To try and decide each week where and what to eat in and around the basin can be a challenge – there are so many amazing choices. In this feature we’ll dive into dishes that will surely satisfy those hunger pangs and leave you wondering where to go next.

You have to love it when a chef gets inspired by the ingredients they find at a local harvest market and create a weekly menu based on their findings. This is exactly what chef Kevin Liu is doing at the Tahoe Wine Collective each weekend for a pop-up tasting. While each week brings a different focus and new menu items, here is a taste of what you might expect should you pay them a visit.

Japanese French Toast

Made with fresh sourdough milk toast (also known in Japan as Shokupan) from North Tahoe’s Blackwall Bakery, this dish is a perfect mash-up of the classic brunch dish and Japanese flavors. Stuffed with a sweet miso mascarpone and a dollop of persimmon gastrique, it’s finished off with a dusting of powdered sugar yielding equal parts sweet and savory.

Texturally is hits crispy, creamy and chewy without skipping a beat and the persimmon’s unique notes of honey, apricot and cantaloupe make this a standout with their white wine paring.

Uni Pasta

It’s hard not to make the delicate and rich handmade pasta the star of this dish. It adds a complex level of flavors that hit almost every one on the spectrum (sweet, salty, bitter, and savory) and what it doesn’t hit gets filled in with plump and juicy shrimp, nutty bottarga and briny, flaky nori.

This good-sized portion feels like it was made with love and tenderness and is about a balanced a bite of pasta as you’re going to find on the north shore.

Other dishes that have made their way to the menu include beef steak carpaccio with egg yolk and black garlic sauce, seared ahi tuna with a butter sauce and herb oil, and a braised charred cabbage with fried potatoes coated in a salted duck yolk.

The pop-up tasting runs every Friday through Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. With free parking, live music, and insanely creative dishes, I give it a big seal of approval for anyone seeking something a little different.

Tahoe Wine Collective is located inside the Boatworks Mall at 760 N Lake Blvd Suite 1 in Tahoe City. For more information visit them online at tahoewinecollective.com.