Farmers Fishers Bakers (formerly Agraria, etc.) - Chef Joe Coetze Also Works With Founding Farmers

[jiveturk21]

anything new on this place? friends want to try it for RW...I'm skeptical!

I have not been to Farmers and Fishers, or even Agraria when that was the name, but both my sister and a friend of mine had pretty positive things to say about their recent visits there. One visited for brunch and one for dinner, both said that the food was solid and that they really enjoyed several of the cocktails that they had there. It made me rethink going there and I believe that I will soon. Then again, you wouldn't catch me anywhere during RW.

[DonRocks]

If someone knows who the current Chef de Cuisine is, could you please let me know? Thanks!

[ad.mich]

After dining there with some friends this weekend I'd happily (shockingly?) recommend the BBQ Bacon Cheese Burger ($12). The patty was flavorful, cooked to a proper medium rare, and when you've got a slice of Tillamook and a few strips on Nueske's on top you're already a few steps ahead of the game. My friend's Farmer's Butter Burger ($10) was similarly well executed on the grill, although the whole butter burger thing isn't really my cup of tea. My friend, a midwesterner, seemed to think it was a fairly competent approximation of the style. Fries on both plates were limp and underwhelming but the burgers are so large it was hardly a big deal.

The less said about everything else that was ordered the better. Except the cocktails. Those were nice, despite the Georgetown surcharge. I'll hardly be running back there anytime soon but I'd have no problem ordering that burger again. If you think of F&F as a well-located version of a burger bar you could certainly do a lot worse in that area of town.

[Sthitch]

Temporarily closed – not sure how long it will take to come back from the flood.

[goodeats]

Temporarily closed – not sure how long it will take to come back from the flood.

News reports say that restaurants optimistically say end of this weekend, but it all depends on when the city health inspectors give each restaurant the green light.

[B.A.R.]

This will be interesting to see how it plays out, legally.

That building was built with flood containment walls for this exact purpose. They put them up frequently. Why they were not up on Saturday/Sunday/Monday is beyond me.

The owner/property manager/insurance companies are going to have a throwdown.

[cheezepowder]

This place is now Farmers Fishers Bakers (not sure if it should be a new thread).

Because of various circumstances, I've been there three times. The first time I went for dinner soon after it opened, and I had the Fisherman's poached pot. The fish was tough.

The second time, the weekend before Christmas, I went for brunch. It's a good sized buffet ($29.99/person). It included bruleed grapefruit, yogurt, salads, fried chicken, tacos, jambalaya, meatballs, chips & guacamole, pimento cheese, grits, pies, churros. Plus, servers periodically walk by your table offering you more food, which was fun (cinnamon rolls, biscuits, pizza, sushi, shrimp tempura, eggs benedict). The meatballs, kale salad, jambalaya, cheese grits, and cinnamon rolls were my favorites, and there were other dishes I liked too. On the downside, I didn't care for the pizza. The pizza crust was dense, and I didn't finish the slice. I also wasn't a fan of the puffy taco shells - too thick and hard. The chicken and pork for the tacos also were bland. But because it's a buffet, I could taste first and go back and focus on the dishes I liked.

The third time, this past Friday, I chose Farmers Fishers Bakers because I had a picky eater and a vegetarian with me, and the menu is varied enough to accommodate them. The dinner menu used to include a vegetarian/vegan section (with a note that food is cooked on dedicated meatless equipment), but when we were there this past weekend, the vegetarian/vegan dishes had been moved to a separate menu that we had to request. We enjoyed the soft pretzel sticks which came with 3 dipping sauces. I had the Simply Seared Sushi Grade Tuna, which was mostly grey and not rare on the inside as I was expecting. My dining companions seemed to enjoy their dinners more -- they got the beef burger and the vegetarian "bacon" burger.

So in all, I had better luck with brunch than dinner.

[Simul Parikh]

Went to Farmers Fishers Bakers last night for my friend's birthday party last night. Before that, we stopped by the new Graham Hotel for a drink, and maybe that place should get its own thread soon. It's a lovely place.

I really liked Founding Fathers, so I expected that this would be pretty great. It mostly was, but sometimes it wasn't. First of all, the greeters and servers were very nice and I liked that a lot. Some of these hip new places really get away with surliness, but lots of smiles and the sense they were happy we were there. We were a group of 7 originally, and then had an add on. It wasn't an issue for them, and they were able to adjust quite easily without delay. They put is in the VIP area (okay, okay, I don't know if it is), it's this room off to the right of the entrance, in a cove basically. It's a big table and seated 8 of us very comfortably. It's actually the baker's room, and the walls are lined with rolling pins, which is very nice aesthetically.

