Trying Something New

So I channeled my inner Andrew Zimmern and had my first sweetbreads yesterday. My husband Mark and I went to the restaurant across the street from our apartment, which turned out to be very popular. The place is called Belcourt and as we showed up, we were asked if we had reservations. Fancy fancy, but even without the reservation, we were seated right away.

The selection of food consisted of a one page menu with international fare. I decided to be adventurous and try the fried sweetbreads and bone marrow tacos. My husband had shrimp dumplings and calamari with shoestring potatoes. The portions were appetizer size. When I got my food, it actually looked pretty good. Anything fried can’t be that bad, right? So I tried a piece of the fried stuff (squirted with lemon juice) and it tasted good. As soon as my tongue ran over the grooves, I freaked out and could not focus on anything else other than that. Now let me tell you that this entire time I thought that sweetbreads were brain. I actually googled the term afterwards and got this definition: “thymus glands of veal, young beef, lamb and pork.” So I thought I was eating brain but I wasn’t. Regardless, it was still freaky in texture.

I tried the bone marrow tacos and it only got worse. Not sure if any of you reading this have had bone marrow in anything other than cooked chicken bones. That’s the bone marrow I remember. The big old hunk of beef bone I got on my plate had melted bone marrow in it that can only be described as melted fat. I was very excited to try it since I’ve heard how good it’s supposed to be. I disagree. The calamari and dumplings on the other hand were tasty albeit skimpy in size. So last night’s dinner was very adventurous but not what I hoped it would be. Who knows what we’ll try next.

Bone Marrow Tacos (assembly required)

Fried Sweetbreads