Plonk

By Rachael Smuts

Coming from Los Angeles, I am accustomed to a diverse selection of cuisine.  In Bozeman, the choices are far more limited.  Therefore, when I had a night at Plonk, a urban and contemporary restaurant, I knew it was nothing like any other restaurant in Bozeman.  

Tonight, my family and I were looking for delicious food to celebrate a skiing victory, and Plonk is a perfect atmosphere to be relaxed and eat good, global food.

As I walk into Plonk for the seventh time, I am enveloped in an urban feeling.  Plonk has a laid back ambiance, with soft, dim lights and the smell of delicious food wafting through the air. It is an intimate space with a balance of formal and comfortable. The loud buzz of people’s chatter fills my ears.  My family and I walk past the bar and the towering, narrow tables.  We walk all the way to the back, where you can find a big array of gray couches with large contemporary paintings looming overhead.  The couches surround small wooden coffee tables.   Taking a seat on the couch, it felt like I was sitting on a cloud of slightly stale marshmallows.  As soon as we were seated, I was handed a menu and a leggy, slim glass of water. 

The menus at Plonk change seasonally allowing the chef to use the products being grown locally.  Therefore, if you have a memorable dish one month, it might not be here the next.  

As I read the new, winter menu, I was surprised to see such a variety of options: escargot to scallop sliders to duck confit.  Our waitress guided us through all of her favorite dishes and the most popular ones.  We put our order in and then waited in excitement and talked about the ski races we had just won!  As we talked, my nose was filled with the smell of decadent food and quite a bit of aged wine, but I would have to smell the wine because 4ft tall wine bottles lined the walls.

As our appetizers arrived, I was astonished at how beautifully the food was plated. Everything was on a geometric plate with a lot of elegant swipes, drizzles and dots of sauces. 

Our first appetizer was scallop and foie gras sliders with lobster salad in the middle.  The plate had 3 focal points, the two sliders and the lobster salad.  The sliders looked delicious with the golden,buttery brioche and the plump pearl white scallops in between the brioche.  The lobster salad added the needed amount of color to the plate.  As I took a bite of the slider all of the flavors fit together perfectly. The slider was very rich, but the richness was cut through with the citrus lobster salad.  The brioche bun was soft like a pillow and it melted in my mouth.  Everything on the plate was cooked to perfection. On the bottom of the sliders was a dark, flavorful duck based sauce, the sauce adding a great depth to the appetizer.

Our second appetizer was a crab cake with a citrussy guacamole. On the top of the crab cake was a bird’s nest of fried rice noodles.  The crab cake was in the middle of a ring of the guacamole.  A good contrast of colors between the golden brown crab cake and bright green guacamole.This appetizer was extremely light and flavorful with lots of citrus and summer filled flavors.  The crab was briny and sweet with a good amount of salt.  The crab cake was cooked perfectly and was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.  The crunchy noodles were a great contributing aspect to the texture of the plate.  

The final appetizer was a duck leg confit with a black eyed pea and bacon hash. The enormous duck leg was in the center of the hash, this appetizer was my least favorite because there was nothing to cut the rich and heaviness of it, after I ate a bite of it I felt like a bowling ball dropped in my stomach. 

After we ate the appetizers, I was very satisfied, but my entree was still to arrive with plenty more flavor.   Soon, my entree arrived of New Zealand red deer with mushroom sage spaetzle and caramelized apple gastrique.  Next to this was a small pile of garlic braised greens.  The deer was very gamey and the apple gastrique balanced out the gamey flavor.  The deer was rare in the middle with only a sear on the outside.  The spaetzle and greens were a perfect combination of carbs and sauce and greens.  All in all it was a very balanced dish.

Overall, I would say that Plonk is a comfortable, urban feeling restaurant with plenty of decadent contemporary food.  The food is put together with such care and precision and there is countless unexpected flavor combinations; you can't help being satisfied.  I had a spectacular night at Plonk and the food was extremely excellent. 

           

Plonk: 4.5 stars