Happy Meal

Happy Meal

In an earlier post, I shared my trip to Washington, CT. While there, I took pictures of a converted gas station (much like our office at KRD) that, as it turns out, “houses” not only an architecture firm, but a really cute interior designer who mentioned she moved to town with her chef husband to set up his restaurant, Community Table. Upon further inquiry (my sister-in-law trolling the internet), I learned that he was no ordinary chef. Joel Viehland learned his craft in the kitchens of such chefs du jour as Katy Sparks, Susan Spicer and Donald Link in New York and New Orleans. Obviously a quick-study, Viehland moved after six years stateside to Copenhagen to work at Noma. While there, Viehland put this restaurant on the culinary map, responsible for earning it a rating of third by the San Pellegrino’s Top 50 Restaurants in the World.

Last Saturday night we ventured to Community Table to see if a chef can really be that good. We were seated at the end of a long table … My sister in law remarked that she had just read an article in Zagats called the 10 Most Annoying Restaurant Trends. Number one on that list is “community tables”. I would tend to agree, mostly to protect people from guests like us… we eavesdrop like we work for the CIA and we analyze other people’s (not in our party’s) meals rather overtly while making our decisions.

Turns out the choices were few for entrees, but each one sounded perfect so we still had a hard time deciding. Here’s what we ate..

 

The salad had so many leaves and berries, all foraged from local gardens.

 

The bread came from local bakers and the butter! …from some local cow.

 

I shot the back end of my dinner plate to show you all the other things that came with a beautiful piece of tuna.

 

Here’s the skate dinner.

 

This baklava was a work of art, it looked like it was wearing antique jewelry.

 

The homemade basil ice cream was melting as I set my strawberry shortcake up for the shot.

As we drove away, we all confirmed we loved Joel Viehland’s take on dinner and thought the whole experience would be perfect if Community Table was just closer to home. Then we realized if it was closer it would be priced above what we could stomach and we’d have to dine at 5pm to ensure a seat at the table.