New Summer Menu at BIN

(The new CLT at BIN—read on for more...)

Recently we completed our summer menu changeover. In general, entrees and appetizers have been lightened, and of course seasonal products are highlighted.

Some of my favorites are...

Pork Ribs from Swan Creek Farm. We first put a dry rub on them overnight and then the next morning we slow roast and smoke them for four hours. Then they are lacquered with our house made Blackberry-espresso BBQ sauce and served with a refreshing watermelon-mint salad.

(Slow Smoked Stack of Pork Ribs, Blackberry & Espresso BBQ Sauce, Watermelon-Mint Salad)

I also like our wood rotisserie chicken. It picks up great flavor from the slow cooking over the sweet smokey wood and we are serving it with jalepeno cornbread, a corn and arugula salad and we sauce it with a light vinaigrette I am very proud of. We call it a lobster vinaigrette, and we make it by roasting lobster shells and pouring oil over them and lightly heating the oil for a few hours to pick up that sweet lobster flavor. Next, we reduce red wine vinegar to almost a syrup so it has a different weight than the oil. We mix the two and serve it with the chicken for a nice light sauce on a hot summer night.

Chicken with a lobster sauce is an old school french combination that we have lightened and modernized. And in the seafood category, well, what everyone is ordering is the Halibut dish. We get these beautiful halibut from Alaska and poach them in butter—decadent! We are serving it with a sweet fennel puree, tempura fried asparagus, and this great light lemon confit broth-like sauce. It has already been getting great reviews. But though I can’t argue with the many who are enjoying the halibut, I personally would prefer the soft shell crab that we've been previewing. We call it the open faced “CLT." Crab, lettuce, tomato. Semolina crusted soft shell crab, red mizuna lettuce from Growing Power Farm and nice, sweet and acidic heirloom tomatoes. We serve it with a corn and bacon butter!

(Butter Poached Alaskan Halibut, Fennel Puree, Tempura Asparagus, Lemon Confit Jus)

Enough said, time to cook. Come in and taste some summer.