It’s been a few weeks since I checked out the Juno Kim Monday Night Dinner Series at 33 Acres. I had an orally and mentally stimulating bite of his food at Hawkers Market a couple nights previous, so I thought I’d check out his take on chicken tacos and chili. As always, if you’re curious about what he’s cooking up for his Monday night dinners, check out his Instagram feed.

Looks like 33 Acres redid their signage. That’s gotta be a bitch to update. A little bit hard to read without my glasses 😛 33 Acres of Courage ESB is fairly new, and the “CID3R” is brand new.

Some little tweaks to their regular menu. Looks like they ditched BKH Jerky in favour of Jerky Baron. That’s ok cuz I like Jerky Baron’s Maui and Bengal flavours.

33 Acres of Darkness Schwarzbier and 33 Acres of Courage English ESB.

That new Courage ESB is really good! Balanced, quaffable, full-flavoured with no sharp edges, so to speak. With English style bitters, if one thing juts out at you, they’re doing it wrong 😉

The menu for this particular night. I got the tacos and the chili.

Roast Chicken Tacos with chimichurri, pear slaw, prosciutto crisps, sour cream and (surprise!) edible flowers. It feels a little weird to be served food that’s plated like this at 33 Acres, but with their whole design-forward aesthetic, it sorta makes sense.

I love these boards.

Love the edible flowers. The last time I had edible flowers was on some brunch dish at Portland Craft. It was amazing cuz they gave a little burst of liquid as you bit into them. These flowers tonight didn’t have that quality to them, but they looked pretty. I really couldn’t tell if they had much flavour to them at all, but that’s just a minor point cuz the rest of the taco was so good. I never thought that pear and chicken would go together but the pear slaw went great with the roast chicken. The critical element though was the prosciutto crisps, adding that necessary hit of salt and crunch to the taco. I know the traditional way with tacos is to use double tortillas, but I preferred eating it with just one tortilla. I thought the tortilla-to-filling ratio was too much with both tortillas. The housemade sour cream and chimichurri tasted great. I could’ve used even more chimichurri though cuz I love chimichurri. A tasty, playful tweak on tacos.

33 Acres of Darkness Chili with seared chorizo, lemon thyme crème fraîche, applewood smoked cheddar and Nelson the Seagull (sourdough bread) crumble.

The “crumble” was Nelson the Seagull sourdough bread torn into chunks and made into craggy croutons. Does this kind of thoughtful inspiration come naturally to this chef or what? I wanna know…

Love that golden oil that seeps out. That means flavour!

This was a really full-flavoured chili. Like what I said above about the 33 Acres of Courage ESB, to me a good chili should taste rich and full with depth and layers, yet at the same time no one element should stick out…it should all meld into a delicious balance. Compare this with Rogue Wetbar’s “award-winning” chili — now that one is brutish and burnt-tasting in comparison. In a competition setting where judges would be tasting several chilis, I could see how something that sticks out would pique the judges’ interest. Much like how during a massive cask beer festival, the wilder, more aggressive beers just tend to stick out more because everything else becomes a blur. Too bad by the time you read this, the chili will be gone.

I noticed on the menu that the vegetarian chili came with a different cheese: black truffle cheddar instead of applewood smoked cheddar. I asked Juno about it and he generously gave me some to try. I love the “Truffle Tremor” goat cheese, but this is the first time I’ve had a truffle cheddar. The truffle taste actually comes through! But perhaps not as strongly as with Truffle Tremor, but I’d still buy a chunk of this stuff if I saw it in the cheese shop and get some quality alone time with it 😀

Man, these dinners make Mondays feel like Fridays!