Restaurants: May 2003 Archives
I have just discovered that there's a traditional, lowbrow Swede lurking
inside me. When presented with a tempting buffet of adventurous uses of
herring, I decide my favorite is the pickled herring, followed closely by
herring in mustard and a potato dumpling.
I have just discovered that there's a traditional, lowbrow Swede lurking
inside me. When presented with a tempting buffet of adventurous uses of
herring, I decide my favorite is the pickled herring, followed closely by
herring in mustard and a potato dumpling.
Todd and I went to Otto last night. Tuesday, 6:30, and we didn't have to wait, although when we were leaving we noticed quite a few people waiting. Fortunately, it has a big, nice waiting area with tall tables where you can stand and sip your drink (maybe even order a snack?).
They've placed a lot of the tables for two in a corridor area near the kitchen, though, and that's where we ended up. (I looked around, and most of the other areas of the restaurant only had tables for four or more.) Not great seats, but not as bad as it sounds.
We ordered antipasti: cauliflower ($4), spicy artichoke hearts ($4) and swordfish ($8). They came out on a tray in these little tan crocks with spoons and a wax-paper packet of bread. The cauliflower with capers and artichokes with almonds were good but a little too similar to each other; the chunks of swordfish were my favorite, in this wonderfully fruity olive oil and with sweet, sweet fried fennel.
The pizza, which was the pizza of the day, a meatball and mozzarella one with tomato sauce ($13), was kinda boring. Cute, with tiny little meatballs and a flat, flat crust that was too soggy in the center to eat out of hand. I think the type of crust they use is probably better with the less-traditional toppings. I saw an asparagus pizza I might like to try if I can get Todd to go back.
We saw some interesting things go by; the gnocchi of the day was big strips of fried pizza dough, and I wanted to try a celery root and citrus salad.
The best part of the meal was the gelato ($7); I had ricotta gelato with wine-poached figs and candied walnuts and Todd had two kinds, butterscotch with crunchy toffe and pistacio (we could have shared, it was so rich, but then I wouldn't get the kind I wanted).
I wonder if it'd be OK to skip the pizza next time we go, and load up on the salads and antipasti?
Todd and I went to Otto last night. Tuesday, 6:30, and we didn't have to wait, although when we were leaving we noticed quite a few people waiting. Fortunately, it has a big, nice waiting area with tall tables where you can stand and sip your drink (maybe even order a snack?).
They've placed a lot of the tables for two in a corridor area near the kitchen, though, and that's where we ended up. (I looked around, and most of the other areas of the restaurant only had tables for four or more.) Not great seats, but not as bad as it sounds.
We ordered antipasti: cauliflower ($4), spicy artichoke hearts ($4) and swordfish ($8). They came out on a tray in these little tan crocks with spoons and a wax-paper packet of bread. The cauliflower with capers and artichokes with almonds were good but a little too similar to each other; the chunks of swordfish were my favorite, in this wonderfully fruity olive oil and with sweet, sweet fried fennel.
The pizza, which was the pizza of the day, a meatball and mozzarella one with tomato sauce ($13), was kinda boring. Cute, with tiny little meatballs and a flat, flat crust that was too soggy in the center to eat out of hand. I think the type of crust they use is probably better with the less-traditional toppings. I saw an asparagus pizza I might like to try if I can get Todd to go back.
We saw some interesting things go by; the gnocchi of the day was big strips of fried pizza dough, and I wanted to try a celery root and citrus salad.
The best part of the meal was the gelato ($7); I had ricotta gelato with wine-poached figs and candied walnuts and Todd had two kinds, butterscotch with crunchy toffe and pistacio (we could have shared, it was so rich, but then I wouldn't get the kind I wanted).
I wonder if it'd be OK to skip the pizza next time we go, and load up on the salads and antipasti?
Todd took a picture of the carnage after we finished eating my berry crumble. It actually looks like an accident scene or something, but it was posted on Lala Land under the Comfort Food theme.
I've been sick with a bad cold lately, so I haven't been cooking much that's interesting. In fact, I practically slept through the last four days. Then when I came into work today, a coworker made a mug of her famous ginger tea for me. The tea's cloudy with what I think must be some form of ginger has some kind of citrus, but it's sweet, with the strongest ginger flavor that clears you right up. If I can get the recipe from her I'll put it up here.
I was stunned when I came to my site and discovered I'm going on a week without writing anything. I really have been very lazy about cooking lately. Here are a couple of things I did make that didn't seem to suffer too much from the shortcuts I took. First there was a quick chicken parm from Martha Stewart's new Everyday Food magazine. I'm finding that I turn to that magazine a lot when it's dinnertime; the recipes are all written so concisely and they're in this cute little booklet so they tend to come across as very accessible. Whether they're good is sort of another matter, but I did like the chicken (Todd and I both gave a curried shrimp recipe the thumbs down, though). We bought cutlets, so it was simply a matter of dredging them in beaten egg then bread crumbs (purchased, yes, so sorry--I was sick) seasoned with a lot of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Panfried for a couple minutes on each side, then slid into a pan with a layer of marinara on the bottom. Topped with fresh mozzarella and put them under the broiler for just shy of 5 minutes. Ate the leftovers today on a roll.
Also had a berry crumble that was just a bag of frozen mixed berries (unsweetened from Trader Joe's) with a crumb topping of oats, brown sugar, walnuts, butter and flour. Todd put his superb skills to use cutting the butter into the mixture (his breakfast specialty is lighter-than-air drop biscuits). Then we spooned the hot berries over vanilla ice cream. I was elated (it may have been the cold medicine, but the crumble was good, too).
