Foodie Visit Day 2: dinner out at North Forty-Eight. Janine’s review was right, the duck wings are divine. For someone who is a massive baby about spicy foods, I will say the hot (rather than very hot) sauce on the wings was just over the line for me, but luckily the wings aren’t tossed in the sauce; instead, it’s drizzled over, which means scraping some off isn’t hard to do (nor is adding more on if that’s what you like).
I wasn’t starving when we arrived, so I went for the marinated beet salad with arugula and fried Oka cheese. I didn’t snap a photo of this dish because to be honest, it wasn’t spectacular. The good points: though it says marinated beets, it was really slices of pickled beet, however I love me a pickled beet, so the more the better; the dressing on the greens was also a nice light balsamic, not too overpowering. The negative points: if I order a beet salad, my hope is that it consists of mostly beets with some greens here and there – this salad had maybe 3-4 slices of beet, and mounds of arugula greens; I also wasn’t wowed by the cheese – it was dipped in an unseasoned (read: bland) tempura batter and deep fried, whereas I would have preferred perhaps a nice seasoned panko crust and then pan fried in a bit of oil. Oka is a fairly mild cheese, and could have used a seasoned batter if that’s what they were going for rather than unseasoned. The deep frying also failed to get the whole wedge of cheese melty, so while the first few bites had nice gooey cheese, the rest was sort of rubbery.
Hands down the BEST decision you can make at this restaurant is getting the dessert s’mores, with house made graham cookies, marshmallows, and a chocolate sauce that we could only describe as a very rich, high-quality cocoa sauce. Not only are all the ingredients themselves perfect, but the ability to engage in preparing your own dessert just how you like it makes the whole thing an experience.
I would easily recommend North Forty-Eight for a fun night out with friends. Great drinks, great food, and a fun atmosphere provide the perfect setting to catch up with friends and share a s’more or two.
