Week 18 - Tasty n Alder guest starring Reina and Jason

I have to just start by saying that as I sit here and write this I am currently eating a block of cheese for dinner. I am nothing but dedicated to my craft. But that this cheese will have to wait for another day, as always, I have catching up to do.

Last Saturday I met Reina and Jason downtown for brunch at Tasty n Alder. Well, brunch was at Tastys, but due to their staggering hour and a half wait (which ended up being closer to two hours) we met first at Cheryl's on 12th, a catering combo restaurant, for a pre-brunch drinks. Some Bloody Marys later, they were ready for us and it ended up being every second worth the wait. How have I not been to this place before?!

It's okay to be jealous of my pelican dress.

Of course we had to order their cheese board, and Josh's Meats (Toro Bravo charcuterie) board; we also shared an eggs, bacon, and biscuits plate, as well as a their Flat Iron, Washimi Wagyu with garlic Roquefort compound butter (orgasmic by the way). Let me just tell you, Jason is a beefy dude, a big manly man, and then there's Reina and I who, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this, ate everything in front of us. Jason stared across the table from us politely sipping his whiskey on the rocks, pinky out because he's a gentleman, while his wife and I scarfed every food item on the table. Even the ridiculously tiny, and even less functional, salt serving spoon wasn't safe.

When I said pinky out eariler I mean't he was giving us the shocker the entire time.

Our sever was very kind and wrote down all of the items on the boards for me, my savior since by the time she was done with her spiel all I could remember was there was a cows, goat, and a sheeps cheese, maybe in that order. Now, for the meat board, I'm not going to get too in depth, it's a cheese blog after all. You'd have to go somewhere like Big Meats, or You Wanna See my Salami? for that kind of reading. Could I just be a blog namer? Can that be a thing?

Before I get too into it, I tasted everything separately, and then tried to pair each cheese and meat together to find the best flavor profiles.

Josh's Meats from bottom to top were: Finnochiona ('regular' salami), Calabrese (spicy salami), Skinny James (housemade meat stick), and County Pate with pistachio.

Now, on to business. The cheeses from top to bottom were: Schloss (cow), Montealva (goat) and Bear Hill (sheep) with strawberries, port-stewed prunes, and candied walnuts.

Schloss is a pasteurized cows milk cheese made in California by the Marin French Cheese Company, the oldest operating creamery in the US. Since 1865 they've been producing this soft, triple cream cheese, aged for 30 days, then and washed repeatedly in brine, which gives its rind a rust orange color. Spoiler alert, but this cheese was Reina and my favorite cheese of the three. It's creamy, but has a meaty mushroom/garlicy flavor to it. I thought it paired best with just their house made cracker, the flavor of the cheese was so interesting and complex on its own that the meats just over whelmed.

Montealva is a semi-firm pasteurized goats milk from Spain. Aged for two months, Montealva is made from the milk of a rare breed of Andalucian Payoya goat. 13 farms banded together to save this breed of goat, which produces a rich and fatty milk. The Internet talks about what a rich, vibrant, citrusy taste this cheese has, but Reina and I both disagree. We both found the cheese to be kind of on the bland side and the texture is chalky instead of creamy. I liked it paired best with the pate (which looked like cat food but had really great flavor, Reina was braved and tried a bite but couldn't get past how visually displeasing it was. Well that, and it's liver. More for me!).

Bear Hill is an unpasteurized sheeps milk cheese from Grafton Village Cheese in Vermont. It's aged for five months and name for the bluffs the village overlooks. I was somehow under the impression that milk had to be pasteurized, like, by decree of the FDA or something. Turns out this is not true, you can drink at your own risk, but many soft cheese (and cheeses I've reviewed for that matter) use unpasteurized milk. This cheese is also on the milder side, with a sweet and nutty flavor. I liked Bear Hill with either of the salamis and I little bit of the spicy mustard. It made for a good little sandwich cheese.

And with that, I bid adieu, but not without giving a belated birthday shout out to Brandon, one of my most loyal (and pushy!) followers. Without him, I may never get them out in reasonable time.