Restaurant Review – Blossom & Brie
This place used to be called Rosy Tomorrows Heritage Farm which consisted of a 100 acre organic farm exclusively raising “heritage breeds”. That continues today with the new owners, but now there is a full time restaurant operation with expansion plans for weddings and corporate events. When we turned into the property from Nalle Grade Road storm clouds were approaching. We drove by a group of sheep. When we got out of our car in the parking lot there were groups of ducks walking about. I guess the name of the restaurant, Blossom & Brie, are the names of a donkey and cow on the property. The new owners came over and talked to us for a while and they said it would be no problem for us to walk around the farm, but by the time we finished our dinner it was raining cats and dogs! So maybe another time. While sitting in the screened in, open air restaurant we were startled by some of the loudest lightening bolts we’ve ever heard, probably because they happened just 100 feet away! We had to move to a table more in the middle of the restaurant because the rain started to hit us and our table.
All the people that worked there were very nice and all smiles. The restaurant space was wide open and you can see the kitchen line and the cooks putting your meal together. There were large ceiling fans. It was very comfortable in there, but maybe that had something to do with the approaching storm, wind and rain. It was actually nice and cool. We will be going back for lunch and I’ll let you know if its overly hot, but I’m usually good as long as I got some shade and the air is moving around and they seem to have that covered!
Now lets talk about the food and drink. There’s just wine and beer with a few non-alcoholic drinks, so if you’re looking for that Manhattan or Old Fashioned, sorry! We had a couple of glasses of wine which is just fine with us. I like to nibble on bread and butter while waiting for my food, so we bought the Housemade Bread starter for $8. It was a half of a in house made sourdough loaf that came with a ramekin of honey butter. That was a lot of bread! We took most of it home to make sandwiches with the next day! I ordered a bowl (cup not optional) of the Seafood Gumbo for $9 which included Gulf Coast grouper, shrimp, Andouille sausage, okra and rice. Very nice flavor with the dark roux and all of those ingredients may have been in the soup, but the only thing I could discern that was in the soup was the rice. I’d like to see chunks of something especially those nice ingredients! Anyway, it was tasty. I ate it all. My wife ordered the Jumbo Lump Blue Crab Cake for $16 and that was a hit! Delicious! We would definitely order that the next time. The Waldorf sauce that came with it was delicious!
You can add a optional Caesar Salad or Garden Salad with your entree for an additional $6, so I got a Caesar Salad. It was good. The waitress came back and asked me if I wanted extra anchovies on top and I said yes. As she left I wondered if I was going to be charged for that?! I wasn’t. 🙂 Some of the lettuce pieces were quite large. I have a big mouth, but I had to cut my salad up with my knife. I don’t like to cut up my salads. I just want to shovel it in! Poor baby! I survived. Let’s move on to the entrees!
I ordered the Beef Bourguignon for $28. I don’t know how many thousands of pounds of Burgundy Beef I’ve made in my restaurants over 25 years, but its a lot. So I go to cut a piece of beef with my fork and I get some resistance. I have to use my knife (again!) to cut up the beef. When I chew it its tender, but I think it should be fork tender. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. The sauce was delicious. There were only two one inch chunks of carrots and several mushrooms. I’d like more. The mashed potatoes were good. My wife ordered the Red Wattle Pork Shank for $31. OMG! It was huge! And delicious! Fall off the bone tender. We wanted to save room for dessert, so we didn’t (and my wife couldn’t) finish our entrees and we took the rest home.
We ordered the Cheesecake and the Flourless Chocolate Cake for dessert. The Cheesecake was fantastic! The Flourless Chocolate Cake was good, but it could have used just 10 seconds in the microwave to loosen it up and soften it. It was quite hard and it really didn’t have a good mouth feel that rich chocolate should have. We took that home and when I got home, I immediately microwaved it and it was delicious! a home run!
Our bill for the two of us was $144 plus a $30 tip. We’ll go back, but we’ll be eating lunch there more often then having dinner. Overall, very good food, I like the ambiance and the people are great! Give them a try! They’re just 15 minutes away, just north of Bayshore and this side of 75. They’re not open everyday, so check their website before you go.
