More by coincidence than anything else, our dinners this week have been vegetarian. I was attracted to the Creamy Porcini Soup in Domenica Marchetti's The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy because it gave me a chance to use some of the chicken stock I made last weekend when I cleaned out my collection of frozen chicken parts.
I used Marchetti's recipe for the stock as well, though it is the same as most -- simmering the chicken with carrots, onions, celery, parsley, thyme, garlic, black peppercorns (she also calls for fennel stalks but I didn't have that), then straining.
The soup recipe calls for 1 oz. of dried porcini and a bunch of fresh mushrooms in lieu of the fresh porcini available in Italy. Unfortunately, WF has gotten so spotty in its stocking, they had no porcini, so I got dried chanterelles and ended up making creamy chanterelle soup. The recipe uses 1 lb. of cremini and white button mushrooms to make a soup base, and then another pound of mixed portobello and shitake mushrooms to saute and add separately.
The first batch is cooked in oil, butter, onion and garlic until their liquid has evaporated and they are tender. Then you add the soaked and drained dried mushrooms and 3/4 c. white wine and boil that away. Let the cooked mushrooms cool, then purree with some of the strained soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms. Sprinkle the purree with 3 Tbl. of flour and then gradually stir in 5 c. of chicken or meat broth. Saute the sliced portobello and shitake caps separately, stir into the soup, whisk in 1/2 c. heavy cream and 2 Tbl. of cognac and serve the soup with chopped parsley.
After Andrea pointed out that a mushroom soup, even if rich and hearty, is still just a soup, I scrambled to find something to accompany and found a recipe for skillet cornbread on a website called "The Pioneer Woman." It was super-easy, delicious and doubtless a keeper. Mix dry ingredients -- 1 c. cornmeal, 1/2 c. flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 Tbl. baking powder -- in a bowl. Mix liquid ingredients -- 1 c. buttermilk (she helpfully reminds you that if you don't have buttermilk just add a splash of white vinegar to milk), 1/2 c. milk, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp. baking soda -- and combine with dry ingredients. Stir in 1/4 c. melted shortening, then pour batter into cast iron skillet with 2 Tbl. shortening. Cook for 1 min. on top of stove, then put into preheated 450 degree oven for 20 to 25 min. until golden on top and crispy at the edges. Worked perfectly.
The bean dish from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors was also based on shopping at the farmer's market, because it calls for redbor kale and Sheridan School had a great selection of kale. I used the Rancho Gordo Rio Zape beans (a type of red bean) I had in the cupboard, soaked for several hours and then cooked for 1-1/2 hrs. with a diced onion, 2 bay leaves and 1/2 tsp. thyme leaves. The kale was stripped from the stems and cut into pieces, boiled in salted water for 5 to 7 min. and drained. Then 1/2 c. chopped onion held back from that whole onion used in the beans is sauteed in olive oil with 1/2 c. chopped cilantro until the onions are soft, and then the beans and kale are added and cooked together for 10 min. or so to blend the flavors. Serve with more chopped cilantro, crumbled feta cheese and a drizzle of olive oil. We had leftover cornbread with this dish for another great meal!
Both of these cookbooks are organized by season, so it's particularly easy to locate the recipes that match well with what's available at the farmer's market.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Eat Rome
Some friends just returned from a week in Rome and regaled us with stories of a wonderful food tour they took with Elizabeth Minchilli, an American food writer who lives in Rome. They took the Campo de Fiori and Jewish Ghetto tour you can see under the Food Tours tab at Minchilli's website. Their description was mouth-watering as they ate and drank their way across Rome through markets, cafes, butchers and bakers, and prompted us to move Rome up near the top of the list of our next trips.
Minchilli also has a blog that you can subscribe to by email and the EatRome app for iPad and iPhone ($2.99) that lists great places to eat all over the city (including an interactive map that informs me, sadly, that I am currently some 7,400 km away from the restaurant). There is also an app for Florence.
I have spent some wonderful times in Rome and had some great food, from a hostaria I literally stumbled into and ate their delicious menu du jour to an elegant restaurant with a patio overlooking some of Rome's hills where I had my first sole filleted at the table. One of the nicest meals I had was at the home of some American friends in Rome who I was visiting over Christmas, because good food and the good cheer that goes with it is not confined to restaurants.
