Tag Archives: JG Domestic

Holiday Lunch Tradition at JG Domestic

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Last year, Holly and I wanted to do something special for lunch on our last day at work before the winter break. We often get to the restaurants closest to where we work, so we wanted to try someplace different and decided on JG Domestic. This time last year, we hadn’t yet been there but had heard good things and it was definitely high on our list to try, so we decided that was the place to go for our holiday lunch. It was a great decision as we loved our lunch.

We have been back a few times, once with an out of town friend, once for drinks, and once for a Four Roses Bourbon dinner.

Our return this year for a holiday lunch didn’t disappoint.

On our server’s recommendation, we began our meal by sharing a flatbread and we each got soup. The wood over flatbread was topped with hen of the woods, black truffle, cheddar,  and egg yolk. The cauliflower and cheddar soup was made with Wisconsin smoked cheddar, and was served with house made scrapple and apple butter. Both the flatbread and soup were delicious and provided a great start to our lunch.

Wood Oven Flatbread

CauliflowerSoup

We followed those by sharing the fish sandwich for the day: tempura battered Mahi Mahi. For a side, we also shared parsnip agnolotti with Luna Farm kale, pear-brown butter, and a  caraway crumble. The Mahi Mahi sandwich was cooked perfectly with a crispy but not greasy batter. The agnolotti was unique and absolutely wonderful.

Tempura battered Mahi Mahi sandwich

Parsnip Agnolotti

Of course, we couldn’t leave without having the beignets, which come with a vanilla Maker’s Mark butterscotch dipping sauce. Neither Holly nor I are all that into desserts, but this is definitely one of our favorites. Rounding out dessert were a couple cups of their wonderful coffee.

Bourbon Beignets

Coffee

We certainly started an awesome holiday tradition, although I’m sure we won’t be waiting another year to get back to JG Domestic!

“Meet the Maker” Bourbon Dinner at JG Domestic

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When Foobooz posted “Like Bourbon? So Does Jose Garces,” we said, “Why yes, we do.” Tom’s birthday was coming up, so I got on the phone right away to call JG Domestic for a reservation to the Four Roses “Meet the Maker” dinner.

“Crescent” cocktail

We arrived an hour before the dinner for a complimentary cocktail hour. We were treated to a refreshing cocktail of Four Roses yellow bourbon, lemon juice, mint, and ginger ale (if memory services correctly). We had a nice time mingling in the bar area with the other guests, and the JG Domestic staff really made us feel like VIPs. They also had an excellent spread of prosciutto, speck, smoked ham, mustard, and warm house ricotta for us to snack on while we waited to be seated. Eventually we were led back to a private room in the back of the restaurant, with two long, communal tables, and then the dinner began.

At our seats, we found small cups of four different Four Roses bourbons: yellow label, small batch, single barrel “Garces” (made especially for Jose Garces restaurants), and limited edition barrel strength. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to start drinking them right away or if they were going to be paired with specific dishes, but after awhile when the serving staff starting coming around with refills, we figured we should get started.

Master Distiller Jim Rutledge gave an in-depth history of Four Roses bourbon and how it got to be where it is today. It was interesting for me and Tom to learn that some people associate the Four Roses name with a mass-produced blended whisky that it made in the past, as we have only known Four Roses in more recent years for its small batch bourbon. We felt lucky to get to try all the varieties of Four Roses bourbon that were available this evening, as apparently they aren’t widely available in Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, the servers brought out the first course of food, which included house dinner rolls, smoked corn chowder, and a salad of Luna Farm winter lettuces. The dishes were all served family style, which was a surprise to me, but it made for more of a social experience with our neighbors, and it made the serving much more manageable, as there wasn’t room on the tables for too many dishes in addition to of all the cups of bourbon. The rolls, soup, and salad were all delicious. It’s nice, even in winter, to be able to have food made from fresh, local ingredients. It was rather dark, so we didn’t get any good pictures of this portion of the meal.

Our second course was amazing. The staff came out with big plates of St Louis spare ribs with bourbon BBQ sauce; macaroni and black kale gratin; and house-made pickled vegetables. Here, the bourbon was really able to shine, as it made for a great pairing with the meat. The meat was falling off the bone, and the macaroni-and-cheese was some of the best we had had in a long time. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but it was best we could do with the low lighting.

