Piquante

I ate this meal about a month ago, and still when I see that broken Gruyere ball, oozing out all it's goopy salty fried goodness, I get all tender and runny inside.



That salad was marred only by a large slice of lemon, rind and all, that had been placed surreptitiously under a pile of greens and which I placed in its entirely into my mouth. I don't know about you, but I don't find chewing on lemon rind and pith to be an enjoyable experience. In fact, I felt a little annoyed that they'd placed in there so sneakily, as that particular bite was a real buzz kill. I had been busy savoring the bitter greens and the crispy ball of fried cheese, which was large enough for me to parcel out piece by piece, so that there was one cheese bite for each salad bite, just the way I like it. Then I spent 5 minutes hating lemons with my mouth watering to get the bitterness out. Yeah, I know, "wah." Just sayin'.

Here's the salad before I popped that yummy little cheese cherry. Heh.



My entree was braised shortribs (again with the lemon, jeez... a little goes a long ways guys) and softshell crab.


The veg was baby bok choi and early radish, some hybrid sprouted from our server's boyfriend's Aquinnah garden. My but those figs look nice, hmm?

The shortribs were the most delicious thing about this dinner, once I'd scraped away half of that lemon rind. Otherwordly tender, the way only shortribs can be, marbled with layers of fatty marvelousness. Marble-ousness, if you will.

My main complaint besides that god forsaken lemon was the barely suppressed snobbishness when I asked for a cocktail menu. My companion argued for the restaurant's side (yeah, thanks), saying if they want to be strictly a "wine place" they don't have to reach out to the cocktail drinkers of the world.

My argument that they already had a full bar, why not have a small list of specialty cocktails, which makes it easy and fun to choose a drink they might not otherwise be able to come up with. By not only not having such an offering, but treating even the question with veiled contempt shows to me a lack of the kind of customer-centered philosophy that would exist in the dream restaurant I'm running in my head where everyone loves to go because it is perfect. Snarf.

But seriously. I was ready to spend money on a $12 cocktail, but I wasn't about to come up with it myself. So I drank water instead. How does that work out for you, wine snob restauranteurs?