Metro Pulse/Restaruant Rover/Bleu Hound Grill

Comment
on this story

Bleu Hound Grille
80 East Tennessee Ave., Oak Ridge
481-6101

by Ally Carte

Pumpkin, my favorite gourd on the planet, is back. Of all of the wonderful things that happen in the fall—although, admittedly, this fall has sucked on a number levels—the return of fresh pumpkin is the best. Forget football. Forget colorful leaves. Forget brisk weather. Give me pumpkin ravioli. Bake me a pumpkin pie. Heck, I'm even thrilled to see these shapely little numbers stacked in the grocery store, from the humongous ones intended for jack-o-lanterns to the baby ones bred for baking.

Oh, come on. Everyone has their hobbies. Some bass fish. Some collect stamps. I revel in seasonal foods.

Thankfully, I'm not the only one on the planet who is moved by such things. International organizations have formed around the concept (like Slow Food (www.slowfood.com), a group devoted to traditional regional eats). Some local chefs, of course, are in on this manner of thinking about food as well, placing baby greens on the menu in spring or stewing root vegetables in the winter.

One such is Eric Branch, former sous chef of the great Continental dining experience that is the Jockey Club, now the executive chef at Oak Ridge's Bleu Hound Grille. Branch's focus for his new gig in the nuclear town is on using the offerings of each season. His plan is to change the menu as frequently as they do.

The Bleu Hound Grille has always been one of the best kept secrets of East Tennessee. Personally, I think there's something larger going on at the Lab, a vast secret plot hatched by O. Ridgers to keep this gem of a place a secret from interlopers who might fill the place up so much that locals can't get a table.

Admittedly, the last time—oh, three or four months ago—I went to the Grille, the experience was kind of lackluster. Not bad, per se, just not up to their usual sparkling standards. At the time, I was unaware that the place was going through a chef transition. Now, it appears, most of the hitches (with one exception that we'll get to in a minute) have been smoothed out and the Bleu Hound is cooking on all burners once again.

The restaurant was hopping when we showed up for our reservation, which I'd suggest you make—the Grille, while of a decent size, fills up pretty quickly. Servers clad in blue jeans and white button-downs scurried about place, which has been tricked out in the early Crate and Barrel style. While the waiters are fairly casual, the clientele runs the gamut between Ann Taylor's finest and the dressed-down dressy of a casual Friday.

The food, however, speaks to a much more refined atmosphere. Our starter, pan-seared filet mignon bites with a sweet Dijon sauce ($8), were perfection. Cooked with a generous handful of mushrooms, the fork-sized chunks of tender meat beautifully matched the rich sauce. In itself, for one, it could have been a fine entree.

The soup course ($3 cup, $4 bowl or free with an entree) offered selections picked from the season. The southwestern chicken, corn and potato chowder was a filling cup-full, laced at it was with heavy cream and bacon. But more enjoyable to me, for the aforementioned reasons, was the seasonal bisque, a spicy-hot and sweet puree of tender pumpkin and squash.

After a brief wrestle with the entree options (the Lula-esque veggie bowl with rice, black beans, tofu, goat cheese and pineapple salsa ($14) kept whispering my name), I pounced on the daily special, a puff-pastry wrapped package of chicken, ham, spinach and gorgonzola cheese topped with a rich gorgonzola sauce and served with wild rice and mixed veggies ($19). While it was certainly tasty and demonstrative of the kitchen's skill with a knife—the side of chopped carrots, zucchini, asparagus, green beans, and peas looked like a textbook demonstration of how one dices—the plate itself looked like it had spent to much time on the pass shelf.

Which brings me around to the one sub-par aspect of the meal, and it is the one thing that makes me absolutely nuts no matter where I encounter it. There is no worse feeling than the belief that you've been abandoned by your server. Yes, the place was busy, but the gaps of time between each course stretched from the sort that encourage conversation to the lengthier sort that engender aggravation. In all, our dinner stretched to about two hours, which, while expected at, say, the Jockey Club with its numerous rounds of dishes, can be irritating at a smaller, less service-intensive eatery.

The dessert, however, a pumpkin creme brulée ($5), which captured the fruity taste of my favorite gourd in the custard and enhanced it with spices like nutmeg and cinnamon and covered it with brittle caramelized sugar, went a long way to making up for any gripes I might have had. Consider this rich ending the incarnation of what fall should taste like, if it could only be distilled. m

Got a suggestion for Ally? Want her to visit your most or least favorite restaurant? Drop her a line at [email protected] and tell her all about it.