I think my tongue must have been suffering from salt fatigue as I only managed to get about half-way through this, even with multiple refills on my water. Of course, the risotto had been quite filling, too, but I knew that I could've eaten more. I chose to stop on purpose because I didn't want to be chugging bottles of water after leaving the restaurant.

I chose to skip dessert today, but managed to get a photograph of the dessert menu so that you could see what was available:


It seemed that Jenis ice creams and sorbets were featured prominently on the menu and while I am a HUGE fan, knowing that I will be stopping in for my yearly fix at the upcoming Ohio Linuxfest in Columbus coming soon, I declined to indulge tonight and simply asked for my check instead. My meal tonight, with tip and tax, came out to roughly $35. Which, for a three course meal, wasn't a terrible deal. I will proffer that I selected one of the more inexpensive entrées, however, and the meat courses will run you about $10 more.

It was clear from my meal that Chef Eric was not afraid of using salt; indeed he was incredibly consistent with it. While this works well for some chefs (such as Jonathon Sawyer at the Greenhouse Tavern), tonight's dinner was truly teetering on the precipice of excessiveness. Which was a shame because the flavors and textures of my food were simply marvelous and were it not for that one issue, I would be jumping up and down, flagging down complete strangers on the street, telling them to make the drive to Wooster to check out this quaint little bistro with its big flavors and seasonal menu. While every other part about my experience tonight was excellent, timidity with seasoning in the kitchen will get you about as far as excessive boldness; a happy medium should be where the restaurant needs to strive.

Killbuck Valley Mushroom Dinner At AMP 150

At the recent charity event Cleveland Chefs Cook for Jewel, I happened to run into an until then only virtual friend, Phil Ridolfi. Phil, the proprietor of Now Dining Deals, a restaurant advocacy company seeking to connect restaurants with customers through social media like Facebook and Twitter, was at the event to support a great cause as well as to eat some wonderful food. It was actually Phil who recognized me as I wandered from table to table. I stopped and we chatted a bit about how great the turnout had been.

During the course of our conversation, Phil mentioned a special dinner being served at AMP 150 the following night featuring the Killbuck Valley mushrooms. I had heard of these mushrooms before from other friends, but had never had the chance to experience them myself. He indicated that there were several spots still open and that if I and any of my friends would like to come, he would take care of making arrangements for us to do so. I asked around and it turned out that two fellow foodies took me up on the suggestion. I let Phil know the next day about our merry trio and at 7:00 PM that evening, the three of us convened on AMP 150 for a six course mushroom extravaganza.

Joining us for the evening to talk about the mushrooms were the proprietors of the Killbuck Valley farm, Tom and Wendy Wiandt. While they do not have a website of their own, they are referenced on the web here. They were already in the private room when we arrived and greeted us warmly. It turned out that we would be lucky enough to have them join us at our table. While Tom did most of the speaking between courses explaining a little bit about the mushrooms used in Chef Cooley's dishes, it was fun to engage both of them during the rest of the dinner as they were a wealth of knowledge.

From what they told us, they both left the corporate world around thirteen years ago having tired of it. Three years later, they opened up Killbuck Valley and began producing organic mushrooms. They started out in the farmer's markets and have gradually expanded their reach into some of the finest restaurants in Cleveland and Akron. They still work at least two farmer's markets a week, giving out free samples of cooked mushrooms to entice market-goers into giving their wares a try. They are a growing business, but have decided that controlled and sustainable growth is the right way to operate. Tom readily acknowledges that his product is not inexpensive, but he so firmly believes in his farming methods and his mushrooms that he'd rather lose a half-serious customer who doesn't also see the potential in his product than make a quick sale.

As we retired to our table tonight, each place setting had a menu placed on top of the mat:


First out of the kitchen was the demitasse of mushroom soup:


Served as if it were a cup of coffee, the luscious warm mushroom soup was topped with a frothed milk and a slightly dried shiitake mushroom cap. The soup was velvety smooth and seasoned perfectly and the entire dish made a perfect introduction to what we were going to sample again and again tonight ... umami! Umami is that fifth sense of taste that allows us to taste savory and mushrooms are just loaded with it. Speaking of shiitake, it turns out that -take is the Japanese word for mushroom. The first part of the word, in this case shii- actually refers to the origin of where the mushroom is found. Shii is actually Japanese for oak. Thus, matsutake, maitake, etc. all refer to a mushroom that is found most commonly under (or on) different trees.

