Brash Brewing/Clown Shoes Beer Dinner at Juban's

Brash Brewing and Clown Shoes Brewing Beer Dinner at Juban's

Please pardon the quality of these photos due to lack of lighting, but I think you'll see that you still wish you were at this beer dinner.  Last month, Juban's Chef Jaime Hernandez put together a beer dinner with daring beers from Clown Shoes and the Brash Brewing Company.  A beer dinner with brews as bold and adventurous as this has not been done in Baton Rouge, to the best of my knowledge... and I would know... or this.  There were a couple beers that I had never tried before, like a sneak peak at the Texas Exile, a bourbon barrel aged brown sugar porter with coffee.  These breweries have good stories like this one told by Todd Price.  And more importantly, they have good beer!

 Belle Ecorce Farms chevre tempura, banana jam, dark chocolate

Chef Jaime started us off with an assorted charcuterie board as well as the above bad boys.  Local goat cheese fried in a tempura batter with banana jam and dark chocolate, inspired by the The Bullocks Imperial India Pale Ale.  With hint of banana and clove in the beer as well as rich dark fruit, the little ball on a stick paired very nicely.

Orecchiette Puttanesca: Fresh pacific sardines, marinated olives, fresh jarred tomato sauce

The sardines were served with the Clown Shoes Tramp Stamp, and Belgian Indian Pale Ale with and odd combination of yeasty and hoppy flavors.  The sardines themselves were fried to a delicate crisp and partnered with mouth-watering pasta and tomato sauce.

Roasted Bone Marrow: Honey bourbon brine, market pepper chow chow, crostini

Our third course featured roasted marrow straight from a bone.  It had been brined in Juban's signature honey bourbon and served with chow chow and some crostinis.  The fattiness of the marrow led to a succulent flavor that was cut by the bitterness from the Item 9 American wheat beer from Brash with an astonishing 80 IBUs.  The dish and beer were downright delectable. 

Pork Tamale: Braised Iverstine farms pork shanks, pecan mole sauce, wrapped in fresh banana leaves

With the Clown Shoes Chocolate Sombrero Mexican chocolate stout came Chef Hernandez's take on an authentic Mexican inspired dish.  Using local pork from Iverstine Family Farms in Kentwood, Chef created a banana leaf wrapped tamale with pecan mole.  The nutty and chocolate-y sauce partnered with the pork and made a dish packed with different flavors.

Fromage et Saucisson: Sharp white cheddar and pimento mousse, rabbit boudin blanc, satsuma marmalade

The cheese course, served with spectacular rabbit boudin, also came with the Clown Shoes Clementine 1.5 Double White Ale.  The cheese mousse had a sensational flavor and worked incredibly well with the boudin.  The addition of the satsuma marmalade tied the dish together with the citrus-y white ale.  Well done, Chef.

Red Velvet Cake: Nanette Mayhall's famous cake, cream cheese icing, toasted pecans

The dinner wrapped up with the most anticipated beer of the evening: Flight of the Pimp.  This beer features a combination of Pimp, a blending of Clown Shoes and Brash Brewing's brown ales, and bourbon barrel aged Blaecorn Unidragon, a Russian Imperial Stout from Clown Shoes.  The beer... amazing.  I need another.  And the red velvet cake didn't disappoint either.  I kept eating, devouring the chocolate and cream cheese flavors, and matching it against the ultra complex Flight of the Pimp.  Needless to say, everyone went home happy!

State Fair... Fare: Turkey Legs and Red Velvet Funnel Cakes

Sometimes a food writer and radio host just needs to get down on some grub at a fair.  The Greater Baton Rouge State Fair recently passed, and I had the opportunity to visit the festivities in order to taste a few deep-fried delicacies.  J.H. Martin, the Foundation Chairman for the Fair, invited me out personally to try a new addition to the culinary lineup: the Red Velvet Funnel Cake.

Jay eating a turkey leg

 Before I could go for the funnel cake, however, a giant turkey leg caught my eye.  In high school I helped cook and sell turkey legs for a fundraiser at our annual County Fair, so seeing a giant leg of smoked poultry made me long for those days.  I had to have one.  I grabbed the leg using its natural "handle" and sunk my teeth into its deliciously moist and tender flesh.  Memories flourished in my mind as I drifted back to my childhood.  I took another bite and another.  Damn, I love a turkey leg!  I devoured the entire thing... and it looked something like this:

Disney's Sir Kay from The Sword in the Stone eating a (gigantic) chicken leg

Then I got to the Red Velvet Funnel Cake.  The delicate red batter drizzled lusciously into the pool of hot oil.    There it fried, floating on the surface until cooked through but still tender.  A cream cheese frosting then melted over the funnel cake to create this genius dessert.  Well, almost.  Ultimately it ended up being a little soft and soggy.  While very tasty, the textures weren't quite what I was hoping for.  Maybe it needed to be fried a little longer to hold up to the wet frosting instead of the traditional powdered sugar.  Regardless of any flaws, the red velvet funnel cake definitely is worthy of trying.  We scarfed down the entire cake and could have eaten more.  Still, next time I'm in the mood for a funnel cake, I think I'll go for the original.

