| rev:text
| - I took my wife here for her 34th birthday and we had an excellent experience! And I say "experience" because it was all great - the food, the ambiance, the servers, the wine, all of it! Often times a meal will be great in some areas but lacking in others, but not this one.
My wife wanted to try something a little different (which is rare for her!), so we did the "Chef's Tasting Menu" for $65/person. The catch? You don't know what you're getting until they set it down in front of you! It was supposed to be a 4-course meal, but we actually received 6 courses.
To get things going we ordered a bottle of the "Umani Ronchi Jorio Montepulciano d'Abruzzo" for $55. It was a very impressive bottle of wine for the price, I highly recommend it. I'd give it a solid 92pts and I'm somewhat of a wine snob. Great table wine which went well with almost everything we ate, except for the Arctic Char. You can also get chef-selected wine pairings with each course of the meal for an additional $20/person, but he said they only give 2oz pours and you only get it with 3 courses, so you only end up with about a glass and a half of wine that way.
For the antipasti (not included with the tasting menu) I ordered a plate of the assorted olives for $5, and we received a rather large plate of 3 different types of olives. The first was cerignola olives marinated in lemon juice with bay leaves, the second was gaeta olives (simlar to kalamata) marinated in oil w/fennel, and the third was castelvetrano marinated in garlic. The cerignolas were BUTTERY smooth and delicious - almost tasted like a dessert olive, if there is such a thing - and they were my favorite. The gaetas tasted just like a regular kalamata olive, which I love. And the castelvetranos, which were absolutely humongous, lacked a unique flavor.
Our tasting menu started off with a chilled roasted tomato & bell pepper soup, which was nothing more than a few bites in the bottom of a large bowl. Excellent soup, but it was barely enough to even spark our appetites. I said to my wife, "Uh oh, looks like we'll need to hit a Taco Bell after dinner to fill up!" But as the night went on the courses got larger and we actually ended up rather full.
Anyhow, on to the second course - salad. It was a small sample-size salad made with arugula, pears, taleggio cheese and a raspberry jam dressing. The pears were carmelized to perfection and the cheese had a "brûlée" type sugar coating on the top. The presentation was unique with each component of the salad placed separately on the plate, and when you combined a little bit of each together for a bite it was pure heaven.
The third course, "primi piatti", was a filet of arctic char, which was seared to perfection and served with some sort of sauce (which I can't remember what it was). It was my first time having Arctic Char, and I found it tasted like a mix between salmon and trout - it had a little bit of that "salmony" flavor, but more rich tasting like trout.
Next, we had the gnocchi with a "rabbit ragu" (yes, rabbit - and it was delicious!). I first had gnocchi a few years ago in Italy and I was hooked! This gnocchio was cooked to perfection, and the rabbit ragu was absolutely delicious. This was the only course that my wife didn't like because she said the rabbit ragu was too "earthy" tasting, which I think is due to the spices that the chef used, but I loved it.
Four our fifth course we had a veal filet, topped with a calamata olive based puttanesca sauce. I love veal, and I love calamata olives, and this was spectacular! Once again the veal was cooked to perfection.
Our meal ended with a piece of flourless chocolate cake w/pistachio gelato. I'm not usually a big fan of "flourless" cakes because they tend to be dry and/or bitter, but not this one. It was fairly most and did have a touch of bitter chocolate taste to it, but not too much. And when you paired a bite with the pistachio gelato it was a perfect balance of flavors, and the chocolate melted in your mouth.
If you opt to do the tasting menu keep in mind that the portions are going to be very small, but you will get enough food over the course of the meal to more than fill you up. Both my wife and I went home completely satisfied, and we even had some leftover olives to take home with us. I highly recommend this place, and we will definitely be back!
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