Harold's Bachelor party weekend. After somewhat of a disappointing Friday evening of boredom, I was looking to CarneVino being the catalyst for the remainder of the weekend (besides Jojo and my side trip to Oasis Comics).
Table for 9 guys. We checked in for our 6:30 reservation, eyeing the bachelorette party table in the center of the main dining room. We were ushered in unfortunately away from the girls, into the large back room. We were greeted by a small army of wait staff, with a strange soundtrack of 70's porno music.
We took most of our waiter's recommendations for food. Our sommelier was helpful in finding a couple bottles at the price point we wanted. The wait staff was perfectly attentive making sure our wine glasses were filled and that our empty dishes were taken.
So the food.. The little cheese ball were a nice start, salty enough to get your mouth watering. I topped my bread with the pork fat rosemary concoction. My heart skipped a beat. Wine was poured. We had a bold Spanish red and a lighter Italian red for contrast. The starters arrived. The carpaccio salad was definitely the winner for the first round. Honorable mentions go to the prosciutto and figs, caprese salad.
Round 2, pastas. The frutti de mare was deceptively plain-looking but tasted great. I love it when food does that. The squid-ink fettucine alfredo with crab was nice. De-constructed with black noodles and the white crab/cheese was a nice look and tasted divine.
Our wait staff army rolled out the tanks for round 3: the steaks. Three or four cutting boards on wheels arrived and the army went to work cutting and plating our steaks. Wow that was kind of impressive.. Jojo and I shared the porterhouse. Nice of them to evenly distribute the NY and T-bone sections between both plates. The thick cuts of steak were aged perfectly. Though fairly rare in the middle, they weren't at all bloody and the flavor was very rich.
The bill arrived. Ouch. However, it was unanimous, it was worth it.