If I could give Calico more than 5 stars, I would. Hell, i'd marry the place if I could - or at least the kitchen staff.
I went back recently to try the dinner menu, after having such a spectacular brunch experience, and I was certainly not disappointed. Eyeing up the menu I decided to go for an appetiser/main combo - despite how tasty the desserts looked I was more in a savoury mood.
My appetiser was an amazing little pile of well combined ingredients and flavour - oyster mushrooms on collard greens sitting on spicy-shoyu sauce. If I could've licked that plate clean, I would've. Holy moly. The mushrooms were seared to perfection, the collard greens gave a great green depth of flavour, and the sauce was out of this world. They should bottle it!
My main was a tasty combo of comfort foods, with some gorgeous fresh ingredients - cornmeal crusted tempeh on a bed of glazed rutabaga and carrot cubes, garlicky asparagus and a beet reduction sauce. I would never think to put these together, but it was all such a satisfying meal! The beet reduction was flavoured just perfectly, and offset the tempeh's crunchy coating just nicely. Even if you'd sat me down in front of a plate of only the garlicky asparagus, i'd have been happy.
Add all of this to my surprisingly tasty maple/cranberry smoothie and Dirty Three tunes floating from the stereo, and I was in dining heaven.
Safe to say, I can't wait to go back and see what Calico dishes up next time!