There are many other reasons to visit Rome -- art, architecture, history, shopping, and for many, a pilgrimage to the Holy See. But I'm fairly certain that our trip to Rome will put a top priority on a food tour from Elizabeth Minchilli if it can be arranged.
Minchilli also has a blog that you can subscribe to by email and the EatRome app for iPad and iPhone ($2.99) that lists great places to eat all over the city (including an interactive map that informs me, sadly, that I am currently some 7,400 km away from the restaurant). There is also an app for Florence.
I have spent some wonderful times in Rome and had some great food, from a hostaria I literally stumbled into and ate their delicious menu du jour to an elegant restaurant with a patio overlooking some of Rome's hills where I had my first sole filleted at the table. One of the nicest meals I had was at the home of some American friends in Rome who I was visiting over Christmas, because good food and the good cheer that goes with it is not confined to restaurants.
There are many other reasons to visit Rome -- art, architecture, history, shopping, and for many, a pilgrimage to the Holy See. But I'm fairly certain that our trip to Rome will put a top priority on a food tour from Elizabeth Minchilli if it can be arranged.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Sauteed sweetbreads with lemon and parsley
Another happy encounter between Anna Del Conte and Blue Rooster Farm, which offered both "beef" and lamb sweetbreads at their last visit to Sheridan School. I'd cooked sweetbreads two or three times before but fortunately Del Conte takes you through all the steps -- the soaking, the blanching, removing the membrane, etc.
It's not hard, but important to follow. The blanching is done in water brought to a boil with a small stalk of celery and slice of onion in it, then add 1 Tbl. wine vinegar and salt and put in the soaked and drained sweetbread for just 5 min. or so, and then remove the membrane. Del Conte emphasizes the two different parts of the sweetbread (the thymus gland of a young animal, which is why "veal" or "calf" is more appropriate in describing it) -- the heart, a big rectangular shaped piece, and the throat, several smaller pieces. So for the heart piece she recommends slicing, breading and sauteeing, whereas this recipe is the one she recommends for the throat pieces.
Realistically, we're not going to cook the different parts for different meals and were not going to do two recipes for the same meal, so I opted to cut the heart piece into slices for this one. You coat the pieces in flour and put into a skillet with lots of sizzling butter and a "bruised" clove of garlic, flip the pan a few times to get them browned all over, and then, according to the recipe, add 5 Tbl. of meat broth for another minute then toss with the juice of a lemon and 3 Tbl. chopped parsley. I doubled the times since I wasn't sure about how long the heart slices would take to cook -- so I browned the pieces for 4 min. and cooked in the broth for 2 min., and I don't think they were overcooked.
We accompanied with the polenta left over from the previous day, cut into strips, brushed with oil and put under the broiler until a bit crispy on the outside, and a nice, crunchy green bean and red onion salad from Broad Branch.
It's not hard, but important to follow. The blanching is done in water brought to a boil with a small stalk of celery and slice of onion in it, then add 1 Tbl. wine vinegar and salt and put in the soaked and drained sweetbread for just 5 min. or so, and then remove the membrane. Del Conte emphasizes the two different parts of the sweetbread (the thymus gland of a young animal, which is why "veal" or "calf" is more appropriate in describing it) -- the heart, a big rectangular shaped piece, and the throat, several smaller pieces. So for the heart piece she recommends slicing, breading and sauteeing, whereas this recipe is the one she recommends for the throat pieces.
Realistically, we're not going to cook the different parts for different meals and were not going to do two recipes for the same meal, so I opted to cut the heart piece into slices for this one. You coat the pieces in flour and put into a skillet with lots of sizzling butter and a "bruised" clove of garlic, flip the pan a few times to get them browned all over, and then, according to the recipe, add 5 Tbl. of meat broth for another minute then toss with the juice of a lemon and 3 Tbl. chopped parsley. I doubled the times since I wasn't sure about how long the heart slices would take to cook -- so I browned the pieces for 4 min. and cooked in the broth for 2 min., and I don't think they were overcooked.
We accompanied with the polenta left over from the previous day, cut into strips, brushed with oil and put under the broiler until a bit crispy on the outside, and a nice, crunchy green bean and red onion salad from Broad Branch.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Lamb stewed in wine
This delicious dish was the product of a perfect storm in home cooking -- a great recipe from my cookbook of the month, Anna Del Conte's The Classic Food of Northern Italy; a lamb shoulder roast from Blue Rooster farm in Pennsylvania, which sells its own meat products once a month at our Sheridan School farmer's market; and the simmer burner on our new Bosch gas cooktop, which truly does allow a slow simmer.
