Market Street Grill, Salt Lake City, USA

This has been quite an exciting day. Without belabouring the point, it began a few hundred miles away in Colorado. I discovered, en route, Martian landscapes right here on Earth (see Moab, Utah); absorbed all the words to what is certainly the anthem for this trip (“Espresso”, by someone called Sabrina Carpenter); dipped bits of me in the Great Salt Lake; witnessed a very glitzy wedding at the Capitol building; wandered S.L.C’s botanical gardens; and now….sat my hungry self down for dinner with Cécile at Market Street Grill.  

Whilst driving, I’ve been listening to various audiobooks, including Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. With social hierarchies clearly in my mind, I can say that Cécile belongs to the highest of castes…..she is a Q-Chipper. There isn’t time to explain this in depth, suffice it to say she and I once worked together at Q Chip (a beloved, but long-embattled start-up company in Cardiff), whose employees deserve all my admiration.

But enough preamble, we are here to dine…..on seafood. And where better, than in a land-locked state, beside a lake too saline to support marine life? Undeterred by this, we attack the menu. Surprisingly, the oysters look to be extremely good value. Bluepoints flown in from Long Island, and Kumamotos from Humboldt, California….for $3 each. Leaving the glaring carbon footprint issue to one side, this seems too good to pass up. It’s time to compare and contrast, East vs West, the battle of the bivalves. Our waiter (more on him later) seems very revved-up, but unquestionably friendly. He brings us two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc from Bogle, California, seemingly the only native option; and a substantial quantity of boring looking white bread.

Our oysters arrive in short order. The two types are wildly different from one another. West coast Kumamotos are substantially larger, denser, “brainier” - to use our waiter’s unappetising word, while Bluepoints look a lot more like “European” oysters. They’re served with lemon, Tabasco, grated horseradish, cocktail sauce (not sure who would want this), and….the absolute highlight of the evening….iced shallot champagne vinegar. Frozen crystals of crisp pickled onion flavour grab me by the throat and smack me about the senses, somehow without steamrollering the oyster. This is a tour de force, new to both of us, and something I feel I must take back with me to the old world.  

Following a sneezing fit at the botanical gardens, I have a completely blocked nose, so I will dispense with any effort to appreciate this wine. Cécile finds it “sweet, but not too sweet”. We’ve ordered three shareable main courses, i) cioppino (which I have a recipe for but have not yet been brave enough to attempt), ii) crab-cakes, iii) coconut shrimp. It should be quite the feast.

For a Saturday night, the restaurant feels a little low energy. It could be the day-spa music playing overhead, the fact that there are only four other occupied tables, or the rather plain black-on-black décor. Our waiter seems to be apologising for this drained battery vibe, consciously or otherwise, with his very high levels of enthusiasm and show. He looks like he’d be at home in an amateur dramatics company. Still, he is charming with his Rambo-esque bandana and grubby apron, a human mood-elevator.  

Our orders arrive at the same time, so we dive right in. First up, crab-cakes, served with broccoli and some new potatoes. The cakes are good, could be a little crisper, but very tasty. What is sadly lacking is a sauce, however simple (e.g. parsley) that would make this dish more interesting and digestible. The same must be said of the coconut shrimp. These are huge, succulent in themselves, with a decent amount of desiccated coconut in the crunchy batter. But there needs to be a pineapple salsa or a coconut raita to tropicalize and make this an event. I fear the chef either failed or skipped sauce-making 101 and is trying to pull a fast one by providing us with ramekins of shop-bought sweet chilli and ketchup. This will not do! Yet, in cioppino there is salvation. Though it certainly needed to be served a little hotter, it is quite delicious. The broth is mellow in tomato with a peppery tabasco edge. In it, there are more species of seafood than I can count, all cooked well, with nothing feeling overdone or rubberised. Two enormous rafts of garlic toast (with extra garlic) allow for unashamed dunking. This is a joy to eat….but falls below ideal temperature in a matter of minutes. Oh well.

I am sated and pay minimal attention to the uninspiring dessert menu. We order coffee, which is freshly brewed for us and turns out to be quite soothing, if hopelessly weak. Meanwhile, the music has changed to something I associate with barn-dancing. Curious as this is, we’re both starting to flag. After a pleasant parting conversation with our waiter, we pay up and head out, just at the three-hour mark.

As I’m traversing states, I’m generally dining alone. Thankfully, Cécile’s sparkling conversation has made this a very enjoyable evening. But I cannot recommend Market Street Grill to the solo traveller. Neither the food nor the atmosphere is fun or stimulating enough. That said, if fun and stimulation are the goals, one path forward might be to slurp down two dozen Bluepoints with that fabulous frozen champagne garnish, find the right kind of bar, and wait for their aphrodisiacal effects to kick in. Could be a little tricky in Salt Lake City.

My final tally.

Atmosphere 5/10

Food & Drink quality 6/10

Service 8/10

Value for money 5/10

6 / 10

“Import champagne-shallot vinegar; don’t sniff exotic plants before dinner, heat the goddamn plates!”