Bardea Steak - Wilmington, DE

[HotSun]

No restaurants in the 302? Well, let's rectify that situation. Bardea Steak just opened recently, an offshoot of Bardea Food & Drink. I don't know anything about this place except that it is expensive and well-reviewed. Oh, and there is a lot of meat on the menu.

Beef:

• Chianina
• Piedmontese
• Australian Wagyu
• Japanese Wagyu
• Angus
• Holstein

Kangaroo, lamb, iberico, bison, elk, boar, ostrich, and some other animals make their appearance here. Should be quite the experience.

Made reservations for Wednesday, since my DW has a break between semesters and we are overdue for date night. I'll add further details after our meal.

https://www.bardeasteak.com/

We don't splurge like this but once a year or so. Now is as good a time as any. Stay tuned for more Wednesday....

[bbqLuv]

Big Drumsticks on a kangaroo

[Oak Smoke]

Please let us know how it goes. Because of our extremely rural location, sometimes living vicariously through the experiences of others is the best we can do. When I say isolated I mean if you turn on the FM radio in my Tundra you will be able to find 1 station.

[holehogg]

Given any thoughts to what you might be looking to order?
$250 for the complete meat experience equates to R4500 (South African Rands). That would cover 10 people including drinks at a good restaurant here.
Enjoy your outing.

[HotSun]

holehogg , the $250 option is a little too rich for our blood. The DW is Brazilian so her first instinct is to head right for the picanha, but I will suggest the Chianina porterhouse to share, as it is something new for us and we like to experiment when we splurge. This is definitely not the place to go unprepared.

[HotSun]

Okay here goes.... I did my best with the pics, but the lighting was really low in the restaurant last night. I had to borrow a couple from OpenTable.

We studied our menus before we went to the restaurant, as the concept is a little different than most restaurants. All or nearly all the beef is dry aged. You order based on what is available. I wanted to try the Chianina, but the only cuts they had were too big for two people (30+ ounce). The chef's tasting at $250/per head was too rich for our blood, so we settled on a nice 14 ounce Holstein picanha to share.

First course:
Lightly seared diver scallop with caviar, buttermilk, and some crunchy nut thing underneath).

Very tender scallop, great flavors all around. We were instructed to drink the buttermilk concoction after eating to get the full effect. Yeah, this was really good. (I borrowed this pic, acceptable use I think, source OpenTable)
Second course (no pic, so maybe this didn't happen ):
I accidentally ordered this one, so it was a nice surprise. Elk meatballs with yellow tomato, black tahini, and straciatella cheese. I could have eaten a plate of this, very, very good!

Main course:
Aged picanha with chimichurri crema:


This was incredible. They do not ask how you want your steak done....you get what you get and you don't get upset. They trimmed the fat cap leave just pure picanha bliss. The chimichurri was good, but nothing outstanding and pretty standard. The beef cooled quickly, so maybe they should warm their plates a bit more. The portion was just right, as it allowed us to try a lot of things without gorging ourselves, which we do sometimes.

Side dishes:
Mac & Cheese (7 different cheeses from local farms):

It was delicious, but I thought the mac was a little overcooked. My DW says it was the best she's ever had.

Broccoli
Steamed then seared, with pancetta almond crumble and citrus tahini. The stuff on the right is a tomato chili sauce. Outstanding dish.


Sauces:
For the beef, here were the sauces I ordered, from left to right: beef garum au jus, au poivre, and goji bernaise

The au jus was thick, a very nice reduction and full of umami. The au poivre was good, though not my favorite. The bernaise I could eat with a spoon. Our waiter packed all three unfinished sauces to go. Eggs with bernaise sauce is in my future.

Dessert:
My DW did not want dessert, but I wanted to try something. I don't exactly know what it is called, but it has brown crumble, banana (pudding?) stuffed in phyllo, caramel tahini sauce, and some kind of ice cream. I don't know all the details, but I can tell you this was really good:

(I borrowed this pic from OpenTable).

Wines:
Great selection of accessible wines by the glass or bottle. My only complaint here is that they don't offer corkage, which was a bummer because I wanted to pull one of my good wines from the cellar.

Overall an excellent dinner, and in my DW's opinion one of her best meals out ever. They are still very new and working out some things with respect to service and experimenting with some ideas, but this is a great restaurant. Their other restaurant is a James Beard winner, so they know what they are doing.

Bill was $245 without tip, so less than either of us expected. The price points justify the quality of the experience. We don't splurge like this often, maybe once a year if we're lucky, but it was a very nice experience.

[holehogg]

Sounds like the food was enjoyed and a memorable evening had.

[HotSun]

One post script: I am now convinced that I should be dry aging beef. Add that to my list of things to do...

[klflowers]

I looked at the menu and saw kangaroo chili. Makes me want to come to Deleware lol

[HotSun]

If you're on I-95, don't blink, 'cause you'll miss it, haha.