Almost any lamb stew is going to taste great, but this soupy stew from Tuscany is a real winner. The 2-1/2 boneless lamb shoulder was tied up as a roast but of course is ideal for stewing. I trimmed out most of the fat and cut into small chunks. The recipe calls for "lamb neck fillets" but Anna Del Conte clearly lives in a different world than I do, where your choices at supermarket butcher counters are limited to lamb chops and leg of lamb. You heat up olive oil and briefly flavor it with peeled garlic cloves, removing them when you smell the garlic, then brown the meat, in batches if necessary, and salt when done. Pour in 2 c. of dry white wine to cover and add the unpeeled cloves from 2 heads of garlic and 2 or 3 dried red chiles soaked in warm water and broken up into pieces (I used New Mexico chiles I had on hand). Simmer for half an hour then add 2 Tbl. tomato paste and 1 Tbl. chopped rosemary and simmer for another hour. Del Conte seems worried that the stew might dry out and you'd need to top up with boiling water, but I don't think that's possible with as much water as meat today gives off. In any case, my stew remained very soupy.
The meat was incredibly tender and the flavor intense but well-balanced. I served it with soft polenta, baked in the oven without cheese according to Paula Wolfert's great technique. A nice 2009 Bordeaux to accompany and you've got a great meal -- on a weekday!
Typically, and what makes this cookbook so wonderful, Del Conte got this recipe from an innkeeper in the little town of Pitigliano, where the dish appears on the menu as Buglione dell'Albergo Guastini.
Almost any lamb stew is going to taste great, but this soupy stew from Tuscany is a real winner. The 2-1/2 boneless lamb shoulder was tied up as a roast but of course is ideal for stewing. I trimmed out most of the fat and cut into small chunks. The recipe calls for "lamb neck fillets" but Anna Del Conte clearly lives in a different world than I do, where your choices at supermarket butcher counters are limited to lamb chops and leg of lamb. You heat up olive oil and briefly flavor it with peeled garlic cloves, removing them when you smell the garlic, then brown the meat, in batches if necessary, and salt when done. Pour in 2 c. of dry white wine to cover and add the unpeeled cloves from 2 heads of garlic and 2 or 3 dried red chiles soaked in warm water and broken up into pieces (I used New Mexico chiles I had on hand). Simmer for half an hour then add 2 Tbl. tomato paste and 1 Tbl. chopped rosemary and simmer for another hour. Del Conte seems worried that the stew might dry out and you'd need to top up with boiling water, but I don't think that's possible with as much water as meat today gives off. In any case, my stew remained very soupy.
The meat was incredibly tender and the flavor intense but well-balanced. I served it with soft polenta, baked in the oven without cheese according to Paula Wolfert's great technique. A nice 2009 Bordeaux to accompany and you've got a great meal -- on a weekday!
Typically, and what makes this cookbook so wonderful, Del Conte got this recipe from an innkeeper in the little town of Pitigliano, where the dish appears on the menu as Buglione dell'Albergo Guastini.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
More whiskey
Went back to Jack Rose to sample more of their whiskeys. I asked the bartender about the Island single malts and he said they tend to have a tangy taste because of their proximity to the sea, a bit like oyster brine. That sounded appealing so I ordered an Arran bourbon cask and found it very nice -- indeed tangy/briny. I was less happy with the Ledaig hogshead from Mull because that tanginess was missing. I would definitely buy a bottle of Arran if I see one in a store.
Switching to bourbon for a change of pace, I tried an Evan Williams single barrel that had a nice complexity and strong vanilla notes. Back to single malts, Speyside this time, I tried an Auchroich Chieftain that seemed a little thin to me, though it had nice flavors. My drinking buddy had a Benromach 18 yr that I tasted and found, by contrast, very full and rich.
These trips are undoubtedly fun but it is a hugely expensive hobby. You can sample more with the 1 oz. pour, but that is ultimately a little unsatisfying. Whether 1 oz. or 2 oz., however, you pay an average $10 an ounce. Clearly, I will have to space out my trips.
The two whiskey consultants are Aaron and Roberto, though this time we just relied on the bartender.
