The Bridge

“The next time a guy wants to date you, you should bring him here.  If he can’t navigate this menu, it’s a clear sign he’s not right for you.”

“Excuse me?  The next time a guy wants to date me, he’ll be the one bringing me here, not the other way around.  Cuz those days are long gone.” 

“You know what I meant; this cheese page is a good test to see whether or not someone can keep up with you food-wise.  And I know that’s important to you.”

He’s right, as he usually is.  Hence the reason I call him my Spirit Guide.  I can’t quite manage to bite back my retort, but I quietly mutter it under my breath.  We are in our fancy goin’-out clothes, after all—I have to at least try show a little class—because despite what you’ve heard, this knife-wielding tomboy cleans up pretty well and rocks a maxi dress like it’s nobody’s business. 

Sam ignores my comment although he hears every syllable, says instead, “If I’m not mistaken, I am a boy and you are a girl, and aren’t you taking me out at this very moment, or did I read your email wrong?”

“This is different.  We’re friends.  And it’s your birthday.”  His forty-first birthday, to be exact, though you’d never know it to look at him. 

            Sam used to be my photographer when I reviewed bands and restaurants for that little indie rag I used to work for, so we’ve been eating food together for a long time, and friends for even longer.  I’m not even sure when we officially “met,” because I knew who he was for quite a while, having seen him on stage performing with a comedy burlesque troupe and playing manager for hometown hero Clownvis of “America’s Got Talent” fame.  (He’s a clown; he’s Elvis; he’s the King of Clowns.  Seriously if you haven’t heard of him check him out.  “Barack-O’s Tacos” will rock your world.)  Sam and I became insta-friends at a party while trying to find toothpicks for the cheese cubes I’d brought; turned out Matt-a-billy had been bogarting a pack of like a thousand in his room.

“What the hell’s he need all those toothpicks for?”  

“Knowing Matt-a-billy, he’s probably building a scale model of the Millennium Falcon up there, but I’m not gonna try to find out!” 

And Sam just looked at me, like, “Hot girl . . . referencing Star Wars . . . brain . . . struggling to process. . . .”

I smiled, “‘Hey, she made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.’” 

And instant friends in three . . . two . . .

I came to think of Sam and I as the “un-couple,” because we would do couple things, even though we weren’t dating.  If he had an extra ticket to a show, I’d go with him, always sure to preface:  “Well if you don’t meet the girl of your dreams in the next three days, I’d love to go see Flogging Molly.”  If his friends made a reservation for four, I’d be number four so he wasn’t third wheel.  Any time a date blew him off or canceled on him, I’d fill in.  (Don’t misread me, it didn’t happen all too often.)
            His observation about the cheese page is right on point, though; it reads like a spreadsheet, complex and detailed—hard to tell if you’re coming or going.  And the menu itself is not exactly brief, though most of the pages are dedicated to beer and wine; it is “a unique tap house and wine bar,” after all.

I have managed to consume a wonderful meal complete with local brew for under twenty bucks here.  However, the trick is to avoid the cheese page; that cheese page is a bitch.  Sam loves cheese plates.  And so do I.  And birthday boy is calling the shots, so damnit we are having cheese.



 

For starters we try this scraped cheese called Tete de Moine from Switzerland; it tastes like cauliflower, and melts into a Brie-type flavor.  I happen to like cauliflower, so I end up eating most of this cheese.

Next there is the Sage Derby from Great Britain; it looks like a little slab of marble, white with green shot through it, and tastes like a saltier Swiss cheese with a minty finish.

Finally we splurge on the Ubriaco del Piave, from Italy.  The appeal to this cheese is that it’s bathed in wine.  Mmm . . . bathed.  In wine.  Don’t you love it when your food is more pampered than you are?  This is the Kobe beef of cheeses.  It is super salty, just the way I like it, with lots of fruity undertones, obviously, from the wine.  Favorite.  Sam and I keep going back for more and finish this before any of the others, then fight over who gets the last bite.  Despite the fact that we are celebrating his birthday, Sam insists on being a gentleman and offering me the last piece, although I know he really doesn’t want to, so I let him have it. 

If you go to The Bridge, you have to have to have to get the Braised Pork Belly.  In fact, if you ever go anywhere and they have braised pork belly on the menu, you have to get it.  Or anything with pork belly in it.  Or anything braised.  Whenever I look at a menu, I have certain “trigger-words” that instantly appeal to me.  Words like carmelized, glaze, infused, emulsion, confit, house-smoked, and obviously bathed and braised.  If any one dish contains three or more trigger-words, I order it without question.  Same thing goes for ingredients; I have trigger-ingredients as well (asparagus, pretzel roll, horseradish, goat cheese, just to name a few). 

So anyways, the Braised Pork Belly comes with apple-fennel slaw and polenta cakes drizzled in Calvados honey.  You want mouth-gasms?  Flop a lip over this:

 

We couldn’t decide on a second entrée to split because they were all out of the babyback rib special, and we were pretty full from the cheese plate and all its accompaniments, so we went straight to dessert:  Banana Espresso Bread Pudding.  Neither of us are big into sweet stuff, so we picked something that could be slightly construed as savory.  I have no words, only drool dripping down my chin:

 

 

All this washed down with a bottle of dry red:  Rio Madre, a Graciano/Rioja varietal from Spain, 2011 vintage. 

We don’t eat like this often.  We couldn’t; I’d have to prostitute myself on a nightly basis to the lowest common denominator wandering South Grand in socks and open-toed sandals (*shiver*), because no normal person’s going to pay top-dollar for an HJ from a 300-pound pork-belly addict.  But when we do get to eat like this, we do it right. 

Go to The Bridge.  Go to The Bridge.  Please go to The Bridge.

If you have a date, take him/her to The Bridge.  You will impress him/her; look at this fancy shit:

 

It now ranks in my top five restaurants I recommend to people.  You know how sometimes you go to a restaurant and they have $10-$12 entrées, but then the specials can run up to $30?  Not here; the specials are priced in the same range as the entrées.  So go to The Bridge already—eat some fancy food, impress some fancy bitches; just be sure to study that cheese page ahead of time, as though your ACT score depended on it.