Saturday, February 27, 2010

Domenica


Domenica
Originally uploaded by Noladishu
Ugh... Too... Much... Food...

We just got back from Domenica to celebrate Candice's birthday. Still drunk. Very, very good meal. Menu (PDF).

We got there early and had a sazerac at The Roosevelt's Sazerac Bar.

Moseyed on over to Domenica, which if I had to sum it all up is Italian food gone mad. It was pretty hot in the restaurant. Almost every guy had their coat off. We went through the wine list. The first page is wines by the glass, the middle is all wines by region, the end is the cocktails. The Meyer Lemonchello (sp?) looked interesting. We just got a bottle of Abruzzo wine.

We got a sampler plate of meat and cheese. Really, really good. Good head cheese and prosciutto. The duck prosciutto was the best. Very chewy, but the chewyness forced you to enjoy the goodness.

We next had pulverized cauliflower soup (Candice) and meatballs (me). Candice's meatballs are better, and I'm not just trying to score brownie points. There was too much sauce and the meatballs needed more bread and more browning.

The next course was Risotto for Candice (rice cooked in tons and tons of stock) and Gnocchi + guanchale brussel sprouts for me. Wonderful brussel sprouts. Filled up too much on the meatballs. Barely enough room to finish my sprouts and Gnocchi.

I finished off with some cappuccino (best I've ever had) while Candice attacked some fried strawberry. I was mostly as full as can be and couldn't take anymore.

The service was good, but not great. They were pretty packed, so I wouldn't hold it against them. The food was fantastic. I'm going to go and crawl on the couch and die happy now.

One little observation: with the sole exception being Galatoire's, I've never seen 100% of a restaurant's clientele drunk.

Take care.

2 comments:

Leigh C. said...

Nothing like having the Sazerac Bar in the same building as Domenica. And maybe it was 'cause when we were there, it was kinda early, but I don't recall everyone but the staff being drunk in there. Now I wanna go back...

Clay said...

We went there late. It was a lot of fun.

Who said the staff wasn't drunk? They were having a lot of fun and it wouldn't be surprised if they were participating, too. The service was a bit slow, but otherwise fine.

It wasn't that the meatballs were bad, they were just WRONG. Batalli had a joke in one of his books that, to an Italian, the only thing worse than an American screwing up a dish is the Italians from the next village over that do the dish COMPLETELY WRONG.