Switching to bourbon for a change of pace, I tried an Evan Williams single barrel that had a nice complexity and strong vanilla notes. Back to single malts, Speyside this time, I tried an Auchroich Chieftain that seemed a little thin to me, though it had nice flavors. My drinking buddy had a Benromach 18 yr that I tasted and found, by contrast, very full and rich.
These trips are undoubtedly fun but it is a hugely expensive hobby. You can sample more with the 1 oz. pour, but that is ultimately a little unsatisfying. Whether 1 oz. or 2 oz., however, you pay an average $10 an ounce. Clearly, I will have to space out my trips.
The two whiskey consultants are Aaron and Roberto, though this time we just relied on the bartender.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Chicken with cream and mushrooms
So I used her recipe for this classic flavor combination and it was very good. She calls for a chicken cut into 8 pieces (I actually did something I rarely do and bought a cut-up whole chicken so it was 10 pieces, following her direction to cut each breast in half). Then you remove the skin and rub the meat with cut lemon, brown the chicken in olive oil and put it in a casserole. Saute a finely chopped onion in butter, then add dried porcini reconstituted by pouring in boiling water and soaking for an hour, cut into small pieces. After 5 min. add about half a pound of chopped brown mushrooms. Finally, ta-da, add 10 oz. of heavy cream and some of the porcini soaking water strained through cheesecloth. Pour this mixture over the chicken and put casserole into a 350-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes.
Great earthy mushroom flavor. We had just with sauteed broccoli, though leftovers will be served with brown rice. I'll be doing more of these recipes!
Mr. Coffee
I bought a Mr. Coffee coffee maker when they first came out and drip brew began to replace percolators. They seemed primitive and after I went to Europe and had a succession of Krups and Braun coffee makers, I thought I'd left this cheap American product behind.
My favorite in Europe was a coffee maker whose manufacturer I can no longer remember. It was said to be designed according to Norwegian specifications -- they are the biggest per capita drinkers of coffee in the world -- and what distinguished it was that it flooded the coffee with water, much as brewing by hand does, so that the grounds steep a bit.
In my latest search for a machine that makes a clean, crisp pot of coffee, I did come across a coffee maker that sounded similar but it was out of stock and no guarantee it would ever be back in stock. So I bought a Melitta with a thermos carafe. It cost a sufficient amount of money to make me think I was getting a solid product and I was curious to try a thermos.
I didn't much like it, however. It was not handy and the thermos was heavy and hard to use. The worst part was that it appeared to build up some muck in the cap of the thermos, which of course has some tricky design to open up for the brewed coffee to enter but close to keep it warm. After a couple of days, the coffee tasted muddy and I had to run an "empty" cycle to clean it out.
Back to the drawing board. I was tempted just to get the Cuisinart, which seems to be the current favorite. When I went to Macy's, Cuisinart was running a promotion that had literally pushed all others brands off the shelves. But in Beach Haven the weekend before, the rental house had a Mr. Coffee model which looked fine and brewed a pretty good cup of coffee. That particular model is no longer available, but I got the model they had at Macy's for $30.
Guess what -- at least for the moment I'm getting that clean, crisp pot of coffee. I didn't need the water filter because I now filter my own water. I'm beginning to suspect that the "cupcake" filter might actually be better than the cone. It's a trade-off having the glass carafe on a hot plate instead of the thermos, but it suits my coffee drinking habits. So until I find that perfect coffee maker, it looks like good old Mr. Coffee is going to do the trick.
My favorite in Europe was a coffee maker whose manufacturer I can no longer remember. It was said to be designed according to Norwegian specifications -- they are the biggest per capita drinkers of coffee in the world -- and what distinguished it was that it flooded the coffee with water, much as brewing by hand does, so that the grounds steep a bit.
In my latest search for a machine that makes a clean, crisp pot of coffee, I did come across a coffee maker that sounded similar but it was out of stock and no guarantee it would ever be back in stock. So I bought a Melitta with a thermos carafe. It cost a sufficient amount of money to make me think I was getting a solid product and I was curious to try a thermos.
I didn't much like it, however. It was not handy and the thermos was heavy and hard to use. The worst part was that it appeared to build up some muck in the cap of the thermos, which of course has some tricky design to open up for the brewed coffee to enter but close to keep it warm. After a couple of days, the coffee tasted muddy and I had to run an "empty" cycle to clean it out.
