Service Bar takeout as fun, delicious as dine-in - The Columbus Dispatch

Middle West Spirits, a resourceful business that made its initial splash as a pioneering local distillery, is taking a proactive approach to the coronavirus outbreak.

And the liquor-manufacturing company’s response to the pandemic is spiked with shots of innovation and empathy: It is switching from producing vodka and whiskey to making alcohol-based hand sanitizer for frontline first responders.

Service Bar, Middle West’s excellent fine-dining arm, also is adjusting to the crisis with thoughtfulness and flair. After Gov. Mike DeWine declared that restaurants could offer only takeout and delivery food, the eatery released a detailed plan for customers to safely and easily procure its playful-yet-sophisticated dishes.

Patrons can order online or on the phone; I chose online. I placed my request early in the afternoon and took advantage of the option to select a pickup time (later that evening). As per instructions, I phoned when I arrived — which was five minutes before my scheduled hour — and was told my food was ready.

At this point, customers can pick up their order at a “no-contact table” or opt for curbside service. I chose the latter, and soon thereafter, a friendly fellow wearing nitrile gloves deposited the bagged food onto my car’s backseat.

Included in that bounty was the sublime Koji whole Rohan duck — a riff on Hainanese chicken rice prepared with a prized and humanely raised breed of duck (rohan) cured in house-propagated koji (the mold that turns rice into sake and soybeans into miso).

Listed among three “family meals” on the carryout menu (each is $60), the duck dish is the result of immense thought, time and labor. As Service Bar’s talented chef, Avishar Barua, has said of this rarefied treat, “It’s one of our favorite things to break our backs over.”

The takeout version looks quite enticing for something presented in a covered foil pan. Occupying ample space are two leg-and-thigh quarters that have been slow-cooked confit-style, then crisped in hot oil. They resemble fried chicken that is uncommonly nuanced and fragrant with five-spice powder.

The skillfully sliced, considerably denser breast meat is markedly different but at least as delicious. It was presented in two rows of seven easily handled hunks of rosy flesh that taste somewhat like flavorful steak crossed with dark-meat chicken. Although the excessive fat had dutifully been rendered from the golden-brown skin, the great-tasting skin was no longer crispy when I sampled it.

Beneath the meat was properly sticky and delightful, stock-enriched rice resonating with duck essence. Inspired garnishes served in plastic containers — shaved-and-pickled celtuce, a hoisin-like sauce, a gingery chimichurri-like sauce plus a fruity-and-spicy condiment that recalls Thai yellow-bean paste — function like transformative costumes for a great actor. Considering the interplay between the entree’s various elements, it suggests about six terrific dishes in one.

Creative sandwiches ($18) served with a small side ― such as the recommended SB red caesar salad featuring red cabbage ― and a sweet treat (I received a tiny-but-lovely, frosted spice cake) compose the bulk of the takeout menu.

Order the Jhol, and you will enjoy a puffy, grilled, house-made Chilean-style sourdough roll that is so sturdy it won’t disintegrate when you load it with the saucy chicken curry provided in a plastic bowl. The meat in the curry was super-tender and the sauce, which was rich and zippy but not creamy or fiery, offered appealing notes of cardamom, peppercorns, fennel and cumin.

In characteristic fashion, the fun-promoting restaurant rewards customers who post photos of the most stylishly plated takeout orders with gift cards to other eateries currently offering takeout.

While inhaling Service Bar’s outstanding Chocolate Cake ($15, serves two) with some-assembly-required cherry sauce, cream-cheese frosting and pistachio sprinkles, my dining partner and I swore that we would wait long enough to take pictures of it next time.

gabenton.dispatch@gmail.com

All of our stories about the coronavirus are being provided free as a public service to our readers during the coronavirus outbreak. You can find all of our stories here. Please support local journalism by subscribing to The Columbus Dispatch at subscribe.dispatch.com.