Buckhorn Exchange is the oldest restaurant in the
state and proudly owns liquor license #1. It's in a
mostly renovated older neighborhood, easily accessible
by train (which stops within sight of it). I called
ahead and was told we'd be relegated to the noisy bar
area upstairs, but when we arrived the smiling hostess
assigned us to a table in the old part where all the
television shows are filmed (this is one of the
mainstays of the Travel Channel and the Food Network).
The menu is one of those irritating touristy fake
newspapers that you get to take home. The Web version
is the same and easier to read. The atmosphere of the
room - let's just say that every square foot of wall
space has taxidermied animal on it, with some of the
presentations laughably bad.

I am now a moderate eater, and Lilli eats like a bird,
so we didn't go for the big meals, instead splitting an
appetizer, a main course, and a bottle of wine. It was
like pulling teeth to get a local wine; my first choice
was out; my second choice was out. They did come up
with another offering of the second winery, the
Cottonwood Cellars Classic Blend, a nonvintage DYA
Meritage blend, fairly soft but still flavorsome, with
a lot of Cabernettiness, black fruit and licorice and
spice. I'd have liked the (out of stock) Lemberger by
the same company, but this was fine.

Our appetizer was duck breast with a lavender pepper
dust and what was advertised as raspberry Zinfandel
sauce. Despite being recipe for potential disaster, it
was the only appetizer that appealed to both of us, the
others being Rocky Mountain oysters, salmon, artichokes,
alligator, and game tips. The last might have been
acceptable to Lilli, but it seemed too adventurous to
her and too mundane to me; also these came smothered in
mushrooms (okay, we could have tried to have them left
off). It turns out the duck rub was not overwhelming
(not too much lavender) and didn't fight the sauce,
which turned out to be as described but with mustard
added - they like mustard here. The meat itself was
smooth as silk, rare as ordered, one of the finest
duck dishes I've had outside Ian's, and that includes
made by me, Thomas Keller, Jean-Louis Palladin, and
others. The only way the dish could have been improved
is if they had left the skin on. Lilli, who likes game
birds much less than she pretended to when she was
trying to impress me with her good taste, ate every
bit of her half, albeit with a lot of sauce.

You get sourdough and dark rye. Not for me.

A salad comes. I'd told the waitress to give it to Lilli
("I'm not really a sides person") , but when it came, it
came on two plates. I resignedly ate a few greens and
then, defeated, gave my plate to her to finish off.

Then we split the 24-oz porterhouse, which turned out
to be from a big animal, so 24 oz is less than an inch
thick. As a result, in order for the meat to be rare,
the fat hasn't gotten sizzly cooked yet, and the
surface is hardly browned. But it was rare as ordered.
It came with a mustard and pepper rub (they like
mustard here) that added something but not much but at
least wasn't too salty. On top a glob of herb butter
that I pushed off to the side. The steak was prime,
grass-fed, well aged, in fact all the things that people
sing about with a fine piece of meat. We carried back
half a pound for me for breakfast.

You get a side, as well, but the waitress, noticing what
I'd done with the salad, didn't split the baked beans
that Lilli had ordered. Hah - the beans weren't from a
can and weren't oversweet but were laced with mustard -
they like their mustard here. So after a few bites she
gave me some to taste, and guess what - I ate them all.

No room for dessert.

The right train wasn't coming for a while, so we decided
to take the wrong train to Union Station and then the
free shuttle that went within two blocks of our hotel.
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