We weren't ready with drink orders, but put in for the appetizers. We ordered two of the pretzel orders (3 of the girls had already been there already and swore by them) and the table made guacamole. The pretzels were as good as advertised. Slightly crispy on outside, chewy on inside, very warm and fresh out of the oven. 3 sauces - pimento cheese (Is that everywhere these days? Seems as fashionable as kale) which was just slightly spicy but delicious, a french onion dip (it was okay, it tasted like a better version of what you get from those plastic containers), and a honey mustard sauce that was divine and I could have sopped it up with any bread product. The table made guacamole tasted like table made guacamole. Which is to say good, but nothing mindblowing.

So, before the appetizers got there, we finally got our drink orders in. I got the DC Brau Collaboration Saison (forgot the name), 2 of the girls shared a Zombie Punch bowl, one girl ordered a Belgian beer which name I forgot, a few waters, a Bordeaux, and a Bell's Oberon. This is the part that bugged me about the place. It took about 15 minutes for the drinks to arrive. I really think that's a long time. Only one of the drinks was a cocktail (the jungle juice or zombie punch or whatever). The others were beer and wine, that are poured not "crafted". Then, the Belgian ale the gal asked for wasn't there, but that was reported until everybody's drink arrived (as I said, 15 minutes after order). Finally got all our drinks. I've had that DC Brau before, it's delicious. I tried the Zombie punch, tasted of Fireball or whatever cinammon type infusion was in there. Not my favorite thing, but the two girls drinking it liked it a lot and it was definitely finished. Anyway, that was my only major annoyance.

For dinner, I got one of the sushi dishes (I know, I know, ridiculous to try to get sushi at a non-Japanese place, but it was described so well on the menu) - it was a tuna sashimi sampler with melon and this melon sauce. The fish tasted very fresh, it was a small portion, but I enjoyed it and watermelon actually goes well with tuna. Then, I bungled the next part of the order, but not entirely my fault. I got the "fried brussel sprouts and blue cheese" salad. Look, dude, I know there has to be a markup on foods, but I know how much brussel sprouts cost (even fancy organic ones) and I figured there would be at least 5-6 or more brussel sprouts. Now, keep in mind there is so many other appetizing things on the menu that I wanted to try - Honey Pot Chicken, the fresh catch of the day, the cioppino, the pork shank, the Detroit style pizza (so happy that's becoming a "thing") - but I was so in the mood for brussel sprouts, so I was willing to try it. To my intense dismay, it was shredded brussel sprouts - 2 at most, with some greens and some iceberg, blue cheese dressing, a few hunks of blue cheese, and some crispy things. I was so disappointed. The girl next to me got honey pot chicken which looked amazing, birthday girl got a Wisconsin cheese burger - this is awesome - a burger with grilled cheese sandwiches as the buns which she really liked, the other girl next to me got coconut curry sauce mussels (very good), the next gal got the whitefish tacos which she liked a lot, another honey pot chicken, spicy sausage mussels, and some fries. Everyone really liked their food, so I would say that part of it was my disastrous ordering, but part of it was that the menu for the brussel sprouts dish was not described well.

Dessert was very important to the group. The beignets were ordered (they take 20 minutes, but the server had intuition and had made an executive decision to order them), I got a scoop of dulce de leche, and we got two plates of the ice cream cookie sampler (4 types of ice cream sandwiches with varying cookies and ice creams). The beignets were fantastic. I'd say on par with places in NOLA (Tulane grad) and the chocolate sauce was thick and delicious. I liked my dulce de leche, perfectly creamy and caramel was awesome. So, the cookies. Such a good idea, b/c I love ice cream sandwiches (How could I not? I love both ice cream and sandwiches). The problem is that the cookies are homemade and warm and the ice cream softens so quickly. If you try sharing them, there will be wet mess of melted ice cream. It still tasted good, but it wasn't a sandwich. I think they should refrigerate them, like the ones on the ice cream truck. I think it would be better.

All in all, a great meal (even if mine wasn't) and I really want to try other things on the menu, especially the Cioppino. Their seafood seems super fresh. The server was very friendly. I don't like waiting so long for a beer, especially on a Monday night, but what can you do?

$34 bucks a piece without tip, including taking care of birthday girl. Not bad at all. I'll be back.

S

[DonRocks]

Just in case anyone missed it, Farmers, Fishers, Bakers, owned by the North Dakota Farmers Union, has a sushi menu.

This menu features items such as:

Danny's Happy Belly ($12) - honey ginger glazed pork belly, cabbage, kimchee apples, roasted fennel, and bacon soil [yes, bacon soil].

Tiki Jack ($9) - compressed pineapple, mango-lime salsa, ponzu [ah, there it is!] sauce, and cilantro.

I'd like to congratulate the 1.2 million diners who were wise enough to ignore my uninformed cynicism 7 1/2 years ago.

Enjoy that sushi.