Spur is a small-ish gastropub in Belltown run by acclaimed chefs Brian McCracken and Dana Tough. Their focus is “New American” cuisine, and their lineup shifts every month or so, according to what is seasonally available. The restaurant’s blog posts the changes to the menu as they happen; it’s a bit tricky to find out what currently available, but it’s probably more fun just to show up and be surprised.

I’ve been to Spur twice now; the first time was to grab drinks with my friend Anna after a pretty disappointing visit to the Seattle Art Museum for one of their “SAM Remix” events. We both ordered beer, if I recall correctly, rather than avail ourselves of the cocktail selection (which Spur usually receives high praise for) — cocktails aren’t really my thing. That visit, essentially, didn’t count. I finally returned last Tuesday to actually try the food.

This time around I was accompanied by Katie, my usual partner in (food-related) crime. We ordered and shared three small entrées and two desserts. First out of the kitchen was a pair of pork belly sliders with a nectarine mostarda and a gelée of champagne. These were, hands down, the best entrée of the night — the sumptuous belly paired wonderfully with the nectarines, and incredibly intense gelée added a really unique accent.

Next we had an oxtail terrine. The tail was braised, formed into a terrine, and fried — it arrived warm, which is atypical (but not in a bad way at all). The dish was accompanied by sous vide apples and a shallot jam.

Our last course was a pasta — tagliatelle with oyster mushrooms, a duck egg, and parmesan foam. This was my least favorite course. I loved the egg, and the deep flavor its yolk brought to the pasta when combined with the foam. I found the parmesan shavings — slates, really — and interesting presentational piece but not really worth the trouble of trying to eat. There was a acerbic nature to the dish, possibly from the intensity of the foam, that wasn’t the most pleasing.

But dessert made up for it. Katie ordered the chocolate cake after our waitress’s extremely enthusiastic recommendation. It was very thin and quite dense — imagine taking a regular chocolate cake and running it through one of those car compactors. In spite of this property, the cake wasn’t overpoweringly sweet, which prevented it from outshining the accompanying fruit.

I ordered the peach sorbet. According to the menu, I would see some “playful accompaniments.” This turned out to be a foie gras mousse. While it’s definitely “trendy” to be doing weird things with foie gras right now, it is entirely forgivable because the mousse was amazing. It is the classic sweet/salty juxtaposition brought to a whole different level. Easily the star of the meal.

As I said before, I passed entirely on the cocktails, but they did appear to have a really interesting selection. Katie had two of their house-made sodas: a lavender soda, which was too thick and sweet for me (she thought it might have been poorly mixed) and a basil-cucumber soda, which was really interesting. The cucumber was hard to detect, but the basil notes were definitely front-and-center.

The portions at Spur are small — they were pretty much ideal for me, but I don’t eat much. Some people will certainly be turned off by the price-to-food ratio. But even splitting the dishes as we did, we were both full at the end of the evening and immensely satisfied. The price notwithstanding, I think I’m going to try and gather some of my co-workers together to hit the place after PAX next week.

Hopefully they’ll still have that foie gras mousse.