Congratulations to Alex Young for his James Beard Foundation Award Nomination for Best Chef in the Great Lakes region! Here he is serving up a plate of his Catalan Lamb-Sausage-stuffed Peppers with Sephardic-style rice.
The James Beard Foundation Awards were established in 1990 and have become the premiere award in the food industy, recognizing culinary professionals for their excellence and achievements. Chef Alex's fellow nominees in the Great Lakes region are Grant Achatz of Alinea (Chicago), Carrie Nahabedian of Naha (Chicago), Bruce Sherman of North Pond (Chicago), and Michael Symon of Lola (Cleveland). That's some seriously good company he's keeping. This year's awards will be announced May 7th.
As we discovered by accident, the Roadhouse is serving up some delicious Passover specials all this week — click on the menu to see what they're offering. The Beef & Chickpea-Stuffed Cabbage starter and the Catalan Lamb Sausage-Stuffed Peppers were both awesome. The stuffed cabbage is simply flavored with cinnamon, fennel seeds, and garlic, and the tomato broth was light and fresh and delicious. The lamb-stuffed peppers were served on top of a rich roasted tomato sauce and a side of saffron rice flavored with scallions and sultanas. If you're in the mood for an entrée on the sweet side, give the Southwestern Tsimmes a try. We wish we had more room, because the Uzbek-Style Filet of Halibut also looked quite beautiful and tasty. The Chocolate Orange Passover Torte was moist and rich with a thin chocolate icing studded with sliced almonds — hard to believe that it was made from matzo meal, but Passover and chocolate desserts just seem to go together!
If you're signed up for the special Sephardic Passover Dinner that they'll be serving up on the 17th (we are!), note that this menu here is not the same one Chef Alex will be serving up on the 17th. (You can see the menu for the 17th on their events page.) If you missed out on getting into this dinner (there's apparently a long wait list), there's one consolation: the demand for the Sephardic Passover Dinner was so great that they'll be serving up that menu as well as part of their weekday specials.
Ari and a colleague serving up the Lamb and Tsimmes from this week's specials while Alex keeps everything moving smoothly up at the counter.
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