Jay About Hen of the Wood Burlington

Anyone who has read this blog in the past probably knows I have a love affair with the Hen of the Wood in Waterbury. I have thought it was the best local restaurant in terms of higher end dinner fare for a few years now. Needless to say I was pretty stoked to learn they were opening a restaurant here in the metropolis known as Burlington. Unfortunately for me my 2 lead weights... I mean kids, have kept me and my wife from checking the new joint out. Well, we finally got a babysitter for the evening and headed for an early dinner. The space is a little off the run on Cherry Street, not actually attached to the new Vermont Hotel where it could gain most of its clientele. That said, the space is beautiful. Woodsy industrial with an open kitchen, large horseshoe bar, and plenty of exposed beams and brushed steel. If you venture back to the bathroom you can see the back kitchen and even the refrigerator and meat curing station behind glass. I arrived first and bellied up to the bar. Manhattan? Don't mind if I do. Solid presentation, good drink. My wife then showed up and ordered a bubbly rose. Service was a little slow at first but our bartender was hand shucking, checking for quality, and preparing raw oysters in quantity. The other 2 bartenders were poached from the Bluebird Tavern and are good... solid hires.

How about the menu?  Solid...and not overly expansive.  We opted to start w/ oysters and then share a few small plates.  The oysters tasted fresh, briny, and delicious. Very good mignonette. Next up we had fried squash blossom fitters. The batter was not too heavy or greasy and they were quite good w/ a nice hint of honey drizzle.  We then had creamed kale, lobster gratin, and gnocchi in a bolognese sauce if I recall correctly? The kale was a little heavy on the cream but the slightly bitter green was nice to cut that cream as well as the rest of our heavy meal. The lobster was nicely cooked and had a good flavor and texture. It was swimming in a delicious parsnip puree that was the real star of the show. Big time parsnip flavor if that can be done. The gnocchi was also nice and had good texture (not too gummy) although the ground beef/pork along w/ all of the cream and butter came back to haunt us later in the evening. F*** it, it was worth it!

We left w/ a too go bag of sweets that were pretty good, a few cookies/truffles. Overall expensive but not egregious. It was fun, I will definitely go back. 1 3/4 thumbs up.