Saintless

It’s that time of year, again. Time to vote for your favorite picks for  City Weekly’s “Best of Utah”.

I think this year was my most complete ballot, with 48 responses. These are my two favorite picks:

Best Utah Politician: Peter Corroon

Best Utahn: Sister Dottie S. Dixon

And if you’re stuck on any of the other categories, here are a few of my other choices:

Best Local to Follow on Twitter: @WWJDinSLC (Though, that one was hard!)

Piper Down and Club Jam got a few votes each from me in the Nightlife category

Best Burgers: SmashBurger (of course!)

Best Local Beer: Latter Day Stout – Desert Edge Brewery

And my write ins:

Best Book: Revolutions for Fun and Profit! | Best TV Hair: Ben Winslow

Does anyone else have any favorite responses they’d like to plug?

This evening, I went to the 2nd day of the City Weekly Dining Tour. This time we ate at the Sun and Moon Cafe, up Emmigration Canyon.

I really enjoyed the Moose Drool Nut Brown Ale. And the drive up the canyon was beautiful!

Now, my Momma told me – if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. So, if you’re my Momma, please stop reading now.

Ok, I do have one amusement to point out. Notice the bottom of their list of beers:

Weak Beers – I totally agree with this!
(Click to enlarge)

Also, apologies again about the bad photos – the good camera’s batteries died as I tried to take the first picture.

We decided to go for the Small Plates, since they sounded so good.

First up was the Goat Cheese Chorizo Quesadillas:

I think that these were probably the best thing we had. The goat cheese was good, but then goat cheese usually is. The chorizo didn’t thrill me, though. Chorizo has to be really good for me not to gag at the thought of it, though. I cannot figure out what the sauce was. I think maybe it was supposed to be a house pesto.

Along with that came the tamales:

Perhaps these would have been better smothered in the chile verde sauce that comes when your order it as a meal, but we went for it as a small plate. So, it came with little plastic tubs of sour cream and salsa. I typically love tamales. LOVE tamales. This one was dry and not very good. It was spicy, so they do get some points there, but I’d much rather have the cheaper and yummier kind you can get at taco stands or festivals.

The last two things we had were the stuffed mushrooms and goat cheese crostini:

Not to toot my own horn, but I make damn good stuffed mushrooms. And these weren’t mine. I usually like stuffed mushrooms anyway. I’m not sure if they cooked the mushrooms too long, or if they started out this tiny. There was supposed to be broccoli in them, but if there was, I couldn’t find it. The flavor wasn’t bad, but they weren’t memorable, by any means.

The crostini are what I think I had the most problem with tonight. The bread had been cut incredibly thick, making them hard to eat. On top of that, this appetizer was meant to be served cold, and these were warm. I think the ingredients here were very good, and high quality, but they just weren’t put together right.

The other thing that I was unsatisfied with was the atmosphere. While I did enjoy the local scenic photos on the wall, and the restaurant did look nice, it wasn’t an enjoyable dining experience. The booths were made out of wood, and very rickety. The person sitting behind me was rather fidgety, and so my booth was moving the whole time. I really wanted to say something when the guy started shaking his foot! Also, the lighting was less than pleasant. I don’t mind a restaurant with dim lighting, normally. But, the shadows made it so I couldn’t even distinguish what was actually in that pesto-type sauce.

I feel kind of bad about tonight’s post, because it’s very unusual for me to dislike everything at a restaurant like this, and I generally would just skip blogging it. And it was basically free food (Except it wasn’t – tonight’s $25 gift certificate was per table, not per person, so we threw in another $35 including the tip).

I have no doubt that tomorrow evening’s visit to Epic will be a much better experience!