Block 16 is in downtown Omaha and owned by Paul and Jessica Urban who met in a culinary program.  They have a family farm that supplies a lot of their produce and otherwise shop for local and sustainable food sources.  They like to feature a daily special and have offered a different one 1,400 times in the last four years; they call it fun, street-style food.  It’s a fairly small place of 2 rooms.  The first one is where you order and there are some stools around the edge and counters, also the hall to the bathroom.  The second room is where you wait for you food to be brought out and has small 2-tops along the edges with 3 larger tables in the center.  There were a couple tables outside also.  The dining room had large windows to the street and tables on one end, music in the background and bright interior lighting.  The person at the order counter was very helpful.  They do sell beer as well as non-alcoholic beverages.

Set-Up

Food

The Croque GarconBurger is a 1/3 pound ground beef patty topped with ham, cheese, fried farm egg, truffle mayo, mustard and green onion on a ciabatta bun.  The burger is cooked medium usually but they were willing to do a medium rare.  There is a choice of cheese and we picked Gruyere.  Once the runny egg burst it became more of a fork and knife meal than one to hold in your hand.  The meat was great, juicy and flavorful but it could have used more cheese.  Overall this was a winner.

Plum Creek Farm fried chicken thighs come in 2, 3, or 4 pieces in either a traditional coating or Nashville hot one.  The thighs are soaked in buttermilk and then fried.  We had one of each and both options were good – nicely coated with juicy meat.  The Nashville was not that hot but a lot messier to eat.  The regular one had some flavors I associate with Old Bay Spice.  Nicely crisped with not too much coating and even though it was messier, I’d go with the Nashville hot.

The special of the day was a “Saturrito” and it contained aged cheddar mac, asada marinated and chargrilled skirt steak, fried green tomatoes, onion petals, bbq and pickles.  It was a hugely stuffed tortilla.  Not too much steak but lots of creamy mac ‘n cheese along with the fun bites of fried tomatoes. The meat was a bit chewy and so the whole piece tended to come out at once.  It was a odd assortment of ingredients that worked well together for something fun and different to eat for lunch.  A bit on the heavy side, though.