Recipes

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Restaurant Week Part 1

Good Morning Bloggies! It's such a gloomy rainy morning here in Boston :( At least yesterday was nice!

Brian and I began HOUSE HUNTING yesterday!! We saw 4 houses with a Realtor and today we are going to hit up a few open houses. This is just the beginning and we haven't really seen anything we like, but at least we have time.

Boston Restaurant Week is officially over now. I mentioned this before, but twice a year in March and August a LARGE number of Boston's best restaurants (along with surrounding communities) host a prix fix 3-course menu for $33.09/person for dinner, or a 2-course lunch for $20.09.

My first restaurant excursion was Wednesday, March 18th.

Mom and I had reservations at Sorellina in Boston's Back Bay.The decor of this place was very calming and relaxing. Lots of white fabric and soft lighting.
We were at a table for 2 which had 1 chair and then I sat in this long booth which had big comfy white pillows.

If you look at the website, our table was along that large lit up picture on the wall (the one with the trees). I had my back to it.Mom's contemplating what to order.

I'm not a big drinker, esp with my meals, and my mom is REALLY not a big drinker but LOVES margaritas. They had a Blood Orange Margarita on their cocktail menu so she asked if it could be split into two smaller glasses. Mmmm refreshing! But I would not have been able to drink a whole one.
That is a typical restaurant week menu. 3 choices for appetizer, 3 for entre, and 2 desserts. Some restaurants offer many more choices, but its up to the individual restaurant. However, I usually try to go to places offering more choices which you will see in my other reviews.

We were served a warm crispy loaf of ciabatta bread...mmm.We decided to share two appetizers.

The first was the:
Salumi - sopressatta, Pecorino Toscano, cherry peppers agro dolceThe sopressatta was delicious, as was the pecorino cheese...but for some reason I was expecting the cherry peppers agro DOLCE to be sweet, not hot. Nope. I was wrong. I took a bite...SPICY! Hahaha! Well I learned :)

Then there was the:
Insalata - mixed baby greens, Bartlett pears, dried cranberries,
chardonay vinagrette.
This was also delicious. I LOVE dried cranberries on a nice salad like that. Then there was that big piece of homemade herb flat bread served with it.

For my main course I ordered the:
Salmon - Pan Roasted, mostarda glaze, seasonal vegetable assaggioA nice perfectly cooked piece of salmon with a sweet mustard glaze. The veggies were AWESOME, not sure exactly what they were but there was definitely some fennel involved and other crunch type sliced veggies that were kind of pickled...mmm. The salmon was good, nothing amazing though. My mom had duck and THAT was awesome.

The biggest "bummer" moment was with dessert, not that it wasn't great, but their initial menu online had a "Warm carrot torta with caramelo"...I so had plans to order that. Alas the menu was different when we arrived :(

We both got the:
Crema - semi sweet chocolate, pistachio biscotti, whipped cream
I mean you really can't go wrong with a chocolate mousse type dessert, and this was heavenly. I couldn't finish it though...it was rich!

Overall this was a great meal, we had great service, and I loved the atmosphere. However, a couple next to us was ordering off the regular menu and some of their dishes just looked way better...so I really want to go back and order off the regular menu. I know they are famous for their Kobe beef meatballs!

It was a great dinner with mom, she loves when I get her into the city during the week for a nice dinner out (and she pays too...BONUS!!) :)

Stay tuned for Restaurant Week parts 2 and 3!