Detroit Restaurant Week: Opus One

In 2009 the Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP) approached the leadership of the greater downtown districts — Downtown, Midtown, Corktown, New Center and Eastern Market — to jointly sponsor restaurant week. DDP then recruited Paxahau Event Services to produce Detroit Restaurant Week (DRW).

With a huge success in the inaugural event last Fall, the folks at DDP announced a Spring Detroit Restaurant Week back in February.  Hopefully, this means the tradition moves to twice a year now!

Coincidentally, this Spring's event kicked off at Iridescence, where Scottie and I opted to go last year.  Thus, we changed up our pick of the restaurants this year to Opus One, after reading this fine review of the venue.  This restaurant has been on my list for awhile, however, I never knew if it was a stuffy American restaurant in a big city, or if it was the real thing.  Tonight, on the first night of the DRW we found out, it is the real thing!

The restaurant week menu at Opus One definitely excited me because I knew immediately what I wanted plus I didn't think Scottie would necessarily order the same thing (which is known to happen).  But we did both decide to start with the Chilled Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna (Served rare with wasabi aioli and pickled ginger).  It was a perfect, light start to the meal and the tuna actually taste fresh!  The wasabi aioli added the perfect touch to the dish and, as the review described, a perfect balance between creamy and spicy. 

For the main dish, I swayed from my usual picks of fish, chicken, pasta, etc. to the Spice Rubbed New York Strip Steak (Served with a potato mushroom hash, baby green beans and a red wine demi-glace

garnished with angel hair onion rings).  Let's be honest though, it wasn't the "mushroom hash" that drew me to the dish, rather, the "angel hair onion rings"!  And those rings were a delightful touch to balancing out the meatiness of the steak.  The steak was cooked to my liking and not overly salty as well.  Scottie ended up going with the Grilled Peppered Loin of Australian Lamb (Served with spinach risotto and a Dijon mustard sauce).  I'm pretty sure he ordered that because I wouldn't know the first clue how to prepare it!

Finally, to top the evening off, we finished with the Trio Chocolate Mousse and the Crème Brûlée, which included a few berries to round out the meal.  Stuffed and happy, we ended back home noting a future visit to Opus One is inevitable. They certainly sold us!  Read and watch more about the event at ModelDMedia, watch the video here.