Hi-Life serves up great tastes and real surprises
Something good's always cooking at the Hi-Life, no matter the time of day. Located inside a nearly 100-year-old firehouse, this upscale neighborhood restaurant invests everything it does with creativity and aplomb, from fancy continental dishes to simple plates of bacon and eggs.
The Hi-Life's kitchen is a jack-of-all-trades and master of several. Basic, rib-sticking meals like roast chicken are slathered in a delicious Dijon glaze and served with fingerling potatoes and blackened green beans. A moist and tender wild salmon comes with sauteed broccolini and black current-shallot compound butter; every bite borders on the divine.
And breakfast is an epic affair that offers your choice of egg scrambles (recommended is the Italian Farmhouse, with its spiced sausage, red peppers and grana), orange-flavored cornmeal flapjacks, corned beef hash with beets and turnips and much, much more. This isn't a menu you can parse in 30 seconds and throw down. Everything on it looks good, and nearly eveything on it tastes good, too.
Another reason to make a weekly habit of the Hi-Life is its endless variety. The Hi-Life offers new dishes from a different European region several times a year, an ongoing process that sees nearly a quarter of the dinner menu changing every other month or so.
The daily specials change at the kitchen's whim, and they tend to sell out of them quickly — but that's not a problem. If you hear someone in the kitchen yell out "Eighty-six" followed by the name of the dish you wanted to order, just move down to the next plate. It's probably just as great.
Posted by Geoff Carter
