This past Saturday night I found myself faced with a typical conundrum: I have friends in town- where should we eat? I work for a food magazine for crying out loud, this is what I do. One friend graciously narrowed down his dinner hankering to “comfort food” and I was off to the races.
Let’s be honest, most of us rely on online menus to choose a restaurant anymore. Though it’s a tried and true fact that you return to a place for its atmosphere, hospitality, and whatever stand out dish you had, when going for the first time you can’t rely on anything but what sounds good.
As soon as I read pimento cheese arancini it was settled that we were going to The Mockingbird.
Open just a little over a year and a half, The Mockingbird is a unique diner/upscale comfort food hybrid nestled in The Gulch next to Tansuo. Something about walking into the place set the expectation that not only were we about to have a special evening, but we were going to have fun.
And fun it was! Brought to our table were punchin’ bags – a daily “fruit punch” (that evening’s was cherry and mint) combined with your booze of choice served in a bag. With a bendy straw. We ordered a light rum, a dark rum, and a champagne because… champagne. Besides these quirky (and delicious) delights, they also serve well-crafted, smartly on-trend cocktails like the “Rye Here, Rye Now” (Rittenhouse rye, allspice dram, dry curacao, egg white) which means there’s something on the list for everyone.
The pimento cheese arancini was everything I dreamed it would be and the fried brussels with white balsamic gastrique and blueberry jam were downright excellent. However, the stars of the appetizer round were the pork belly and tatchos. Yup- tatchos. Golden brown nuggets smothered in lamb chili, beer cheese, scallions, pickled onions, and crema. It surprises me that there isn’t a line out the door during happy hour. The pork belly, in a glaze of Italian Calabrian chili, sat on a bed of hazelnut grits with sliced red grapes. Hazelnut in grits is a brand-new idea to me, and thus I was floored. The pop of the grape was perfection and a welcome refreshment from the fat of the belly. I scraped the plate.