Happy hour at Roast Detroit

I tried goat for the first time last week. And I didn't hate it.

Michael Symon's restaurant Roast in downtown Detroit is very meat-centric and their bar menu is no different. One of the items they put on their regular menu is something they call the "roast beast of the day."  So on the happy hour menu, they do a "roast beast of the day taco." Well, my husband and I went to happy hour with a couple of our friends last Friday and we ordered some of our usual favorites: the roast burger (topped with cheese, bacon, and a fried egg, all on an English muffin), rosemary fries, and mac and cheese. But we figured since the roast beast of the day was goat and the taco was only $4, what did we have to lose? So we ordered it. And it wasn't terrible. In fact, it didn't really taste like much. I'd compare it to pork but I think even pork has more flavor.

The goat taco wasn't terrible

So the four of us shared two goat tacos among us, but we also ordered all our usuals mentions above. In fact, I come to Roast just for the burger. It is, without a doubt, the best burger I've ever had in my life. Not only is the meat of exceptional quality, but the golden, dripping yolk from the fried egg makes eating it almost a sensual experience. Whoever thought burgers could be sensual? Well, this one is. I've been encouraged by my husband to "get a room" while eating it. :P

Easily the best burger you'll ever eat

But the best part is, that when you come to happy hour at Roast, the prices are more affordable than the chain restaurant down the street. When I went to dinner there with a friend a few weeks ago, I had a burger, fries, and a beer and I left spending less than $15 for myself. Last weekend when it was four of us, our entire bill, with all the food we consumed (and it was a lot), was $63. For a high-end restaurant, that's almost like they're extorting money out of themselves. If you make a reservation and sit in the dining room at Roast, there's no way just two people are leaving there spending less than what we spent for four of us at the bar during happy hour.  While I enjoy going to Roast for special occasions, I have to say, I've come to prefer the casual, cheap, but equally delicious bar food to the fancy meals prepared in the dining room.

If you ever find yourself in downtown Detroit during happy hour, Roast is the place to be. In fact, I'd encourage you to get there right as happy hour starts or you might find yourself not being able to find a seat at the bar - especially on Fridays.

More Michael Symon goodness coming to metro Detroit

So I was perusing my Facebook feed last night when I came across this article from The Detroit Free Press:

Michael Symon's B Spot Burgers coming to Rochester Hills in December

It has been well documented on this blog that I adore Michael Symon. I adore his food, his laugh, his adorably round head. But I especially adore his Midwestern loyalty, as evidenced by this quote from the article:

"We could have opened in California. We could have opened in New York... But we believe in the Midwest, and we believe in Detroit."

I liked Michael Symon from the moment I saw him on The Next Iron Chef. But when Symon brought one of his restaurants to Detroit, that's when I truly fell in love with him. And now he's looking to expand his empire even further in Detroit. Now I want to marry him.

That's going to be hard to tell my husband. Especially because I want to marry John Green too. Oh, and also both of those men are married.

My at-home version of the heavenly Roast Burger

But seriously. I am also excited at the prospect of B Spot Burgers coming to Detroit because the burger at Roast is truly a religious experience. So the fact that we have a Michael Symon restaurant of nothing but burgers on the menus is going to be more than a religious experience... it's going to be.. Heaven! 

Check out my Michael Symon related posts - because I'm a tad obsessed:
Roast
Lolita
Michael Symon's Live to Cook
Michael Symon's Carnivore

Cookbook Review: Michael Symon's Live to Cook

Ever since Michael Symon competed on and won The Next Iron Chef a few years ago, I have been a huge fan - of his cooking, his humor, and his infectious laugh. I admire his unapologetic love for his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio and further love his commitment to his Midwestern roots as evidenced by the choice he made to expand his empire in the downtrodden city of Detroit rather than a foodie hotspot like New York or Las Vegas. A move like that shows he's not just in this business to make money and that gritty places like Cleveland and Detroit that most people disregard and even scoff at are his bread and butter.

