Archives For salt lake city

Pie & Beer Day: A Salt Lake City Tradition

Ashley Walton —  July 26, 2015 — Leave a comment

supernatural pie

On July 24th, Utah celebrates Pioneer Day, commemorating the Mormon Pioneers who traveled 1,300 miles by foot and wagon train and finally settled in Salt Lake Valley in 1847. It’s a big deal in Utah– like a second Independence Day– with fireworks, parades, and festivals. Many local businesses even shut down for the day, including local banks.

For those who feel out-of-place in Utah’s greater culture, and for most residents of Salt Lake City, it’s easy to feel outside of the festivities. Luckily, in the last few years, Salt Lake has embraced Pie & Beer Day to celebrate, maintaining the tongue-in-cheek, counter-culture spirit that makes Salt Lake wonderful. This year, more restaurants and bars than ever hosted Pie & Beer Day events. The most popular was Beer Bar‘s second annual Pie & Beer Day bash, featuring a Pie Pass (for 6 slices of pie!) from several local bakeries.

Jeff and I decided to take a quieter route and go to one of our golden favorites: Avenues Proper, a restaurant and brewery in our neighborhood, walking-distance from our apartment. We devoured apple-blueberry-raspberry crumble pie with stout ice cream from Hatch Family Chocolates. It was everything I’d ever wanted, and the stout ice cream was the surprise star of the dish. (Mind you, good pie and ice cream is my favorite dessert, only possibly rivaled by fruit-stuffed beignets, which are basically little fried pies.)

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Jeff’s Birthday Food Tour in Salt Lake City

Ashley Walton —  July 20, 2015 — Leave a comment

If you haven’t gathered by now, we love food. Cooking, sharing food with friends and family, and experiencing edible art are a few of our favorite things. One of the things I love about food is that it’s ephemeral. You can have the same dish multiple times, but you’re never going to have it in exactly the same way. Ingredients will vary: one tomato is not exactly the same as another tomato, even of the same variety because ripeness, flavor, and aesthetic differs from one to another. Preparation of dishes also varies. A chef may do their best to achieve uniformity, but there’s going to be small differences every time you have the same dish on different occasions. That’s the nature of chopping, cooking, and pouring– there are so many factors that it’s imprecise to some extent, even at its most masterful.

When you eat delicious food, it’s a transitory moment that you can’t experience in the same way ever again– and I love that. I love forcing myself to focus, to be mindful of my senses, and to thoughtfully process what I’m literally taking in as part of myself. This is why– despite the ridicule of being another basic Instagram girl– I love photographing food, as a reminder of an experience, a memory of a feeling.

Because food is the source of so much of our happiness and gratitude, for Jeff’s birthday we decided to do a progressive dinner around Salt Lake City, visiting our favorite haunts and ordering a dish or two per stop. It was unlike anything we’d done before and not for the faint of heart: 10 straight hours of eating and walking around the city with a couple of our closest friends. It was quite the event, and below you’ll find our itinerary and a documentation of our adventures.

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Restaurant Review: Aristo’s

Ashley Walton —  May 15, 2012 — Leave a comment
 
We’re huge fans of Greek food, but we’ve both had dishes at Aristo’s that have left us disappointed with humanity. Their pastitisio makes us sad (they go overboard on the nutmeg), and we hate to brag (not really), but we make a better version of the dish at home. However, Aristo’s has a couple of really shining dishes. 
 
Their dolmathes (lamb, beef, and rice wrapped in grape leaves) is excellent and so is the tzatziki (sauce consisting of yogurt, cucumbers, and garlic) that comes with it. Om nom nom.
 
(dolmathes)
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Cucina

Ashley Walton —  May 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

This is the secret of The Avenues. We went to Cucina on a whim and were blown away. Although, we made the mistake of ordering side dishes with our main course– the portions are huge and these photos don’t really do them justice. Everything was delicious, the service was lightning fast (although we were there for a late lunch, not peak hours), and we have zero complaints.

The winner of the day was a ham, cheese, and squash pie in a flaky, golden crust. This was to die for, though it was a special and not necessarily always on the menu. When you walk in, there’s a counter gleaming with all sorts of beautiful dishes made daily, and these rotate.

(ham, cheese, and squash pie, with caprese salad)
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Eva

Ashley Walton —  April 25, 2012 — Leave a comment

Eva is one of our favorite restaurants in SLC (dare I say, possibly even our favorite, considering the price and quality). This is sophisticated, carefully-crafted food for a ridiculously inexpensive price. We recommend going for Saturday brunch and trying the loukamedes, which are delicious pieces of heaven (kind of a mix between donut holes and beignets). And for brunch, also go for the brunch pie (ham, gruyere, and egg pizza pie topped with hollandaise).
(loukamedes)
 
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Meats and Cheeses

Ashley Walton —  April 1, 2012 — 2 Comments

The easiest dinner in the world: assorted meats and cheeses. For a wide variety of the aforementioned, we recommend Caputo’s, Pirate-O’s, or Harmons. This time we made a quick and easy Harmons run and got some freshly sliced coppa and prosciutto, then added a strong bleu cheese and a sharp gouda to the mix. And we couldn’t resist stopping by the olive bar, where you’re able to mix-and-match an assortment of olives and pay by the pound. We paired it all with a fresh loaf of Harmons’ garlic bread.
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