ZY Restaurant

This meal was brought to me by the letter Z and the letter Y.  Oddly enough I wasn’t on Sesame Street, but State Street in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.  ZY Restaurant is pronounced (zai) instead of sounding out the Z and Y separately.  ZY is an upscale food, wine, and cheese bar and the food was fantastic.  The space was particularly interesting to me.  As you can see from the picture, you get the feel of sitting outside a building, but you are still inside.  Probably a good thing since it was freezing cold outside.

ZY

An tapas appetizer of veal and sausage meatballs

I don’t actually recall the name of this appetizer, because when I go online, I don’t see it listed, but it were fantastic.  The plate was only $5 and perfect to lightly wet the appetite.  When I go out with my family, I’m often tempted to order an appetizer, but have to refrain, because in the past we have gotten too full from our appetizers to enjoy our main dishes.  Then what happens?  We end up asking for a “doggy bag” to take our mostly untouched main dish home with us where it will sit in the refrigerator for a week before getting thrown out.  Stop the madness!  ZY gets it right.  They give you small less expensive taste “teasers”.  I thought the portion was great, and they were delicious too!  I was still hungry for my main dish.

Bread and Olive oil bathed butter

I’m not sure what my butter was bathed in, but it tasted great.  My best guess is a flavor infused olive oil of some sort.  I love it when restaurants give fresh bread before a meal, but as long as the butter is not the cold tin-foil wrapped monstrosity you get from some diners or Cheesecake Factory.  The cold bricks are hard to spread, and you only end up smashing your bread to pieces.  Again ZY gets it right here by offering something warm and spreadable.  Another Kudos!

Tender pecan pork with sautéed mushrooms and greens

I’m going to give 3 different grades to this dish.  Presentation?  A  This was one great looking piece of meat.  The greens and mushrooms bedding and pecan sauce made this plate look awesome!  Taste?  B  I loved the pecan crusted shell to the pork.  When I stuck my fork in it, the meat was tender like it was pulled.  Meat Quality?  B-  There was a lot of good tasting meat, but there was a bit more fat then I would have liked to see on this dish.  I had to be careful to make sure not to take a bite full of fat.  Overall that wasn’t enough to make me not appreciate this.  It was very, very good.

Baked mac & cheese with Creminilli cotto & English peas

At $17 this was the cheapest entrée on the menu, but I imaging it was not the cheapest tasting.  This bowl was definitely Goldilocks’ papa bear bowl.  ZY doesn’t cut you short on this cheesy miracle.  Some of the best mac and cheese I’ve had anywhere.

An orange thingy

I don’t know quite what to make of this dessert.  It wasn’t what I was expecting.  If you don’t like really sweet desserts then you will love this.  It didn’t have an overpowering orange flavor.  I did like the pine nuts, and frosting.  It looked pretty 😛

There you go.  ZY Restaurant.  They have some chef inspired dishes here.  I appreciate a gourmet meal, and this did the trick.  As I was leaving, I was talking to my co-workers about some of the dishes I would try next time.  For me that is somewhat of a litmus test of a good place to eat.  If you have not been here, definitely worth a look.