I have partaken in two meals at Roast, his Detroit restaurant, and I can tell you that the food is amazing. Just don't consider going if you're a vegetarian. Even salads at Roast are teeming with giant carcasses of meat, as you can see in this "salad" of frisee, crispy pig ear, a poached egg, and giant lardons of bacon that you had to cut through with a steak knife.

Yes, according to Symon, this is a salad.

 So yeah, Symon is clearly a hearty Midwestern boy.

But his cooking philosophy is so much more than just BIG MEAT. What really impressed me about this book is that, given the gargantuan amount of new recipes I try every year and the fact that I know most of the basics of cooking techniques for the home kitchen, this is the first cookbook since I can't remember when that I actually learned something new. You have no idea how much this excited me. I had worried that I had expended all of my learning and that I was doomed to just repeat the same old tired dishes and techniques for the rest of my days.

But alas, Michael Symon came along and shone a light on new and exciting possibilities.

So let me share with you a few tidbits of what I learned in this wonderful compendium of "Symon Says."

First of all, one of the biggest ideas I took away from this book was the need for balance in a dish. Symon says that the main reason dishes fail is not because they taste bad, but because they do not have a balance of flavors and textures. Almost every heavy dish has to have some sort of acid component to try to cut some of that heaviness. This philosopy was made perfectly clear at Roast.


As you can see in this picture, that is a rather large hunk of meat swimming in a rich sauce but to balance out that fatty richness, the dish is then it is topped with a fresh and spicy pickled relish.

OK, so I've been blathering on about the food at Roast, but what's the cookbook actually like? Are the recipes any good and are they easy to follow is what you're probably asking yourself right about now. The answer is yes and yes.

Firstly, I tried his master pickling recipe for onions and will be using it on a regular basis. It is so easy, quick, and perfect for adding that acid component to rich dishes that it's a great have on hand sort of item. In fact, I so loved the pickling recipe that I canned a few jars and gave some to my mother-in-law for her birthday (among other things - I didn't just give her onions!).

And those pickled onions were an extremely important component to the next dish I tried which was the Lola Burger. This is the burger he served at his very first restaurant and continues to put it on the menu at all his other restaurants, including Roast. The first time my husband and I went to Roast he ordered this burger and we ended up trading dishes because it was literally the best burger I'd ever had in my life and the dish I'd ordered was not doing much for me. Since my husband will eat anything, he was gracious enough to switch plates with me.

With the memory of that burger in my mind, I set to work in recreating it in my own kitchen, worried that it wouldn't actually taste as good as it did when I had it at Roast.

But guess what? I needn't have worried about being able to recreate the magic of Roast because it was literally the best burger I've ever made in my entire life.

Try not to drool. I dare you.

So what exactly sends this burger into the stratosphere? Well, it goes back to Symon's philosophy of balance. This burger has bacon, cheddar cheese, pickled onions, dill pickle (which I did not include because I don't like dill pickles), spicy ketchup, and A FRIED EGG - all served on an English muffin instead of a bun. With such a wide variety of flavors and textures, you'd almost think that they would all be competing with each other, but that is not the case. Everything was a perfect symbiosis of flavor and texture as preached by the gospel of Symon.

And let me tell you, I was so enamored with this burger that I forgot about my side dish. I made mashed potatoes to go with it and I literally ignored them. You must understand that Beth ignoring a side dish is NOT NORMAL. I generally like the side dish better than the main course. Not this time. This burger was so good that it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up the next morning. Well, actually, my first thought was, "5:30 I hate you!" But after that it was, "Mmmmm.... that was a good burger I had for dinner last night. I wonder if it would be bad to have burgers for dinner two nights in a row."

So if you haven't already figured it out, I absolutely loved Live to Cook. If you are a jaded home cook like me in need of something fresh and new (and you aren't a vegetarian) then seriously consider giving this book a try. There's so much more I could say about it but given the novella length of this post, I'm going to wrap it up.

All I can say is that whatever "Symon Says" I'm buying!

Michael Symon's Live to Cook
Published: November 2009 by Clarkson Potter
Pages: 256
Genre: Cookery
Audience: Home cooks