|
|
Blue Smoke Bar & Grill6 Wintonbury Ave. Bloomfield 06002 860-243-9167 By Steve & Lisa Alcazari Hartford Advocate January 20, 2006 They've got a swanky thing going at Blue Smoke, a new restaurant at Bloomfield's Wintonbury Mall. Vases of flowers adorn the entryway. Not too showy or terribly bright, mind you. Some vintage prints of turn-of-the-century Hartford hang on the walls. A sleek black-and-white shot of the Flatiron Building looks down on the dining room. The room is uncluttered without being harsh, barren or ultra-modern. Light opera and Sinatra play on the stereo. Classy, right? That's what Lisa and I thought, too. The effect got squandered in places, though. We stopped in during a moderately busy lunch hour. The hostess directed us toward the bar area, which also has some high tables for two. At some point during our lunch someone informed us that the waitstaff was short a few people that day. That explained why the bartender was also doubling as the waiter for all of the tables in the bar section, along with tending to the patrons sitting at the bar and making drinks for the rest of the folks in the restaurant (poor guy). As a result of the staffing shortage, the bartender was conducting business from where he was -- calling across the bar to our table to take drink orders and to field any questions we might have about the menu. Now, we're not squeamish, and Lisa and I can both shout above the din of sizzling grills, clanging pots, chattering crowds or booming stereos. But this seemed to take a nasty bite out of the atmosphere. Why all the nice sophisticated touches if we're going to have to bray our requests across the room? To experience the full sense of laid-back style coupled with culinary chops, we recommend a seat at a table in the dining room area. The Blue Smoke menu is interesting enough that you won't want to be distracted by service and seating issues. For instance, we've been known to grumble about how staid calamari often is. But Blue Smoke rises to the challenge with calamari served with cherry peppers, roast garlic, salsa cruda and a wasabi aioli that's bound to open up the sinuses. Prince Edward Island mussels come with andouille sausage and a saffron tomato sauce. We tried a more pub-like artichoke and spinach dip served with generously salted little triangles of toasted crisps of pita bread. Ample garlic nudged the dip away from blandness. A bowl of crawfish chowder had impressively large pieces of tender and buttery crawfish meat, along with bits of potato and pieces of corn. The kitchen at Blue Smoke wisely knows when to inject a little excitement as well as when to let good ingredients sing out for themselves. At dinner time, the menu includes oysters cooled with spinach, gorgonzola and bacon. For those still toeing the line of the carb police, salads can be augmented with "proteins" including grilled chicken, salmon or pulled pork (soooo 2004). For everybody else, Blue Smoke offers filling burgers, pulled pork sandwiches and a tempting Cajun sausage with gorgonzola served on a hoagie roll. Following the restaurant's slogan "ales, scales, and tails," the menu puts chicken, meatloaf, ribs and steak under the "tails" section and salmon crab, scallops and tuna under the "scales" section. We tried the jambalaya, with a few pieces of roast chicken, slices of sausage, mussels and crawfish, this didn't fit into Blue Smoke's neat animal taxonomies. The barbecue pork ribs are slathered in something described as chocolate-espresso BBQ sauce. It sounded potentially over the top, but it wasn't. More sweet than tangy, I could detect the coffee-cocoa combo, but I wouldn't have known what it was without help from the menu. BBQ purists should be warned that this is Q that relies more on the charms of its sauce than on slow-cooked smokiness. Still the ribs were easy to eat. I was half inclined to try and inhale the meat off the bone, but I didn't want to make a scene. The ribs came with an unusually satisfying cole slaw made with thin strips of corn tortilla and slivers of purple cabbage. We tasted the pear sampler for dessert. This consisted of a chocolate-dipped poached pear, small scoop of sweet and delicate pear sorbet and a thimble-like chocolate shot glass of pear liqueur. The poached pear proved a little too firm to simply scoop through with the spoons provided. This dessert is probably best for pear fanatics. An even better cap to the night might be a glass chosen from Blue Smoke's enticing selection of grapa, small batch bourbons and single malt scotch. Hours: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Sat., 4:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Bar open until midnight. Closed Sundays. Map | Printer-Friendly Page | Email to a Friend
|
|
|