Amazing Valentine's Day At Grand Rapids Brewing Company

Ok, before I get into the food a few words on our Valentine's Day dinner there. After thinking about dining at a different restaurant, Mel suggested we eat at Grand Rapids Brewing Company. What a recommendation it was! The place is absolutely beautiful. It has that gorgeous old building look with exposed duct and ceiling work. The inside is predominately a sandy brick color. The tables look like old wood repurposed for a table... almost butcher block in style. The prices are very reasonable for the quality of the food you get. A minute to talk about the service; this was perhaps the best service that we have experienced in a Grand Rapids restaurant. That includes the service we have had at places like Bistro Bella Vita and Ruth's Cris Steakhouse. Our server cleaned the table of dirty silverware and brought new silverware after each course. He was incredibly knowledgeable about the menu making fantastic recommendations and he was always present without hovering or being overbearing. He brought water to the table during the entree without being asked to do so. You could tell he was being genuine and not playing a part to get a tip. Top class for sure.

Now, on to the food!

 Check that, the drinks! They offer this cool sampler of six of their main beers to try, since it is a brewery. For only $6 you get 6 small glasses, between 1.5-2 oz. so you can sample their beers and make a decision on what you like. All were very good, but the Fishladder IPA and Brewer's Heritage Hefeweizen were our favorites.

NOW on to the food... I promise!

For Valentine's day there was a special appetizer (called a Shareable on the menu) of a hand rolled gnocchi with a lamb bolognese. Lamb can be quite strong in taste. Usually it has a kind of gaminess to it. But this ground lamb mated with the tomato sauce perfectly. We could tell it was lamb it we got some on its own, but the strong taste didn't come out. It could as well have been beef if you weren't looking for the lamb. The sauce also had a nice rich tomato flavor that develops after being cooked for a while. Also in the sauce were carrots, celery, onion, and some herbs which I think was mainly parsley but there could have been others in there as well. The gnocchi were the best gnocchi I have ever had. They were potato gnocchi, just to clarify.  The outside was crispy, as they had been fried up in a pan. The inside, though, was creamy. And in when tasted alone we could taste garlic and salty cheese, like parmesan or peccarino, was added to the gnocchi. Honestly, this was amazing and it tasted like it could have come straight from Italy. It was that good. A wonderful start to the meal. 

Mel chose to get the roasted chicken with mashed potato and root veggies, after the suggestion by our server. The chicken was cooked perfectly. The skin was crispy, which was great because crispy chicken skin is delicious. The meat was still moist, which is impressive because it is so easy to overcook chicken, especially the breast, and it turns dry. This was not the case. It also tasted like there was lemon and herbs that were stuffed under the skin as a nice acidic lemon taste in the finish. The mashed potatoes were creamy and tasted like at some point the potatoes were cooked with bacon fat. There was this awesome smokey, salty taste to it that could only come from bacon. There was also a little bit of garlic in the mashed potatoes as well, which could have been from the garlic butter in the chicken running out onto the potatoes. The root veggies consisted of beets, potatoes, and some finely diced caramelized onion. The beets were really good. They had a little bit of sweetness that offset the starchy potatoes. They were also topped with a sage pesto that added a herbaceousness to the veggies. Overall this dish was extremely good and successful  The chicken, mashed potato, and root veggies all worked very well together. 

I ordered the porchetta. It was sausage rolled inside of pork belly and then roasted. It was served on top of a pumpkin risotto with sage. The pumpkin risotto surpassed anything I could have imagined. I say this because usually when I have had pumpkin it is covered in spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg and I usually hate it. Intensely. This was just left alone and was cooked through but still firm, not mush. It was also sweet and complemented the rest of the plate. The risotto was creamy and still had a nice bite to it. It wasn't mushy nor undercooked. It had a nice earthy flavor probably from the stock used to cook the rice. The porchetta was, in a word, pork heaven. The sausage was made in house by the restaurant butcher. The sausage was browned nicely on top and was nicely seasoned. The pork belly though was to die for. The skin was crispy on the outside and the meat and fat on the inside melted in my mouth. It was salty, smokey, and full of porky goodness. It made my mouth very happy. 

First off, sorry the picture is sideways. Second, this is our butterscotch bacon brownie with vanilla gelato. Yes bacon in a dessert! I never would have thought that adding bacon to a dessert would work, but it does in this case. The saltiness added a nice note to the butterscotch, just like it does to caramel. The brownie was dense and chocolaty and the vanilla gelato added a nice layer to the dessert. Seriously though... bacon in dessert!

The other dessert ordered was the German chocolate stout gelato. There was chocolate interlaced in a gelato with a subtle finish of their stout beer. Also there were some pecans in the gelato. Who knew that beer in ice cream could be so good? Yes, beer gelato was good. Whoever put these desserts together is a mad genius. 

So there you go. Our Valentine's Day dinner at Grand Rapids Brewing Company was fantastic. In fact it may have just become my favorite place to eat. I would place this above Twisted Rooster and up there with Bistro Bella Vita and Ruth's Cris for places in GR I have eaten at. In fact, since I haven't been to Bistro Bella Vita in a long time, I am going to have to place GRBC ahead of BVB in my opinion. The combination of service, price, and food place it at the top of my list. 

I highly, highly, highly recommend eating here.