Ever since the Book Bindery closed, I’ve been keeping an eye out for chef Shaun McCrain. Book Bindery had clean dishes that sought to highlight the main ingredient in an inventive way that was minimalistic, and yet inventive. It’s fine dining, but not overly fussy without being boring. So it was with high hopes that t0e and I went to Copine in Ballard to see how the chef had faired in his own restaurant.
Fried Salmon Pate – with salmon roe, with crème freshe. A nice amuse bouche to start the meal – a take on salmon multiple ways in a very complex bite.
Challah – bread and butter. Fresh, hot, fluffy.
Scotch Egg – black trumpet mushrooms, sunchoke purée, roasted chicken jus. A $15 egg that sadly wasn’t life changing. It was soft boiled perfectly and then fried, but I think the mushrooms overwhelmed the egg and there wasn’t much depth to this dish. Still, a good scotch egg, but a rather pricey one!
Pithivers de Canard – sour cherries, candied pistachio, turnips, fines herbes salad. Like a richer duck confit in a pastry. It had a overwhelming flavor of orange or anise in the duck, but the pastry was delicious.
Pork Belly – with apple butter, charred pearl onions, mustard seed pork jus. This tasted like how all barbeque should taste. Just enough tang with traditional apple accompaniments and pork cracklings just to make sure you get the sense of the whole pig. It was tender enough to be cut into pieces with a fork with just enough fat to give it flavor.
Pumpkin Bisque – with pumpkin melons and whole chunks of crab. It’s a perfect balance of sweet earth and briny seafood in a smooth bisque that had no trace of pumpkin fibers.
Rack of Lamb – with garnet yam gratin, braised swiss chard, niçoise olive-lamb jus. The lamb was delicious, beautifully cooked, but that bonus sausage with the yams truly stole my heart. I’m not even that big of a sausage fan, but the sausage had so much flavor that when you paired it with the sweet yams, it was a match like no other. Perhaps it was the hint of sweetness in the sausage, much like the Chinese kind that I’m so fond of? Swiss chard quenelles added a bit of vegetable to round out the dish.
Lemongrass Panna Cotta – with macadamia nuts, kaffir lime syrup, passion fruit sorbet. Real passion fruit is hard to come by in the northwest, so any dessert with passion fruit in it is on my list of things to try. That was one tart passion fruit though! Fortunately, the panna cotta and the lime syrup helped mellow it out, but I’d say that sorbet completely overtook the rest of the dish the point where I couldn’t taste the lemongrass in the panna cotta. If you’re looking for a light dessert and palette cleanser to end the night, this is your dish.
Service was attentive and they made sure our tiny water glasses were full the entire night. They were also kind enough to split all of our entrees in half as they knew we would be sharing. Another bonus is their take-out case. Though small, it has all the trappings a foodie could ask for to take home for lunch the next day. I had the truffled potato soup. And while it was no Alinea truffled potato soup, I had an entire bowl of it to myself and loved it. t0e took home some smoked cherries for the bourbon he doesn’t drink; he’ll have to find better uses for them… Finally, we were still chatting in the restaurant well after closing and they never once made us feel rushed to leave and still very happily showed us the take-out case as we were heading out.
Overall, I really liked Copine. It’s darker than Book Bindery with very little light, but it had the same modern touches in the décor. I still miss that bird nest lox dish though… This is fine dining Northwest style, without the creeping Asian influence. If you have a foodie to impress that doesn’t want to sit through a 9 course pris-fix menu and ingredients they don’t recognize, give Copine a try.
SUMMARY
Overall: happily ever after
Highlights: lamb, pork belly, pumpkin bisque
Footnotes: make a reservation – even though they have a bar and are a decently sized restaurant, this place fills up; skip the scotch egg; check out the take-out case for some delectables!