And thanks to Noel Marcantel Photography for snapping and sharing a couple pictures!

Indulge in Gourmet at Sweet Wishes Café

This article has been published in the November 2010 issue of Town Favorites Magazine. You can visit the Town Favorites website at http://www.townfavorites.com/, follow them on Twitter @TownFavorites, "Like" them at Facebook.com/TownFavorites, and find their magazines at over 150 restaurants and businesses around Baton Rouge! Pick up a copy today!

Indulge in Gourmet at Sweet Wishes Café
by Jay D. Ducote

In November 2007 Rhonda Weeks and Sheetal Bueche opened Sweet Wishes Café on Perkins Road. They wanted to open a business, Rhonda liked to bake and decorate, and gourmet cupcakes were an up and coming trend in big cities around the country. Thinking the idea would fit in well in Baton Rouge, their shop opened its doors for cupcakes to go or as a place to relax with their delicacies, coffee, and free wireless internet.

Rhona Weeks and Jay Ducote pose with cupcakes at Sweet Wishes

Sweet Wishes keeps eight to ten flavors available each day on a mostly rotating basis. While the Red Velvet, Heavy Duty Chocolate, Plain Jane, and Chocolate Chip are the regulars on their menu, other assorted cupcakes will come and go with the seasons or with requests from customers. The café owners pride themselves on their level of customer service. If you give a couple days notice they can have any flavor on the menu, not just the eight to ten that are available at the counter. They do custom cakes, are willing to do last-minute jobs, and also specialize in wedding cupcakes and corporate gifts with company logos screen-printed onto the frosting. According to Rhonda, the logo sweets make great holiday presents or “thank you” items for clients.

Delightful Gourmet Cupcakes on display at Sweet Wishes Cafe

The ladies at Sweet Wishes Café played with different flavors a lot more when they were first getting started than they do now. Still, every once in a while they invent something new. Their most recent flavors play with fruit fillings like apple, blueberry, and apricot. Rather than stuff their cupcakes with a blob of fruit filling, they insert multiple columns of fruit throughout the cake, allowing the eater to taste some in every bite without ever getting an overload. I found the Blueberries & Cream cupcake to be tantalizing to the taste buds with just the right amount s of cake and filling in each bite.

Pupcakes also highlight the menu at Sweet Wishes. These gourmet dog treats are made with oatmeal, cheese, whole wheat flour and other ingredients that are ideal snacks for your puppy. They also serve ice cream from the LSU Dairy Store, making them one of the few places on earth to get LSU ice cream. Rhonda and Sheetal proudly brew Baton Rouge’s own Community Coffee. However, it isn’t a one way relationship. During the holidays, CC’s Coffee Houses dish up Sweet Wishes’ Chocolate Mint cupcakes. Sounds like a great way to celebrate to me!

Geaux Tigers!

In the end though, a gourmet cupcake doesn’t actually do any good unless it tastes fantastic. Fortunately for Sweet Wishes, their cakes live up to the billing. I sampled quite a few cupcake varieties including each of their four regular flavors as well as Toffee Temptation, Blueberries & Cream, and Chai. I found the Chai cake to be particularly interesting and a great flavor for a cupcake. Sweet Wishes flavors are found in the cake, not loaded in the frosting. The cake itself is slightly heavier and denser than a typical cupcake while still delivering the necessary moistness, which appealed to my palate. The frosting is the same on all cupcakes. Sweet Wishes uses a cream cheese based frosting that is far more inviting than most completely sugared cupcake toppings. The cream cheese base allows the frosting to highlight the flavors in the cake while providing a great balance between sweetness and substance at the same time.

Jay Ducote takes a bite of the Toffee Temptation cupcake

The Toffee Temptation had a distinct taste with crunchy toffee on top. The textures played really well together and made it one of my favorite cupcakes of the evening. However, while the Red Velvet is consistently their number one seller these days, my personal favorite cupcake was undoubtedly the Heavy Duty Chocolate. Rhonda and Sheetal load the rich chocolate cake with extra chunks of dark chocolate to make the cupcake explode with a chocolate overload. Once again, the cream cheese based icing pairs extremely well as it smoothes out the richness of the chocolate and allows the eater to taste just how delicious the whole thing really is. Heavy duty, yes, but nothing I couldn’t tackle over and over again. It would be worth it… despite my growing waistline. Decadent and delicious!

For more information about Sweet Wishes Café, you can visit them at 10889 Perkins Road, find them online at www.sweetwishescafe.com, follow them on twitter @SweetWishesCafe, like them on facebook.com/SweetWishesCafe, or give them a call at 225-757-6880. Enjoy!

Jay D. Ducote is the author of the blog Bite and Booze, which chronicles his culinary and indulgent cultural experiences around Baton Rouge, South Louisiana, and the world. It can be found at www.biteandbooze.com. You can also reach him by email at jay@biteandbooze.com, like the Bite and Booze fan page on facebook.com/biteandbooze, and follow him on Twitter @biteandbooze. 

Thanks to Eric Ducote of BRBeerScene.com for taking all the pictures for this article.

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