Wednesday
Sep022015

Iowa Foodie: Hot Food. Cold Drinks. Serious Fun.

Omaha Restaurant Week - Brix

For dinner on our trip to Omaha for Restaurant Week, we dined at Brix. Located in Omaha's Midtown Crossing neighborhood at 220 S 31st Ave, Ste 3103, Brix is much more than just a restaurant. It's really a sort of a total food and wine experience, with a retail and wine market, bar and restaurant all in the same space. Once again, the generous folks at Visit Omaha set up our Omaha Restaurant Week reservations and we were comped our meals.

The cheese and charcuterie display showcases a great selection, and they will take your selections and make them into lovely gift baskets, if you need that.

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There are literally hundreds of bottles of wine, from every wine region in the world, for you to browse - I had fun in the sparkling wine section.

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The super rare and awfully expensive wine section is housed in this lovely room. 

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Brix also features the WineEmotion Wine Serving System - a very cool wine dispensing system that allows you to taste 64 wines by the ounce or by the glass.  You prepay onto to a debit-like card, then use that card to taste any and all wines you'd like! Here are some whites...

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And here are some reds! It's really fun to read about the wines, see the labels, etc., and just have a taste of that wine.

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I enjoyed a nice 3 oz. pour of this wine, Conundrum, a lovely California White. But beware, the whole 'pick and choose what you want' wine fun could definitely be dangerous! Good thing we were in a cab.

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Brix also offers one of Omaha's largest martini and craft cocktail menus and a lively happy hour. Their innovative menus for lunch, dinner, and brunch, make Brix a very popular destination in Omaha. 

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We were seated and given the Omaha Restaurant Week menu - from our wanderings through the wine, we had already chosen a bottle of Ridge Zinfandel to enjoy with our dinner. 

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For his first course, Grant had the Bibb Salad - baby gem lettuce, whipped goat cheese, and pistachio crumble, with a champagne-walnut vinaigrette. The goat cheese was wonderfully creamy, and he loved the addition of fresh fruit.

I chose the Lobster Mac for my first course - elbow macaroni, lobster meat, chorizo, corn, peas, and lobster cream with a parmesan crust. A beautiful presentation, lush and decadent, this was a knockout mac-n-cheese.

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And there were some serious chunks of lobster to enjoy!

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For his second course, Grant selected the Half Chicken - confit leg and thigh and seared airline breast, served with polenta, peaches, blackberry marmelade, and veggies. He said it was unctous and very moist and tender. A pleasing presentation, and delicious, too, this meal was  rich and bursting with flavor. 

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I decided on the Cedar Plank Salmon for my second course - served with saffron risotto, a sherry tomato vinaigrette, and roasted artichokes. Another beautiful presentation (you even get the cedar plank!), I was very pleased with this selection. The salmon was cooked to perfection, flaky, with so much of that fresh fish flavor. Roasted quinoa added flourish to the risotto. All of the elements of this dish worked very nicely together.

For our third course, dessert, I chose the Dark Chocolate Mousse - served with bourbon carmel, chocolate "soil," blackberry coulis, and fresh berries. A gorgeous plate and just as lovely to taste - dark chocolate and blackberry are a wonderful pairing.  

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Grant enjoyed the Buttermilk Panna Cotta for his third course. With pickled strawberries, pistachio graham cracker crumble, and basil syrup, this dessert course also featured fresh fruit and edible flowers. Cool and creamy, the pickled strawberries really made this dessert.

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If you're looking for the whole retail and dining experience, we've never found anything close to Brix in the midwest. Service was friendly and professional, they really know how to take care of customers in this place. Even though we visited on a busy Restaurant Week Saturday night, management was making the rounds to each table to be sure the experience at Brix was top notch. If you're in the Midtown Crossing area of Omaha, Brix is definitely worthy of a visit.

And we'd like to take this final opportunity to thank the great people at Visit Omaha for contacting us and offering such a fun Omaha weekend, and the chance to enjoy some awesome new Omaha restaurants, Brix and Blue Sushi. We really appreciated it and can't wait to return next year!