Velour

A basic lesson in bread and butter, according to me (if you've got something you feel the need to say about bread and butter, start your own blog):

1. The appearance of bread is most appreciated shortly after food has been ordered and menus taken away.

2. Unless bread is homemade the day of, bread should arrive at the table warm, whether they be rosemary rolls, breadsticks, corn muffins, french bread, focaccia or what have you.

3. Butter should be above the freezing point. Which is the main problem with the photo above, taken at 'Velour'. That was a lukewarm corn muffin with a shard of butter chipped off a little plate with an ice pick. I ripped my muffin to shreds trying to spread my butter shard. Lame.

And finally...

4. Don't serve raisin bread with hummus. For the love of Jebus, just don't. Your customers might eat it if they're hungry, but it will make them feel sad.

Nursing a grey goose dirty martini, I started with lobster and crispy leek spring rolls. They were ok. One saucy was soy-y, one was sweet and soury. They were crispy and warm enough. Nothing stood out in particular but I had no real complaints.

Now this Caesar salad, on the other hand, had a major, nearly unforgivable flaw. Can you guess?

Stale, MUTHA FATHER croutons! Can you imagine my horror? Don't even try. Make me barf, stale croutons. An ugly and awful crime against any salad.

My entree was excellent. Homemade pappardelle (in Italian, “to gobble up," or so says the internet. Which never lies), with had some sort of herb that colored the pasta a speckled green. With fat pink shrimp, cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts and seared sea scallops. It was pretty oily but really quite wonderful. I'd say the homemade-ness of the pasta is what did it. There was enough for leftovers, which were equally as delicious the next day.

Then there was dessert, which never had a chance of seeing another day.

Not a great picture, but they were hot cinnamon donut bites with a whipped cream-topped mocha ...mousse? It wasn't as light as a mousse, and to be honest it looked like a teacup filled with room temperature bacon fat, sort of tannish-brown and flecked with dark goopy spots. But omg...the warm, soft, sweet, moist donut bites melting on your tongue and then chased by a little spoonful of creamy espresso and chocolate sweet squishiness...heavenly!