12/16/09 Cafe Juanita

matt logged onto CJ's sample menu on monday and we immediately called for reservations on wed. there was a beef cheek risotto on the menu YUM! so we get there and sarah gives us the bad news, they don't have anymore! apparently chef holly likes to play with the sample menu and sometimes it's only accurate for a day :-( sigh. we might have to have a word with her LOL.

but hey, we're in 1 of our favorite restaurants. do you think we're going to walk out? of course not! DUH! so we gave lori a hard time that night instead. :-)

jason chose the Darby Cab Sauvignon for us. it was very tasty.

on the sample menu we saw a contorni (side dish) of cippolini onions agro-dolce. it wasn't on the menu except as small side plated with the main dish. we asked if the kitchen would do one up for us as a contorni or appy but we definitely wanted to have it as an appetizer. OMG it was so good! these wonderfully sweet onions in this agro-dolce (i had to google it) sauce. it was really heavy, as if it had been drowned in honey or mead.

this shrimp appy was new. and yum! alaskan spot prawns on shaved fennel and meyer lemon salad, salmoriglio (sauce). if you look close on the right-most critter you can still see some roe. they were covered in them!

i still couldn't bring myself to take the meat out of the shell. luckily matt was there or i'd have called lori over! LOL. i was able to pick 1 up by the tail and turn it over to look at the roe, but that was as far as i could get. afterwards they even brought us towels for after the prawns!

the soup was one we hadn't had yet, either. even though there was no beef cheek on the menu it was a night of new tastes for us, so i'm glad we went!  Borlotti beans maltagliati pasta and watercress pesto in parmigiano reggiano brodo.

our entrees were the same. as it turns out they did have pork of the day, and lori (and possibly sarah) convinced us, which probably was an easy task, that the kitchen really wanted to prepare the braised pork pappardelle for us instead of the other way which i forget now what preparation it actually was.

then dessert.

matt had the butternut squash bread pudding, pepitas toffee, persimmon squash compote and BUTTER gelato with pumpkinseed oil drizzle. can you say heart attack?!?  butter gelato? hhmm. next step wrap it in bacon and deep fry it!

i had the dark chocolate rosemary ganashe, pinenut praline crust and lemoncello foam. oh. and dark chocolate ribbon!

it was a great dinner. as it turned out i had most of my pork for lunch the next day so i was doubly happy we went! i must say, i still miss the barbaresco risotto. we finished everything up, including the coffee with raspberry(?) gummies. yes, they have an official culinary name, but i can't remember what it is.