Heavy Table Hot Five: April 29-May 5

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Each Friday, this list will track five of the best things Heavy Table’s writers, editors, and photographers have recently bitten or sipped. Have a suggestion for the Hot Five? Email editor@heavytable.com.

shepherd-song-banner-ad-horiz-3The Hot Five is a weekly feature created by the Heavy Table and supported by Shepherd Song Farm.

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James Norton / Heavy Table
James Norton / Heavy Table

1-new - onePotato Flautas at Sonora Grill
Chicken cooked in the onion, garlic, and bell pepper mixture known as sofrito delivers tender texture and a wallop of flavor, and it’s a perfect partner to the mild, comforting potatoes and crunchy fried tortillas that sit beneath it in the Sonora Grill rendition of flautas. Flautas can be small, bland, boring little things, but here they’re a big, brash, rich plate of flavor.
[Debuting on the Hot Five | Submitted by James Norton]

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table
Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

2-new - twoLamb Bacon from Finer Meats
We decided to try lamb bacon instead of pancetta in a carbonara sauce. Cooking it was essentially the same as pancetta and it rendered down nicely. Typically, lamb bacon is made from the belly of a sheep and has a more intense flavor … a bit more earthy, adding that gamey flavor you’d expect from lamb.
[Debuting on the Hot Five | Submitted by Brenda Johnson]

Josh Page / Heavy Table
Josh Page / Heavy Table

3-new - threeTandoori Salmon at Gandhi Mahal
Gandhi Mahal’s sizzling salmon affirms our belief that sometimes less really is more. Cooked in a tandoor oven, the wild salmon arrives with a tasty crust and an extremely juicy interior and is accompanied by seared onions and fluffy rice. To take the dish to the next level, we recommend spooning raita over the fish, onions, and rice.
[Debuting on the Hot Five | Submitted by Joshua Page]

Brianna Stachowski / Heavy Table
Brianna Stachowski / Heavy Table

4-new fourThe Farm: Braised Oxtail Ragout from Handsome Hog
The Farm is braised oxtail ragout served with an enormous and dense biscuit and topped with a duck egg and a pickled squash blossom. It is a plate so fine to behold that the restaurant made it the first thing you see when you land on their website. The oxtail was well browned, slightly sweet, and supremely beefy. The duck egg was crisp on the bottom, with the large yolk still runny. Mixing the yolk with the oxtail and sopping it up with a biscuit — that is the essence of soul food. You could eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or all three in the same lucky day.
[Debuting on the Hot Five | Submitted from a review by Ted Held]

Paige Latham / Heavy Table
Paige Latham / Heavy Table

5-new -fiveMillers & Saints Barrelled Gin
Millers & Saints Barrelled Gin is of the pre-Prohibition style, meaning that it is on the sweeter side, with botanicals that are similar to a London dry, but less potent in the juniper department. The aroma contains strong warm spice notes including allspice and cinnamon. The gin displays more barrel character than the Tattersall version, and the mix of botanicals is different from J. Carver’s Barrel Gin, which contains more citrus flavor and is brighter on the palate.
[Debuting on the Hot Five | Submitted from a review by Paige Latham]