Wow! What a totally awesome dining experience at Prime 1000 in St Louis this week. Prime 1000 hosted Rain Crow Ranch night at the restaurant on Washington Ave. Along with wine from Royalty Importers the chef and staff presented a truly memorable dinner. The evening created an eclectic bridge from the rustic old farm to the modern elegance of Prime 1000. The restaurant balances modern aesthetic taste with rustic, reclaimed industrial design aspects. So it captures “down on the farm” and envelopes it in total modern elegance, sophisticated taste and charm to present local, sustainable and fresh foods.
with the efforts of the entire family Rain Crow Ranch is bringing the finest grassfed beef, heritage breed pasture raised pork and pasture raised poultry to the table from the farm.
Rain Crow is a sustainable family farm located in southern Missouri that sells directly to customers. We value and take pride in the ethics of the food we produce and would be willing to put it up against any in the country. Yet, of equal importance to us at the farm is the developing of strong and warm relationships with those who believe with us in how the food world should work. These end-users lend support to our farm (and others like ours) when they buy what we raise. We like to say we grow the food and chefs like those at Prime1000 make it great. Farm to the table just doesn’t get much better than what was experienced on Monday night.
On the farm side of the conversation we often talk about how great protein is produced by attention to the right genetics, a quality pasture environment, attention to high animal welfare and just the right processing. Yet, we know equally well that to carry that product forward for an awesome dining experience requires knowing just how to prepare and present it exquisitely. Ray Carpenter, chef de cuisine of Prime 1000 did a magnificent job of taking our local pasture bounty and transforming it into the elegant 6 courses presented. Each course was paired beautifully with 6 wines.
The first course was a salad with lobster wrapped in pancetta with orange, pickled coriander, celery and radish. This was paired with a 2010 Azlend Agricola Branko Pinot Grigio. Cooked to perfection the pancetta wrapped lobster made a perfect start to a memorable dinner.
Course 2 featured an inverted ravioli of grassfed tenderloin using horseradish, truffle, fine herbs and fingerling potato for this salad paired with 2009 Riofava Barbera D’ Albo.
The third course was our roasted farm grazed chicken served with a corn custard, crispy chanterelles, pearl onions, banyls vinegar, and asparagus. This feature was paired with 2007 Deluco Montepulciano d’ Abruzzo “DiRe”.
Fourth course was our Berkshire, pasture raised pork loin with nasturtium rounded with cauliflower, parsley risotto, crackling and pork sauce. It was paired with 2007 Riofava Barolo ‘Suri”.
The highlight course was our Rain Crow Ranch Roasted strip loin with barley, carrot, roasted onion, nebrodini bianco and sauce bordelaise paired with 2003 Triberini Vino Noblle di Montelpulciano ‘Riservo.
Finishing off the evening was an apple crumble with macadamia, burnt caramel, bourbon served with Fracarolli ‘Valerie’.
Our many thanks to Prime 1000 owners, general manager Tom Sutliffe, Chef Ray Carpenter and the Prime 1000 staff who allowed the Rain Crow Ranch family to be a part of the evening. But a special thanks for all the diners who came out and supported the restaurant and our farm.