. "My second time eating here, it was --- literally --- the best meal of my life.\nNot necessarily the best entr\u00E9e or appetizer or dessert I've ever eaten, but as a whole, this meal kicked all the others' asses!\nI'll just list what we ordered and if you have similar tastes, you will understand.\n\nWe asked Chip, our waiter extraordinaire, to recommend a bottle of red under $40. He chose a Super Tuscan and it was delicious. Perfect for the meat and cheese plate we ordered next.\n\nWe started with the meat & cheese plate. We chose 3.\n- A hot sopprasatta from North Carolina.\n- A French blue (cheese). Very blue, very rich & creamy texture. Served with dried, whole figs. Delicious. Perfect pairing.\nChip described it as \"exactly what you'd expect from a high quality French blue\". Spot on.\n- A smoked sheep's milk from Spain. Also exactly what you'd expect. Very good. Served with roasted tomatoes.\n\nThen we had a watercress salad with roasted beets, crushed pistachios and a ricotta salata vinaigrette, which was very, very light. But perfect!\n\nFor the mains:\n- I ordered the pumpkin gnocchi, topped with a full POUND of lobster (!!!), oyster mushrooms, in a tomato sauce. (Check the menu for a better description, but it was divine.) All of their pastas are made in-house, too.\nOh, and it was priced at $25, which is totally reasonable for a dish that includes a pound of lobster (and homemade pasta)!\n- My partner ordered the braised boneless short rib with tuscan kale & cipollini marmalade & loved it. His only complaint was that the portion of meat was perhaps too much relative to the kale. Some might find this a plus!\n\nAnd to finish the meal off, we ordered the chocolate souffl\u00E9. DIVINE. This is my favorite dessert, so maybe I'm biased, but they nailed it. Perfect darkness of chocolate (if that's what you'd call it...) --- not too sweet, not too bitter. Served with vanilla icecream.\n\nI will DEFINITELY be going back, and will always request Chip, if he's working. He was the perfect waiter."^^ . . "5"^^ . "2"^^ . . "2"^^ . "1"^^ . "2010-12-17T00:00:00"^^ .