Back to the drawing board. I was tempted just to get the Cuisinart, which seems to be the current favorite. When I went to Macy's, Cuisinart was running a promotion that had literally pushed all others brands off the shelves. But in Beach Haven the weekend before, the rental house had a Mr. Coffee model which looked fine and brewed a pretty good cup of coffee. That particular model is no longer available, but I got the model they had at Macy's for $30.
Guess what -- at least for the moment I'm getting that clean, crisp pot of coffee. I didn't need the water filter because I now filter my own water. I'm beginning to suspect that the "cupcake" filter might actually be better than the cone. It's a trade-off having the glass carafe on a hot plate instead of the thermos, but it suits my coffee drinking habits. So until I find that perfect coffee maker, it looks like good old Mr. Coffee is going to do the trick.
Monday, October 08, 2012
Winter squash
The nature of the seasons is such that you have time to forget what a nuisance it is to fiddle with winter squash and how little rewarding it is by the time it is in season again. If you put enough butter and cream and salt and pepper into a butternut squash soup, of course it tastes good, and I will probably go that route soon. But Deborah Madison let me down with a recipe for winter squash that came out flat and insipid, and I don't think it was due to faulty execution.
It sounded great -- winter squash braised in apple cider. We got the fresh apple cider and some very fragrant rosemary from the farmer's market, and the butternut and delicata squash called for in the recipe. I laboriously hacked the butternut into cubes and the delicata into rounds as specified. I melted the butter and flavored it for 3 min. with the chopped rosemary, than added the squash and cider and water to cover and cooked until the squash was tender. However, the liquid did not boil down into a syrupy coating but remained in great abundance that not even the recommended fix of boiling it down at higher heat could not dent. The squash would have been total mush if I had continued, so I removed it with a slotted spoon. As a result, however, there was very little buttery, rosemary or cider taste, but just watery, bland squash. It would have no doubt helped if I had used a skillet instead of sauteuse, which probably just held too much liquid, but I can't imagine this really turns into syrup if you actually cover the squash with water.
It sounded great -- winter squash braised in apple cider. We got the fresh apple cider and some very fragrant rosemary from the farmer's market, and the butternut and delicata squash called for in the recipe. I laboriously hacked the butternut into cubes and the delicata into rounds as specified. I melted the butter and flavored it for 3 min. with the chopped rosemary, than added the squash and cider and water to cover and cooked until the squash was tender. However, the liquid did not boil down into a syrupy coating but remained in great abundance that not even the recommended fix of boiling it down at higher heat could not dent. The squash would have been total mush if I had continued, so I removed it with a slotted spoon. As a result, however, there was very little buttery, rosemary or cider taste, but just watery, bland squash. It would have no doubt helped if I had used a skillet instead of sauteuse, which probably just held too much liquid, but I can't imagine this really turns into syrup if you actually cover the squash with water.
Saturday, October 06, 2012
Society Fair
In my constant hope to find a decent butcher in the metropolitan area, I trekked out to Alexandria to Cathal Armstrong's Society Fair after getting an email about if from CityEats. It's billed as Epicurean Emporium "Devoted to Food."
Another disappointment. It is a small, precious store that looks like a dollhouse version of a real market with a tiny bakery stand, a tiny butcher counter and a cheese display so lame you wonder why they bother. Cheese and meat both are packaged up in cellophane in such small portions they seem designed for a dieting single person. There was a fair selection of meat cuts in these miniature, package portions and we brought a couple home.
The biggest disappointment was that the premium product -- and premium prices -- were not matched by premium service. I had hoped this might finally be Washington's first beachhead in the new butcher movement because the website boasts that "we love to talk meat." The butcher who waited on us was not at all interested in talking meat with us. I had the impression we were an unwelcome interruption to his important work in the back cutting up teeny portions of tri-tip and sealing them in cellophane.
I was still hoping in spite of the unappealing nature of the store to establish a relationship in order to pre-order hard-to-find cuts for a Saturday morning pickup. This guy told us that tri-tip is too small to use for roasts (surely news to Molly Stevens, who devotes several pages to it in her roasting cookbook and to Andrea, who distinctly remembers tri-tip roasts in California) and that leg of lamb is preferable to lamb shoulder for stewing. Thanks, I can get all the leg of lamb I want at WF.
