I'm cold, too. It's usually around 63 in our apartment.
This weekend has been one good food fest, so I'm quite happy.
Friday night, Porkchop and I each ate half a block of tofu....in the form of baked tofu, of course. Is that bad? Half a block? It felt so right at the time.
Saturday morning, we got up and went to the TG farmer's market straight away so that Porkchop could get to work at 10:00. We arrived shortly after 9, which isn't difficult when you live right next to St. John's. The winter market is a bit painfully small...I only hope the market gets bigger each year.
We walked away with black tea, whole wheat flour, zucchini muffins (made with the whole wheat flour and other organic goodness from the vendor's farm), and artichoke pesto. The muffins rocked, and I adore the English Breakfast tea. I've decided that tea is my weekend tea until I can really load up next month.
You might recall that I was trying to decide on a restaurant for Saturday night. After getting a call back from Atlas stating that all of their early times were booked (Porkchop wanted to catch part of the Blues game), I was once again adrift in a sea of indecision.
After a while, I decided on Five. Good thing I called....they're actually closed for the week. Murrr!
I didn't know what to do next. Somehow, through a twisted trail of weblinks, I heard about dinner at La Dolce Via being one of the best things ever. Now, if you look at the website, you'll see that there is absolutely no mention of dinner being served. The only hint is that they're open until 11 pm on Friday and Saturday nights. So, FYI, they start serving dinner at 6:00 on those nights.
And dinner is so so so good!
The menu is really small - they seem to offer only two large plates. But tasty, so tasty!
We started with a small plate of French Bean Salad. Green beans, cannelini beans, yellow beets, potatoes, and grape tomatoes topped with a subtle vinaigrette and feta cheese. Yum!
For a large plate, I had the roasted monkfish, which was accompanied by the most amazing cream-wine-butter sauce, awesome garlic-mashed potatoes, and roasted Belgian endives. I didn't know what to expect with the monkfish - I'd only seen pictures of the fish before. But, I totally understand why it's called the poor person's lobster. Anyway, each part of the dish was delicious and right-on.
Porkchop chose the other large plate selection, penne with pork tenderloin, sun-dried tomatoes, grape tomatoes, and beet tops with a sprinkling of Parmesan and olive oil. It was also tasty, but I preferred my ugly monkfish.
Although we both cleaned our plates, we were still up for our own desserts. Porkchop went with the "Sexy MO," a mascarpone cheesecake (with a biscotti crust) topped with all sorts of berries. I wanted to ask who their berry source is - the blackberries and raspberries were soooo good - but I didn't want to be that person.
For my dessert, I ordered the zuccotto, their signature dessert. You can see a picture of it on the dessert webpage. I was totally blown away by it, that's all I can say. Amazing.
All in all, a fantastic meal. Porkchop thought the coffeeshop setting of mismatched tables and ramshackle chairs took away from the dinner, but that's one of things I liked. No pretense - heck, Porkchop wore her UPS Store work shirt and I wore my Sambas - just super-fantastic food.
We look forward to going there for brunch someday. And dessert, of course.
For my Next Post
I should have a picture of a finished scarf.
Finally.
2 comments:
Sounds wonderful. The desserts look delicious--exotic, yet homemade looking. Could be a good bet for valentine's day.
Everything is so wonderful. They make everything from scratch, including the ladyfingers in the tiramisu.
I saw a poster for their valentine day feast. I think it's 4 courses for $45, and maybe an extra $10 or so if wine is included (something like that). That seems like a lot, but I think it would be worth it.
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