Fork in Boise, ID
March 26th 2011 Posted by derek in Long Winded
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W just finished up a great dinner at a new restaurant in Boise: Fork. Hit the link to hear about it.
Fork is the new kid on the block. It took over the Boise City National Bank building downtown where the Capital Grill used to be (a restaurant that we never tried since it never had very good reviews). All around town people have been buzzing about this new place so we had to try it out for ourselves.
On walking in we were immediately impressed. Reserving through Open Table we had had limited time slots…. and it was immediately apparent why: they were packed at 5:30 on Saturday! Beyond the full seats we also noticed the nicely decorated interior… modern and comfy at the same time. The staff was humming, showing us to our table and taking our drink orders quickly. Fork specializes in Northwestern style cuisine and aims to utilize locally sourced ingredients wherever possible (even the wood in the tables and the glass in the drinking glasses is locally sourced and recycled!).
For appetizers I ordered the Sweet and Spicy Chicken Wings. It’s kind of interesting that every time I’m in Boise I always seem to get some wings (the butter buffalo wings at Bittercreek Alehouse are some of my favorite wings)…. and these didn’t disappoint. They were super crispy and the Szechuan sauce they were covered in was gooey and intensely flavorful. Highly recommended!
Amanda had the Roasted Chicken Sweet Corn Chowder to start. It was just ok and came off a bit bland. Nothing in particular was “wrong” it just wasn’t amazing.
For my main course I had the prime rib. I typically avoid prime rib because many restaurants take it as an opportunity to over spice / over sauce a piece of meat and serve it up with some extremely salty ju to the point where you can’t even taste the meat any more. I took the chance though because it said that it was rosemary crusted and well… I just wanted some beef!
Fortunately I was not disappointed! The flavor of the juice, ju and crust was great… But what was really great was that it was all balanced against the flavor of the beef itself. Earlier I had thought of getting a beer but had decided against it because sometimes beer doesn’t go with overly rich prime rib. I was regretting that decision though because this prime rib would have gone perfectly with a good beer. The rosemary-parmesan fries fit right in with the flavor of the steak and added a nice crunch to the plate.
Amanda had the Urban Burger with Tillamook cheddar. She says that it was cooked perfectly (well-done like she asked) while still being juicy. The Fork burger sauce (mayo based with a lot of vegetables in it) was tasty. The burger came with the same great rosemary parmesan fries.
For dessert we split the s’mores. We’ve had s’mores at nice restaurants multiple times but this preparation was different from any we have had in the past. The marshmallows were in a hot bowl and were already toasted while the chocolate was in a small candle warmed dish and was already melted. It came with a large spoon that we assumed was for scooping out the mellows and chocolate… but that turned out to be a path to a big sticky mess. Instead it worked much better to just use the graham crackers to scoop out some mellow and then dip it in the chocolate sauce before going straight to your mouth.
Overall the dessert lacked a bit of “pop”. The chocolate sauce was somewhat “watery” and could have used some more “chocolatiness” (maybe use dark chocolate instead of milk… Or at least a blend?). Th awkward plating with the pre-brûléed mellows also didn’t help.
All in all our dinner was really good. We left feeling satisfied and talking about the quality of food and service that we had throughout the evening. Fork is definitely a great addition to the downtown Boise scene. It adds a great upper scale dining option that is just short enough of “fine” dining that it gives off a comfortable atmosphere that will make anyone feel at home while you enjoy top notch food.
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