Dessert consisted of JG Domestic’s sublime beignets, served with bourbon vanilla mousseline and Maker’s Mark butterscotch. I am cheating and posting a picture from a previous visit to JG Domestic that was taken in the daytime under better lighting. We absolutely love this dish, and so did everyone else at our table.

All in all the meal was a tremendous value. It was $55 per person, but when we got our check it was actually broken down into $35 for the dinner and $20 for the bourbon tasting. For the food, that was a total steal, and for the drinks, even more so – I think even the 2 cocktails we had prior to the dinner were worth $20, let alone the multiple refills of bourbon we sampled during the dinner itself. Hats off to JG Domestic and Four Roses for putting on this awesome event.

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No Pictures to Show for It

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We had a rather excellent day of eating last Thursday, but, alas, we did not take any pictures. We were out to eat with two people we don’t often go out to eat with, so our attention was on visiting with them and not obsessing over our meals as we do when we are out on our own or are with people already aware of our taking of dinner photos.

For lunch, we met a friend at JG Domestic. We had been there once before for lunch around Christmas and really enjoyed it. The highlight of that meal was dessert. We treated ourselves to the beignets which come with a bourbon vanilla mouselline, which were out of this world.

Beignets with a Bourbon Vanilla Mouselline at JG Domestic

When our out of town friend was visiting and suggested meeting for lunch during the week, my first suggestion was JG Domestic, partly because it was excellent the first time we were there and partly because it was close to the train station for her and close to work for us.

We started by sharing the hickory smoked Georgia pecans, which were quite tasty. My friend and I were easily convinced by the waiter to try one of their most popular sandwiches, the smoked Berkshire pork which comes with a yummy BBQ sauce and apple slaw. It was easy to see why this sandwich is so popular. Holly got the chicken panini, which was good but seemed a bit lacking in flavor compared with the pork sandwich. We also all shared an order of duck fat fries. What to say? They are duck fat fries. How can they be bad?

Our friend had never been there before and loved it.

My only complaint is that we had to go back to work and couldn’t try out their excellent drink offerings but that is no fault of JG Domestic. We really need to stop there one day after work.

We had taken advantage of an online deal to purchase $10 tickets for select concerts at the Kimmel Center, which really turned out to be $16 after fees but still a good deal. My cousin was thinking about getting tickets for the same night we were going and we talked about meeting for dinner beforehand. As it turned out, she didn’t buy tickets but we still got together for dinner.

We opted to try the new location of Fish Restaurant, which is now pretty close to the Kimmel Center. The original location was very close to where we live and we were interested in trying it, but it closed shortly after we moved in.

Our experience there was excellent. Holly and I arrived early and had drinks at the bar: one Electrified Fence for her (infused rye, Fresh Apple Juice, Lemon Verbena Honey Syrup, House Ginger Beer) and one T.D.M.A. (Gin, Maraschino Liqueur, Drambuie, Dry Vermouth, Lemon) for me. My taste in cocktails has always leaned heavily to whiskey based drinks, but I have been trying to branch out more recently with gin drinks. I really enjoyed my T.D.M.A. and am glad I’ve been trying new things.

Because of our fabulous lunch, we weren’t all that hungry and started by sharing a radicchio salad. For dinner, Holly had the skate wing with truffled spaetzle, melted leeks, parmesan broth and winter truffle. I had the cod with Serrano ham, roasted grapes, caramelized cauliflower and Marcona almond gazpacho. My dinner was amazing. I loved the unexpected combination of flavors (cod with grapes and almonds?!). I didn’t get to try the skate, but Holly reports that the skate was everything you could want from fish (flaky, tender) and the flavor was perfectly balanced between the taste of the fish and the other ingredients.

Kimmel Center

The service was a bit on the slow side and on most nights would not have been an issue since we tend to be leisurely eaters. Once we alerted our waitress that we had a show to get to, she quickly brought our bill and we made our concert on time.

I look forward to getting back to Fish on a night when I wasn’t still full from lunch and when we have the time to linger over their luxurious offerings.