Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991 TAG: 9104120098
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOLORES KOSTELNI
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They have taken the "tapas" concept from Spanish tradition and combined it with a beer-making facility to create a good-time restaurant that offers ambitious food.
In Spain, tapas are snacks, nibbles, small quantities of food selected from a buffet-style array. They are eaten primarily to ease hunger that may develop during the seven or eight hours between lunch and dinner, eaten at 10 p.m. or so. But an assortment of tapas can also be a complete meal.
In the United States, tapas have been not only a trend in themselves but an important part of the "grazing" phenomenon that began in the early '80s. Adapting the concept for its dinner menu, The Blue Muse offers 25 delectable dishes in small portions; five of the tapas selections are also offered as standard-sized entrees.
Every palate should be pleased with the intriguing variety. Beginning with lighter foods and progressing to more substantial fare, I relished seven different dishes, each of which was superb. For two of us, the selection of tapas, enjoyed with a pint glass of fresh beer ($2.50) and completed with standard-sized desserts and coffee, came to $60. Those small servings, though pleasurable, can add up.
I especially liked the Mejilones a la Marinera, eight mussels steamed in a white wine sauce ($5.25), tender and tantalizing. Succulent lobster ravioli ($7.95) featured four large, pale green ravioli plumped with snowy, fresh lobster and napped with a rosy tomato sauce.
Giving in to a sense of adventure, I ordered alligator ($6.95). It is simply delicious: sweet, white meat with a porklike texture, sauteed in butter and piquantly sauced with lemon, chives and capers.
Looking like a petite pineapple but tasting just like it should, the chile rellenos ($3.25) - one large, beautifully fried, mild green pepper, stuffed with an aromatic mixture of ground pork, almonds, raisins and spices - was a delight.
Venison Medallions ($10.75), six perfectly shaped, silver-dollar-sized slices, served with poached dried figs and set in a sheer red wine sauce, were exceptionally moist and could not have been better.
Desserts are copious, especially when contrasted with the tapas. Of the two I've sampled, tops is the caramelized banana tart ($3.95), a splendid layered concoction of puff pastry, pastry cream and lightly caramelized bananas, oozing lagoons of chocolate espresso sauce.
Not so good, especially at $3.95, was what the menu described as "vanilla bean flan under a burnt sugar cage." Unfortunately, its sweetness was emphasized by the clear sugar syrup it sat in; there were no glimmers of gold that appear in the first stage of making burnt sugar. The cage was missing as well.
Beer is as fresh as it gets at The Blue Muse, though supplies have been iffy in the restaurant's opening weeks. When I visited, only one of the usual three varieties, the amber, was available. It had a pleasant flavor but arrived with no head whatever.
"The beer varies with each brewing, and we brew 14 kegs every other day," explained co-owner Chris Muse in a telephone interview after my visits. They are deliberately brewing for a low head, he added, which may require some re-education for beer lovers who are used to foam at the top.
Made from American hops and barley combined with treated Roanoke water, the brew boasts a rousing alcohol content of 4.8 percent.
Change is one of the constants at The Blue Muse. They revised and reworked the menu four times in two weeks and will continue to do so. A 3 percent fee originally added to credit card charges is gone.
The lunch buffet of the opening two weeks - described by Muse as a "mystery, but it got us going" - has been replaced with a menu of more than a dozen entrees that can be on the table 10 minutes after they're ordered.
Although prompt, service can be maddeningly friendly. Enthusiasm is laudable, but a waiter should not intrude in customers' conversation with his own gab, as ours did. On another occasion, a waitress treated me as if I had never before eaten a meal at a restaurant.
Even with the wrinkles always present in the early days of a new restaurant, I found much to like about The Blue Muse, not the least of which is the highly charged, goal-oriented kitchen staff.
Under the guidance of executive chef Molly Burnett, a soft-spoken 24-year-old woman with immense cooking talent, a staff of eight executes her recipes without shortcuts. The conscientious effort is reflected in the well-focused flavors, the judicious use of seasonings, the careful yet natural presentations.
Burnett is a graduate of the Paris cooking school La Varenne, with a speciality in pastry. With Burnett at the kitchen controls, the food is well-conceived and often inspiring. Maintaining this consistency of quality requires unwavering dedication.
The Blue Muse has the potential to be a bright light on Roanoke's restaurant horizon. I'm predicting it will shine.
Dining Out's evaluations of restaurant accessibility to the handicapped are conducted by the Center for Independence for the Disabled, a non-profit organization.
\ The Blue Muse
108 Campbell Ave. Roanoke, 343-1265
HOURS: Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.
BEVERAGES: Beer brewed on the premoses, wine, full bar, soft drinks.
PRICE RANGE: $2.50 to $12.95
CREDIT CARDS: Mastercard, Visa
RESERVATIONS?: No
NO-SMOKING SECTION? Yes
HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE? Yes
\ Dolores Kostelni has extensive experience in the food industry, having worked as a restaurant consultant, manager and chef.
by CNB