Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman
Given the current economic climate, the recently opened 36th Street Bistro in Boise is a bit of a culinary anomaly: It’s not a chain, a pizza place nor does it promise great piles of comfort food. It’s not even easy to find. The 36th Street Bistro is all but hidden behind a partially-finished construction site in this otherwise residential Collister neighborhood.
“There are people two blocks down the street who don’t think we’re open yet,” said Brenda Brien, the manager of the building that the Bistro and adjacent Garden Center share. That’s because there’s still construction work going on at what Brien calls the 36th Street Garden Plaza, a mixed commercial and residential development that broke ground on the former site of the Flora wholesale greenhouse company in June 2006.
I wasn’t convinced myself the Bistro was open when I first pulled into the parking lot for lunch. It was filled with more heavy equipment than customers’ cars. But walking into the dining room, I was a pleasantly surprised. I’d describe the look as greenhouse chic with high, windowed walls spilling diffused light into a space leafy with oversized plants, patio-style tables and hanging glass lamps. The restaurant, which officially opened in August, was tastefully sedate in an English conservatory sort of way.
The food, too, had the look of a high tea. The honey bacon BLT and the grilled ham cheese and apple sandwiches ($7.95 each) were dainty by American standards, with only a few slices of ingredients barely swelling the sandwiches to two fingers high. This was not a lunch I’d recommend to a hungry Broncos lineman. Still, the food was good. Really good. Those sandwiches were simple, yet flavorful – and with an equally pleasant cup of butternut squash soup, just the right amount for my lunchmate and me.
Robert Walker, the Bistro’s 26-year-old chef, said he doesn’t send out plates that cause customers to “waddle out of the restaurant.”
“We give you enough food to fill you up,” he said, “and we make it in a really healthy fashion.”
By that, Walker means sourcing as much local, organic produce and meat as the kitchen can find, then preparing it from scratch. The sandwiches we had, for example, did not use store-bought mayonnaise: “We make our own aioli in the restaurant,” Walker explained.
I could taste the difference then – and on a Saturday night visit.
Chef Walker ramps up the presentation and portion size for dinner. The organic farm-raised Alaskan salmon with tomato basil beurre blanc ($14.95) was silky, cooked to just beyond translucence. The flat iron steak ($13.95) was also organic (from Snake River Farms) and served with wild grains flavored with an earthy mushroom sauce. Amanda’s Kickin’ Cordon Bleu chicken ($12.95) was also good, if not organic – but chef Walker says he’s working on that.
Manager Brenda Brien is quick to point out that the center’s emphasis on organic and local goes beyond the dining room.
“This was built as a green building,” she said, “and we should have our LEED accreditation by mid-month.”
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification verifies that a construction project meets high environmental standards. To that end, 36th Street Garden Plaza is heated by geothermal sources, the brick and pavers were produced locally and the rest of the building materials were found within a 500-mile radius.
Still, good food and green design don’t assure success, especially in these fiscal times. The development still looks half-formed and feels not fully rooted into the community. I’ve been here when the building was quiet as a mausoleum.
Of course, I’ve also been here when the place was packed. On a Sunday brunch visit a few weeks ago lively conversation and autumn light filled the room. With that, and a nicely cooked eggs Benedict ($8.95) in front of me, it was easy to feel optimistic about the Bistro’s future. It’s a restaurant with promise – and this time I barely even noticed the front-end loader and mounds of dirt outside.
For full story go to: http://www.idahostatesman.com/204/story/569944.html
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Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture.
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