We're not buying much in the way of bakery goods these days, but we couldn't help but notice there was no bread at the bakery counter. Oh, we were told as were leaving at about 11, it will be coming out shortly. Lame, lame, lame.
Update: Regarding the meat we bought, mixed reviews. The Toulouse sausage, which we ate with pepper and onions, was quite nice, though the thin membrane burst during cooking. The pate de campagne was very good, too. The roast "beef," however, this Randall Lineback cut between veal and beef, had a funny off-taste, which may have been due to its being neither fish nor fowl, or to the skimpy bacon covering it, or to being wrapped without air in two layers of cellophane (for too long?). It was tender, but the taste was not good. Won't rush back.
Another disappointment. It is a small, precious store that looks like a dollhouse version of a real market with a tiny bakery stand, a tiny butcher counter and a cheese display so lame you wonder why they bother. Cheese and meat both are packaged up in cellophane in such small portions they seem designed for a dieting single person. There was a fair selection of meat cuts in these miniature, package portions and we brought a couple home.
The biggest disappointment was that the premium product -- and premium prices -- were not matched by premium service. I had hoped this might finally be Washington's first beachhead in the new butcher movement because the website boasts that "we love to talk meat." The butcher who waited on us was not at all interested in talking meat with us. I had the impression we were an unwelcome interruption to his important work in the back cutting up teeny portions of tri-tip and sealing them in cellophane.
I was still hoping in spite of the unappealing nature of the store to establish a relationship in order to pre-order hard-to-find cuts for a Saturday morning pickup. This guy told us that tri-tip is too small to use for roasts (surely news to Molly Stevens, who devotes several pages to it in her roasting cookbook and to Andrea, who distinctly remembers tri-tip roasts in California) and that leg of lamb is preferable to lamb shoulder for stewing. Thanks, I can get all the leg of lamb I want at WF.
We're not buying much in the way of bakery goods these days, but we couldn't help but notice there was no bread at the bakery counter. Oh, we were told as were leaving at about 11, it will be coming out shortly. Lame, lame, lame.
Update: Regarding the meat we bought, mixed reviews. The Toulouse sausage, which we ate with pepper and onions, was quite nice, though the thin membrane burst during cooking. The pate de campagne was very good, too. The roast "beef," however, this Randall Lineback cut between veal and beef, had a funny off-taste, which may have been due to its being neither fish nor fowl, or to the skimpy bacon covering it, or to being wrapped without air in two layers of cellophane (for too long?). It was tender, but the taste was not good. Won't rush back.
Ristorante Tosca
I'd heard for some time that the pre-theater menu at Tosca was one of the best restaurant deals in town and we finally got a chance to test it late last month when a group of us met for an early dinner before some went to a performance downtown.
It's true! For a prix fixe of $38 you get three full-sized courses of really excellent food. I had the carrot-flavored pappardelle with rabbit ragu for a starter and the braised veal cheeks with polenta for a main course, ending up with the warm chocolate cake. It was all delicious, but the real show-stopper was the truffle risotto one of our group ordered and we all tasted -- out of this world (no longer showing on the new October/November menu).
The decor is bland but sophisticated and our waiter -- who afterwards talked with us about his hometown of Dubrovnik -- was excellent. The wine list, predictably, was a little pricey, but we had an excellent Tuscan Sangiovese, 2009 Rosso di Montalcino "Casanova di Neri," that was moderately priced at $60.
I would not hesitate to return for this menu again (cut-off time is 6:30) and would grab the truffle risotto if it was available.
It's true! For a prix fixe of $38 you get three full-sized courses of really excellent food. I had the carrot-flavored pappardelle with rabbit ragu for a starter and the braised veal cheeks with polenta for a main course, ending up with the warm chocolate cake. It was all delicious, but the real show-stopper was the truffle risotto one of our group ordered and we all tasted -- out of this world (no longer showing on the new October/November menu).
The decor is bland but sophisticated and our waiter -- who afterwards talked with us about his hometown of Dubrovnik -- was excellent. The wine list, predictably, was a little pricey, but we had an excellent Tuscan Sangiovese, 2009 Rosso di Montalcino "Casanova di Neri," that was moderately priced at $60.
I would not hesitate to return for this menu again (cut-off time is 6:30) and would grab the truffle risotto if it was available.
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