Flight Dessert Bar – Midwestern Roots

After reading a post from Erin of Bakery Bingo about a dessert pop-up called Flight Dessert Bar, I did a little investigation and saw they were putting together a special themed menu called Flight Dessert Bar “Midwestern Roots”. This was a reflection of the Flight Dessert chef’s origin from the Midwest, Wisconsin. Being an original Midwesterner myself, I felt compelled to support this dinner, just as Erin knew that the “Variations on a Theme: Chocolate” that she experienced with them was right up her alley.

Also, I saw from their twitter there would be PBR Frozen Custard.

Tickets bought!

The Dessert Bar experience consists of a six-course dessert tasting menu with beverage pairings for each course. However, each course wasn’t just a sweet dessert- he leverages experimental techniques and flavor combinations to blur the lines between sweet and savory.

Six courses sounds like a lot of sweet dessert, but I promise you that it does qualify as dinner that will leave you satiated like a meal and not just a flight of desserts. Do not eat beforehand thinking you are just coming here for dessert!

Flight Dessert Bar was created by Chef Nate Hamilton and Annie Massa-MacLeod. In the sweetest story, after meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, he left his position at farm to table restaurant Harvest and followed her west to Annie’s original roots, here in Oregon. Aw, a love story.

Flight is their brainchild, with him in the back of the house and her running the front of the house. You can still feel their tentative and excited energy- the newness, the still trying to figure it all out. It’s like being invited into the initial feelings when you are first trying to establish roots when you first move into your first job after graduating college.  Not that Nate or Annie are inexperienced- it’s just the feeling in the energy of Flight. There is an element of unsureness and transition, but also the freshness, the bravado of venturing and searching for something more, the exhilaration of discovery as life is changing.

So now to recap my experience. The experience of Flight I had was when they held the pop up at Bluebird Bakers, in NW. Their next space for their pop up is going to be Racion in SW be sure to check their website and Facebook for the latest updates and what menu Chef Nate may be creating.

Midwestern Roots

Course 1

Pleasant Ridge Reserve by Uplands Cheese, bread and butter pickles, cranberry jam, Beaver Sweet Hot mustard, bread. This was paired with tyler mackie’s brandy old fashioned.

This was a pleasant starter. I’ve had this award winning nutty Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese from Uplands in Wisconsin before, and it was a nice statement in Flight Dessert Bar’s commitment to the midwestern theme that they served a WI cheese.

At the same time, they demonstrated their commitment to marrying those sensibilities with what is available locally here, such as the nose tingling excellent Beaver Sweet hot mustard that is a strong punch of flavor to counter the richness of the cheese and the sweet and sour of the cranberry jam and pickles. The lost opportunity here was with the bread here, which was just white noise.

I think everyone loved that Old Fashioned- almost everyone had already finished their sample even before the cheese plate arrived, since we were welcomed with the little juice glass of it once we were shown our seats upon arrival. I could have used 2 or 3x more of that refreshing cocktail.

Course 2

Whiskey poached apple, spiced citrus “jello salad,” pie crust, sour cream mousse, molasses. This was paired with lambic kriek shandy.

This was not what I expected at all- and I love to be surprised. I thought the spiced citrus salad might be an enhancement to whiskey poached apple, but it was the justifiable star of this course. I took little quarter of a spoon bites, nibbling on this, trying it in all the flavor combinations of just the jello, jello with mousse, apple with jello, apple with mouse and bit of pie crust, apple with molasses, etc. The play on the different flavor and texture contributions here was fun and invigorating.

The lambic kriek is a belgian raspberry flavored beer that brought a tartness that I understood conceptually was to reinforce the jello salad, but though it was individually delicious I thought was an overwhelming pairing when combined with a mouthful of the more subtle dessert plate. It worked best I thought at the very end, as sort of a palate cleanser.

I have a hard time deciding if this or the next course were my favorite of the evening.

Course 3

Buttermilk fried chicken, maple gelato, pecan-black pepper slaw. This was paired with occidental altbier.

This was so full of win. The sweetly glazed gelato melding with the crisp yet tender chicken, the crunch of the pecans, cut by the crisp and refreshing slaw… my other dining companions agreed we could have eaten 2 or 3 of these.

I loved that this was paired with a beer, and the Occidental Altbier here added a malty, hoppy, with touch of wood flavor to the dish that balanced the sweet and fat from the chicken and maple, yet some of the nuttiness and caramel toffee in the beer also complimented the pecans and the maple. Even writing this post a week later, I can still recall the flavors of this dish, mmmm.

Course 4

Pineapple upside down cake, tarragon, maraschino cherry, marshmallow fluff. This was paired with chateau st michelle 2012 riesling.

This was the sweetest plate of the evening. Besides the 2 whole maraschino cherries you see in the dish, there was also fizzy cherries that were on that dish which were carbonated using a whip cream canister which are coloring the pineapple chunks…

Course 5

State Fair funnel cakes, milk chocolate-stout ganache, Pabst Blue Ribbon frozen custard. This was paired with hale’s ales nut brown ale.

This was the course I believe the whole room was looking forward to. As of this date, it is still the only way I have had PBR. Unfortunately, this was a case where because so much anticipation had been built for this dish, and it didn’t quite meet those expectations (even if those expectations may have been unrealistic and unfounded).

A great deal of this dish relied on the funnel cakes, and trying to live up to the nostalgia of the last time you had funnel cake. This is a pretty difficult high bar to reach, or at least it was for me. Although I enjoyed the crunch of the funnel cake here (and unfortunately it was no longer warm by the time they had enough to serve the table), the dough was not delivering on flavor – it seemed like it needed some cinnamon, or sweetness in some other form (like a lot more powdered sugar!).

But, I appreciate the idea, and the milk chocolate stout ganache was scraped clean. It wasn’t a bad dish, but after 10-15 minutes of basically the entire room looking at the open pop up kitchen and the deep pot the funnel cakes were attempting to be made in (and I think the oil not being hot enough), it’s was just hard to deliver so was a little underwhelming. Frying to order for a staring crowd is not an envious task.

Course 6

Grasshopper milkshake, creme de menthe, dark chocolate “puppy chow”. This was paired with coffee or tea, with a little brandy for your coffee if you were so inclined.

Why haven’t Grasshoppers ALWAYS come with dark chocolate puppy chow like this? I was scraping at the end, even though I was sooo full already.

I had earlier described that there is still a feeling that Flight is getting its bearings- and so it shouldn’t surprise you that there were a few small missteps here or there in service, or in executing what I had already thought might be difficult, making the fresh funnel cakes. Although Nate came out while the funnel cake course was getting ready, I wish similar to other pop-ups I had attended that more descriptions of how the dishes were conceived or interesting tidbits about each dish could have been shared before each course, instead of all at once. It’s one of the outstanding things about pop-ups- the closer access to the creativity process behind the scenes, unlike at a restaurant.

At the same time, that slight awkwardness is easily forgiven, as I think Flight will begin to settle in soon, and they have great potential. Their fresh perspective is fun and progressive, and I think as they get through this first year (they are only a few months into this!), their passion and hunger to share this perspective will quickly mature into success.

Their next space for their pop up is going to be Racion in SW- they have announced at least one date for each of the next 3 months (April 6th, May 4th, and June 1st), but more may be coming, be sure to check their website and Facebook for the latest updates and what menu Chef Nate may be creating. From their FB, it looks like the next dinner on April 6 is going to be an Herb dinner, with each course featuring a different local herb- tickets are available now.