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| - This is the kind of place that I wish would exist in Windsor, but doesn't, which is why I invariably end up in Detroit so often. Snacks, hipster music and staff, great spirits, passable beer, and more than enough in the general atmosphere to make up for a somewhat unexpectedly limited wine list.
I'll start with some of the cons. As I alluded above, the wine list isn't great. And I don't expect a casual snack bar to have a long list of stunners. But offer some neat stuff by the glass, at least. More than two or three, and more than almost exclusively VQA pours. It doesn't make sense with the rest of the cosmopolitan menu.
Additionally, I really wanted to order from the snack menu at lunch and wasn't able to. I've had Ibérico before and really wanted to see how they presented it, and was disappointed to hear I could only order from the lunch menu. But I got past it.
I had the warm mushroom and arugula salad with added seared hen. The salad was terrific and I wasn't expecting it to be. It was curiously arranged, with all the mushrooms and dressing buried underneath a pile of arugula and pinenuts. At first I thought this amounted to poor presentation, but it actually made sense. The arugula stayed fresh, vital, and crisp by not warming up, and this contrasted and paired perfectly with delicious warm, assorted mushrooms, accented nicely by a soy-based dressing and the sharp manchego. The hen was a little dry, but Portland made up for that with a nice accompanying sauce, spicy and tangy. It was served incredibly quickly which means that the hen is pre-cooked, but I understand that.
I drank a Cafe Biscotti to start, then had a nice bottle of Italian beer, Collesi. The former was a nice warm-up after an enormous windy blizzard, and the latter was a great, dry friend to accompany my book and light lunch. Both were very nice and unique.
The decor and atmosphere of the place is definitely great. Light hipster music playing softly, like Cults or Passion Pit, with a beautiful white marble bar and bright natural lighting contrasting mostly black furniture. Very modern, very cool. I would recommend it to anyone as a casual hangout, and I assume it would be even better if you could share a few snack menu items.
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