Summer Restaurant Week, sponsored by the Miami Valley Restaurant Association, started Sunday and runs through July 31 with 27 participating restaurants. A dollar from each meal sold will be split between For the Love of Children and the MVRA Education Foundation.
Meadowlark’s four-course promotion begins tonight and runs through Saturday. The special menu is the vision of owner and chef Elizabeth Wiley, who knew Heller and respected the important role Heller played in helping document the local restaurant scene from 1975 to 2006. The menu is an homage to Heller with dishes inspired by some of the late food writer’s favorites.
Heller wrote glowingly in the past about the restaurant’s garlic frites. She also liked the dressing on the chicken salad, so for the amuse-bouche diners will enjoy garlic frites with a curry-peach mayo jam on the side for dipping.
The menu
The first course is a battle of two of Ann’s favorite soups:
- Black bean
- Creamy summer gazpacho.
The main course has a choice of four wonderful options:
- Lemon-roasted chicken thighs with jasmine rice and Ann’s summer squash salad with olives and feta cheese
- Braised pork butt with roasted garlic potatoes and smokin’ chipotle slaw
- A grilled shrimp skewer with avocado-corn salsa and cheese grits
- Red chile broken enchiladas with melty vegan or dairy cheese and fried corn and mushrooms.
Dessert offers the choice of three of Ann’s favorites:
- A strawberry cobbler with butter cookie crust
- A fresh plum tart with crème anglaise, dried plum gastrique and whipped cream
- A brown butter-bourbon pound cake with Ann’s cherry almond sauce.
Special featured Restaurant Week Cocktails are an Ann Heller-inspired tomato margarita and a mojito that she loved inspired by El Meson’s classic recipe.
The four-course $40 meal is one that I know Ann would be absolutely tickled by. In the capable hands of Wiley, who Ann dearly admired and is without question one of the best chefs in Dayton, I know this will be the menu of menus not to be missed.
If Ann were still here I know she’d be planning a full week of dining out to relish in restaurants putting their best foot forward. Even in retirement she never stopped cheering them on and supporting them.
I can’t wait to toast her and I know legions of her fans probably do as well. See you at Meadowlark!
How to go
What: Meadowlark Restaurant Presents a Tribute to Ann Heller
When: 4 p.m. Tuesday, July 26-Saturday, July 30
Where: 5531 Far Hills Ave., Washington Twp.
More info: www.meadowlarkrestaurant.com or (937) 434-4750
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