To celebrate my middle-aged birthday last Friday night, it was only fitting that Pat and I marked the occasion by dining at Wiseacre. It’s a relatively new establishment on the restaurant scene, but the building in which it’s housed has been around a very long time. Originally an auto service garage, the building was most recently and famously known as the home to Liberty Custard, a place that just happened to be one of our favorites to get ice cream in the summer. Or winter. In fact, exactly five years earlier we were celebrating another monumental birthday of mine with an all-you-can-eat frozen custard sundae buffet party at Liberty. We had heard that Wiseacre kept the custard machines and were serving their own version of the frozen treat, so I was very interested in trying it out. I’ll return to that in a moment…
So we got to Wiseacre and were immediately impressed with what they’ve done to the inside. The ambiance was very cozy and intimate. It’s a small space, but they effectively made use of every inch with table seating, and even a bar in the back. We sat down and ordered drinks and began to peruse the menu. Now. Pat and I were not exactly starving because prior to leaving home we had celebrated my birthday with the kiddos by diving into a chocolate cinnamon chiffon cake that Pat and Ry had baked earlier in the day. When we were presented with dinner menus and a special Valentine weekend seven course tasting menu, we disregarded the tasting menu because we just weren’t THAT hungry. And then the more we sipped and the more we chatted, we somehow came to the conclusion that we should most definitely order the tasting menu because, a.) how often do we go out for a nice dinner?, b.) it’s my birthday!, c.) we can count this as a Valentine celebration too!
We were both very impressed with the food. The amuse course was a fried oyster with a pureed avocado sauce. While oysters fall into the category of foods I won’t ever touch with a 10 foot pole, I will typically try anything once, and since this bad boy was battered and fried, it wasn’t as intimidating as, let’s say, one of those slimey wet oysters on a half shell. So I sampled the oyster and dare I say it was good! But I let Pat finish the rest. Next up was a soup course. Pat tried the turkey chowder and I had the tomato borscht. Both soups were extremely flavorful, and left me craving a full bowl at a future visit.
For the salad course Pat had the pork belly with greens, and I had a version of their ‘Coop and Hoop’ salad with poached egg, roasted beets, and greens. Delicious. For entrees we both ordered the same thing- the Beef and Butter Caper. This dish included grilled steak with a butter caper sauce, goat cheese mashed potatoes, and grilled carrots and radishes. Again, delicious. By this point, we were full, but we had to carry on for the good of all things…holy? For the good of all things middle-aged, we carried on. Because there were still three courses left!
Next we received a small cheese plate with a homemade potato chip and dried cranberries. I feel like a broken record- the cheese and homemade potato chip were delicious. So simple yet divine. Something apparently got a little mixed up in the delivery of our seven courses. We were supposed to have been served a scoop of blood orange sorbet right after the entree, but instead that came after the cheese plate. The blood orange sorbet was really refreshing- a great palate cleanser.
Last up, my favorite course, dessert! I was hoping that dessert would be a giant vat of frozen custard, or at the very least that I could substitute out the chocolate raspberry pudding listed on the tasting menu for the frozen custard, but our server assured us the pudding was worth it AND that it was served with a scoop of vanilla custard. Okay. Now we’re talking. Pat and I had to put on our rally caps a bit to prepare for this last course, because by now we were STUFFED. Remember, we had already eaten dessert before dinner. Then the dessert was placed before me, and I knew instantly that I’d be able to finish the entire thing because Yum with a capital Y, this dessert consisted of a dense, warm fudgy chocolate cake with fresh raspberry sauce drizzled next to it, and a heavenly scoop of vanilla frozen custard pooling together with everything. It was absolutely delicious. Not only did I finish every last drip of mine, but I finished off Pat’s raspberry sauce as well. (He, sadly, was not able to finish all of his cake.)
What was my take on Wiseacre’s version of frozen custard? It was awesome. I could eat it everyday. Dare I say it may even be better than Liberty’s?
I would love to take this opportunity to praise Wiseacre for a delicious, special meal and a memorable birthday dining experience. They even comped two of our drinks because of the snafu with the orange sorbet. I will most definitely be returning to this restaurant because I want to try everything on their menus- brunch, lunch, and dinner!
So after seven courses + a pre-meal cake nosh, what did we do next you ask? Obviously we hit up Lariat Lanes for three games of bowling.
