The Supper Club:
Benson Progressive Dinner
story and photography by Shelby Hoins
Publisher’s Note: Omega Omega Omega (Tri Omega), the culinary
fraternity at the Institute for the Culinary Arts at Metropolitan
Community College, strives to provide students with opportunities to
apply and develop their skills through unique experiences. One of these
experiences is the Supper Club. The Supper Club selects a restaurant
once a quarter and works with the chef of the restaurant to provide
a unique dining experience to challenge the palate and minds of the
students with the unique ingredients and techniques found in that
chef ’s kitchen.
T
his edition of the Supper Club found the culinary students
taking Benson by storm. Benson has become a local food
haven in the last few years, cultivating new and outstanding
restaurants. Tri Omega held their first ever Discovering Benson
Food Tour. 40 students and their guests were lucky enough to get
to take part in one course at four different Benson restaurants. The
participating restaurants were Taita, Benson Brewery, Lot 2 and
España.
The night started with a meeting at Jake’s Cigars & Spirits and
then four groups of 10 dispersed to each of the four restaurants.
Each restaurant was given the task to create a four course menu and
the guests would each have one course before departing for the next
stop on the tour.
“Benson has become a local
food haven in the last few years,
cultivating new and outstanding
restaurants.”
The first stop was Taita at 6109 Maple Street. Taita is a Peruvian
inspired restaurant that holds the meaning “father” in its name.
The first two of Taita’s courses required diners to choose between
hot and cold.
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Hailee, the general manager of Taita, offered us a choice, “Hot or
cold?”
For appetizers, the cold course was a scallop ceviche presented in
its shell and including mandarin oranges, tiger’s milk and avocado.
The hot course was an anticucho of tender beef heart with confit
potatoes. For those so inclined, a refreshingly smooth pisco sour was
also available.
For the second course, we were surprised to find that our hot
option was a beautiful nigiri sushi with rice, fois gra and caramel
gastrique. The roll had a perfect melt-in-your-mouth feeling that
was thoroughly impressive. Our cold option was yellow tail tartare
with bits of cilantro and fresh wasabi in each bite.
For the third course of the night Hailee gave our group a different
choice, “Land or sea?”
The land option was very tender rabbit with an apple and
hazelnut chutney, confit potatoes and kale in adobo sauce. The
Rockfish with chorizo and
eggplant purée at Taita