Have you ever seen pictures of crazy-looking food and wondered to yourself "how do you even eat that?"

Have you ever seen those same pictures and thought "I'm sure they don't have foofy, uppity, arrogant restaurants like that in my town?"

What if you found out that there are places like that, even in not-all-that-different-than-your-midwestern-town Grand Rapids, Michigan?

What if, despite your blog's focus on hot dogs, chili and all things you can probably buy in a can, you said "Man, I'd really like to try eating something that's prettier than any painting I could possibly make in my life?"

Finally (bear with me here), what if you also thought to yourself "maybe food so attractive I'd like to take it out on a date isn't really uppity or arrogant at all but just a way to bring your other sense (sight) into something that was previously only the domain of smell and taste?"

So now you understand my mindset last week as Megan and I embarked on a date-night-dinner (which is a rare thing with two kids two-and-under at home) to Restaurant Bloom in the "hip yuppies" East Hills neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Thursday.

The restaurant is tiny (seats maybe 40 people? Maybe less), sparsely decorated (white, grey, black with tea-green highlights) and apparently staffed by 2 chefs and a single person to wait on tables, seat people, welcome you to their establishment and even provide menu suggestions like "I don't know what you should get, everything's really good." I had no idea how right she was (everything was really good).

Let's dispense with some formalities here:

• If you're looking for a 5,000 calorie glutton-fest for dinner, Bloom is absolutely not for you.
  
• If you're hoping that menu descriptions will sing the praises of a comforting balsamic reduction poured lovingly over Montessori-educated calf livers on a reassuring bed of baby spinach, you will be disappointed by the menu (but not the food, I promise).
• If you like your steak with a full bottle of single-malt, the lack of a liquor license might actually turn you off (to be honest, that is the sole draw-back in our eyes.... the food at Bloom aches for a glass of wine at its side).

With the negatives laid bare I will tell you why your next dinner absolutely must be at Bloom.

The menu
Nothing says "yeah, we'll figure out how to put these things together, you just pick what sounds good" like a menu seemingly typed by a 1970s Olivetti onto card-stock, listing only ingredients...no titles, no description of how the ingredients will be combined, and no assurance that you get to choose anything other than how rare you'd like your lamb-chops.

It sounds arrogant, and maybe it is. After all, the menu described my dinner as " lamb sirloin, chanterelle mushrooms, tomato, sesame " Turns out that means sesame seeds on the lamb, tahini on the side, mushrooms and tomatoes cooked together all laid out on my plate as though porcelain has replaced canvas as the artistic medium of choice in GR (If that's the case, I'm fully on board). I know this: The food was good enough that a little menu arrogance (or is it just understatedness? or a political statement that says "food is flavors, ingredients define flavors, anything else written on the menu would just be filler?") was perfectly acceptable, maybe even preferable.

The food
So the food was scrumptious. Seriously good.

While we waited, we were served small tapas of scallops, watermelon and peanuts all chopped up and mixed in with chives. We knew, immediately, that we were going to have a great dinner as this little snack hinted at what we were about to eat and left us licking our chops like Hadden Clark.

I started with "chilled tomato and watermelon soup, olive, pistachio, sour cream-horseradish sorbet." It was cold. It was sweet. I can also say that this was the first time in my life I ate "sour cream-horseradish sorbet." Surprisingly, it fit the soup perfectly and I can say that cold watermelon soup wasn't something I'd ever thought I'd be eating...much less enjoying.

While I was gazing lovingly at the soup in front of me, Megan was busy eating the only normal-sounding thing on the menu: " salad of baby spinach, market vegetables, bacon, vinaigrette, manchego." It was normal in ingredients and even preparation, but it was also very tasty and left Megan ready for her dinner, appetized if you will.

I had the aforementioned lamb, which was perfectly "cooked" (rare), stacked up like throw-pillows on my grandma's couch and sitting next to the mushroom-tomato arrangement I discussed above. A swatch of tahini sat below it making an exclamation point on my plate...as if to say "eat me, I dare you." I did eat the meal, it was very good, and I was left thinking that perhaps my previous opinion of food too-pretty-to-eat was off the mark. It was.

Megan then had " side of pork, sweet corn, capers, cucumber" which apparently means cucumbers sliced paper-thin and rolled up, pork side cooked to perfection (so tender I almost shed a tear when I tasted it) with cute little piles of corn-n-capers next to the pork almost as if to say "we're here for you, tender pork. Be strong." Her pork may have been slightly better than my lamb, but it's like asking which Lexus says "I'm an arrogant prick" when in reality they all do. The dinners were great, the dessert was just as good.

Dessert
Recently I was on here singing the praises of the Chop House downtown. It's a great place, but we've started abandoning most restaurants before dessert so that we can just go to San Chez and eat dessert there. Thankfully Bloom had impressed us so much with the dinner that we decided we could pass up the tres leches cake for one night to try something fun for dessert.

Megan had " chocolate goodness, ginger sorbet, hazelnut, sea salt." Apparently "chocolate goodness" is just that...it's chocolate (pudding? mousse? whatever) laid out like those yellow/pink/blue/black/green ribbons you see on the trunks of SUVs these days, sprinkled with sea salt in the middle, hazelnuts at one end, and sitting next to what must be homemade ginger sorbet. Megan hates ginger but needs chocolate like only a true chocoholic can, so she ate all this, tried the sorbet (which had some candied ginger root on top I think) and then passed me the left-over icy-gingery taste-fest. If you like ginger ( hello ) this was great.

My dessert consisted of "roast fig, olive oil ice cream, cucumber, candied pine nut". Yes, olive-oil ice cream. It was really good. I'm a total fan of those candied figs you buy at the middle-eastern markets so I tried this with that in mind. I wasn't disapointed. It was very good, the ice cream just sort cooled it all off and the cucumber cubes were an interesting addition.

In the end, Megan has decided this is her new favorite restaurant. I don't go there... picking favorites between a gyro-bar and a "food as art" place seems almost unfair to the gyro-bar. I will say this, if you can stomach the idea of eating food so hot you'd like to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant, then Bloom is well worth a visit.

One request to the Bloomers: Find a way to get a liquor license. I'm not sure whether a wine called "Temparanillo, glass, cork, oak barrels" would go with your food better or worse than "Water, hops, yeast, malt, barley" but I'd sure like to find out.