Of course, following the soup course in American cuisine was the salad course:


In this case it was a wild mixed green salad with roasted baby shiitake caps, pickled radishes and cucumbers, and was lightly dressed with a shiitake vinaigrette. Having this much mushroom flavor in a dish can weigh the palate down a bit, but the acidity from the vinaigrette and the radishes worked very well to keep everything balanced. Once again, Chef Cooley did an excellent job balancing textures and flavors. What surprised me most about this dish was the size of the mushroom caps used. When I buy shiitake mushrooms, I normally look for a good size to the caps. In this case, nothing but baby mushroom caps were used.

The third course was comprised of a homemade mushroom ravioli topped with an aged goat cheese and a sunchoke puree:


While the free-form mushrooms dotting the plate were shiitake caps, the filling was made up of the most savory oyster mushroom filling that I've had in a long time. The ravioli itself was perfectly cooked and had a lovely toothy bite to it without being chewy. The aged goat cheese, having been shaved over the top of the ravioli, had a real nuttiness to the bite that reminded me of a good Pecorino Romano and not of a goat cheese at all. While the real star of the plate was the oyster mushroom, I couldn't but also drool over the sunchoke puree with fresh chives. Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, and a small fibrous vegetable that can easily be substituted for potatoes in part or whole and adds another dimension of flavor.

The chef told us after the dinner had concluded that his preparation of "white" vegetables like sunchokes and the salsify puree we enjoyed during a later course was made by boiling the vegetable in a 50/50 water/milk bath until the vegetable was tender and the heat caused the casein in the milk to separate out and actually form curds (kind of like making ricotta). The whey is then strained off and added into the combination of the pureed vegetable and curds to thin it to the right consistency. I don't know if the chef enriched the puree at the very end with a little bit of cream or butter, but I have to tell you that both purees we enjoyed tonight were creamy, smooth, and delicious.

Our pasta course now complete, we moved on to course number four, the fish course:


This was a mushroom crusted cod served over a watercress and garlic chive brodo. The application of the mushroom crust was interesting in that it seemed more to be a mushroom and breadcrumb application that adorned this amazing piece of fish. Having been steamed to utter perfection, the minute I placed a bite of the tender and moist fish in my mouth, I actually sighed in complete contentment. Cod can be a subtly flavored fish, and the treatment that Chef Cooley gave it tonight was so well thought out. After all of the badly prepared cod I had eaten during the course of The Lenten Project, tonight's preparation showed that cod can be a magnificent piece of fish when done right. The accompanying broth was also quite lovely and the only thing I could've wished for to make the experience better was a spoon. Sadly, I think drinking the broth straight from the bowl would've been bad form.

It was at this point during the meal when I realized that there was a method to the madness in which the courses had come out. We had started out light and small and worked our way up to more assertive flavors. The fifth dish to come from the kitchen tonight was a grilled strip loin of beef with mushroom ragu and salsify puree:


While I was a little worried because the first slice of beef on the plate was nearly medium well, the rest of the beef slices were perfectly medium rare. The mushroom ragu was tender and seasoned just perfectly. The salsify puree, a vegetable that often is often compared to actual oysters in flavor, was beautifully pureed and had been dressed up with some fresh dill which gave it a wonderfully sweet finish on the palate. With the subtle sweetness from the salsify and the earthiness of the mushrooms paired up to the savoriness of the beef, this was truly a bite to sit back and savor. With another course coming, I saw several others only eat part of this course. Me? I ate the entire plate and would've licked it clean if I had known no one else was watching.

After the heavy fifth course, our sixth and final course, dessert, would serve to clear out the heavy flavors and wake up the taste buds just a little bit:


Here you have a roasted fig compote sitting next to a scoop of goat cheese ice cream which is sitting next to a goat cheese panna cotta, itself topped with maple glazed shiitake caps, all of which was surrounded by a maple-infused sauce. After a bite of each of the ice cream and panna cotta, it was clear that a younger goat cheese had been used as that little bit of acidity and tang gently sang through the sweetness and creaminess of each dessert. I didn't detect a huge maple flavor in the mushroom caps that topped the panna cotta, so mostly I considered its use to be as a textural contrast to the gelatinous milky concoction below. I paired the fig compote with the ice cream and it worked well. The maple flavor from the sauce worked well to unify the flavors on the plate and didn't overpower anything else. For being an unusual dessert, it worked quite well, in my opinion.

While tonight's meal wasn't inexpensive at $45 per person, for the amount of food and the quality of the dishes presented, I considered it to be an excellent value. This was only my second dining experience at AMP 150 and between the two of them, I am certainly looking forward to seeing what else Chef Cooley will be bringing to the table ... LITERALLY. If you have the chance to sample either the food at AMP 150 or the mushrooms from Killbuck Valley from one of the farmer's markets they frequent, I strongly urge you to do so. You won't be disappointed.