The kitchen is always a little more fun with Bob Tam in it. And though it’s only been a few months, it’s good to have him and Ross Simon back.
Many restaurants amped up their carryout and delivery operations when the pandemic hit, but for booze-first establishments like Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlour, things were a little more complicated.
The award-winning downtown Phoenix cocktail bar was among the first to cease operations out of concern for the safety of its workers and guests, even before the city- and state-mandated closures were announced. In late June, however, Simon — the brains behind the beverage half of the equation — started to offer canned cocktails for takeout. And not long thereafter, Tam’s playful creative Asian fare joined the fray.
“We got a PPP loan, so that helped,” Tam explains. “That’s why we’re doing the takeout, to bring some of the staff back. We’re keeping people busy.”
Where both food and beverage are concerned, Bitter & Twisted’s new menu is a sharply redesigned departure from their usual offerings. And in both cases, the results are fabulous.
How Bitter & Twisted is doing takeout right
Want to know how to make the best of an awful situation? This is a great example.
Bitter & Twisted offers delivery through multiple apps, but if you can, save them the commission and pick it up yourself. It’s a slick and easy system. Order and pay online, schedule a pickup time, pull open the patio door and you’re separated from the attendant by plexiglass with a pass-through at knee level for bags of booze and food.
I love the attention to detail. Sealed garnishes are secured to Simon’s “Portable Potables” with rubber bands. The two-serving cans come with a bag of ice — enough to fill a couple of highball glasses with a little extra to spare. And if you’re even remotely intimidated by the slightest hint of DIY (though they’re mostly self-explanatory), the cans are labeled with QR codes that direct you to online assembly instructions.
On the food side, meanwhile, Tam’s new menu is designed to travel, the packages are meticulously labeled and — in a little stroke of genius that I hope to see propagate — dishes and their accompanying sauce cups are labeled with matching colored dots.
Undoubtedly, most of us would rather be enjoying a night on the town. But thoughtful measures like these do wonders to remove the hassle from the take-home experience.
The flavors aren’t too shabby, either.
What's on the 'Portable Potables' menu?
I ended up with a few of Simon’s cocktails, a light and summery bunch, and you’d do well not to let the can dissuade you.
The Mr. Hendrick’s is a simple, classic gin and soda, lightened with a bit of cucumber and lime, while the Lemongrass Collins takes a more creative tack, a blend of vodka and ginger beer with a citrusy lift and a sweet slick of vanilla.
I’m a little surprised to find, however, that the one I’d really love another crack at is the “No Laws” Pina Colada. Far from the classic, slushy beachside cliché, this is a clear, fairly dry vodka drink that gently hints at its namesake’s tropical persuasion. I’d go back for this in a second, even if it means getting Rupert Holmes jammed in my head yet again. (Please, please get out of my head, Rupert.)
To pair with the cocktails, Tam and Josh Weiland, his chef de cuisine, have designed a tight list of dim sum. And it wasn’t even Tam’s idea.
“It was mostly Ross’ idea,” Tam says. “He wanted to do something that was simpler that we could do takeout with. He was like, well, you like dumplings, so why don’t we just stay that route?”
It’s a smart call. They can be steamed en masse to order, they travel pretty well, and Tam definitely knows how to make them.
Why you need to try the creative dumplings
“We wanted to make some of the stuff traditional, and some of the stuff completely off the wall,” Tam says.
On the traditional end of the spectrum, along with straight-up pan fried pork potstickers, you have items like classic Chinese siu mai, in both pork and shrimp varieties. They’re juicy little morsels, plump and bursting with ginger, shaoxing and sesame. And good as they are, they’re almost outshone by Tam’s house XO sauce, a deep umami bomb built on dried seafood and — in a little personal twist — a bit of Lao Gan Ma chili crisp sauce. (If you know, you know.)
Less conventional are Tam’s “Veggie Garden” dumplings, a garlicky blend of Asian staples like ginger and shiitakes mixed with European flavors like olives, a little tomato and even a touch of mozzarella. If it sounds clumsy, it isn’t — just a smooth, full-flavored vegetarian bite brightened by a dip in vinegar and ginger.
Tam’s developed a mighty nice Impossible Beef dumpling as well, wrapped in green, each topped with a single soybean. Since the seafood-based XO sauce wouldn’t do for vegan shu mai, he worked the XO seasonings into the dumpling filling itself, then paired them with a thick and creamy Chinese mustard sauce.
Tam’s “Cheesy Egg Rolls” are exactly what they sound like — flattened, crisply fried, filled with a blend of gooey cheese and paired with a spicy sweet sour sauce to dip. They’ll be popular, no doubt, but the deep cut is Tam’s “Bao Royale,” which is actually sort of a prequel to one of his most popular dishes.
“That’s basically our Dragon Dumpling Burger reversed. We’re doing a traditional bun with American fillings instead of the American bun with traditional fillings.”
Unlike the Dragon Dumping burger, which was like Shanghainese shengjianbao in burger form, the Bao Royale look like traditional buns on the outside, but tucking into their steamy, lightly crisped dough reveals a filling of ground beef, Swiss cheese and melted onions. They even come with a tub of kimchi-spiked 1,000 island dressing to dip.
Don’t skip the hurricane popcorn
Tam’s new menu isn’t exclusively dumplings. There’s a simple, bright mixed greens salad to start, perked up with some Asian touches like pickled ginger, furikake and white soy.
If you’re looking for something a little heftier than dim sum, the spicy tuna fried rice bowl is awfully nice. It plays, to me, like a Canto-American spin on a poke bowl, steaming fried rice gussied up with spicy mayo, shichimi togarashi and crisped rice that serves as a nest for ruby cubes of cool tuna, dressed with some fiery Calabrian chile.
A scoop of rich, sweet coconut sorbet will cool things down, if you want to add another thing to your list. But however many orders you get of the hurricane popcorn, you might want to add one more.
One of Bitter & Twisted’s signature bar snacks, the popcorn is still on the menu — plied with garlic and fresh scallions, bathed in butter and dashed with a boatload of Japanese seasoning before it’s tossed with spicy rice crackers.
The stuff is dangerous. And it’s a nice reminder of what will be waiting for us when the doors are open once again.
Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlour
Where: 1 West Jefferson St., Phoenix.
Offerings: Takeout and delivery.
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.
Price: $6-$8.50 dim sum; $12-$15 plates; $8 dessert; $22-$23 cocktails for two.
Details: 602-340-1924, bitterandtwistedaz.com.
Tried something delicious lately? Reach the reporter at dominic.armato@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-444-8533. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @skilletdoux, and on Facebook at facebook.com/darmato.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
"bitter" - Google News
July 31, 2020 at 08:05PM
https://ift.tt/2BMloFT
This downtown Phoenix bar is nailing takeout with a menu of creative dim sum and cocktails - AZCentral
"bitter" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bZFysT
https://ift.tt/2KSpWvj
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "This downtown Phoenix bar is nailing takeout with a menu of creative dim sum and cocktails - AZCentral"
Post a Comment