Run, Lucy, Run

A Night Out

July 28th, 2008

Since we are going to be spending buckets of money on our house in the next few months (see category: Remodel Hell), we decide to pack Brian’s birthday (7/18), our 5th wedding anniversary (7/26) and my birthday (9/10-I’m going to be out of the country, so why not live it up now?) into one day of celebrating.  No gifts, which makes life so much easier, just dinner and a movie.

I started this celebration off with a 5 mile run in the morning, which felt less like celebrating and more like drilling a hole in my head with a dull pencil.  A truly miserable run, I’m hoping it was just the muggy weather.

After that, I assumed we would just hang out with Ashok until Brian’s mom arrived to babysit, but no, there was one more home improvement task to be tackled.  We are planning to put a few large trees in pots out in the backyard, since we have nowhere to plant (swimming pool=concrete) but have been struggling to find the perrrrfect large pots to put them.

Immediately after we took him out he said, “again!” even though he appeared to be completely confused as to why he was in there to begin with.  Anyway, that pot isn’t the one we bought but without providing too many boring details, we did finally settle on something.

Our real celebration began at 3:00 when we high-tailed it to a showing of The Dark Knight.   I liked the movie, it was definitely entertaining and intense but I have to say, the amount of violence was a little over the top.  It was particularly disturbing considering that the lady one row in front of us brought her young kids with her, they looked like they were about 10 and 7.  Nice.

Then, the part I was really excited about:  dinner at Osteria Mozza.  We came here for my sister’s 40th and had an incredible meal, so I was thrilled to go back.   This time around was no disappointment, we had an incredible meal and a fantastic server who recommended great wines. (If food talk bores you, you may want to stop reading here as I am about to give a grueling play by play of our whole meal, mostly so I can relive it and drool.)

Beverages: one thing I really enjoyed about their wine list was being able to order 250ml. servings of some of the wines, so we were able to try 3 different ones.  My favorite was the Sangiovese we had last-of course I was drunk by then, so who really knows.  Because I was a drunken idiot, I didn’t take note of any the names of the wines, so I can’t recount them here.

From the antipasti menu we had the Little Gem Lettuces with green beans, noci & pecorino.  The noci were actually just walnuts, but they were probably the most perfect walnuts I have ever seen.  And salty, which maked them even more perfect.  Then we ordered a few small plates from the Mozzarella Bar.  They were:

Bufala mozzarella with pesto, salsa romesco, tapenade & caperberry relish - a nice, big dollop of cheese with four spreads to choose from with crostini. I don’t know what a caperberry is but that relish was incredible.

Sheep’s milk ricotta, radicchio, spiced walnuts, honey & fried rosemary - probably my favorite part of the whole evening, the honey was unbelievably fresh and the combination of that with the spicy walnuts (more perfect walnuts!) was incredible.

Burrata with leeks vinaigrette & mustard breadcrumbs  - Burrata is a super-soft mozzarella made with cream.  The cheese was amazing, but the leeks were only ok.  Probably our least favorite thing of the night.

We are both great lovers of cheese, as you can tell.  But really, what’s not to like?

After that, I had the Maltagliati (a pappardelle type pasta) with wild boar ragu and Brian had the fresh gnocchi with tomato and basil.  They were both fantastic, the gnocchi were of the melt-in-your-mouth variety.  For dessert, we shared the Torta del Nonna with honey and pine nuts-more fresh honey and this time on cheescake!!- and a strawberry extravaganza that involved a berry sauce, crepes, gelato and sorbet, but honestly who knows?  I was pretty much delirious by this point.

Today, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck (probably a truck carrying cheese).   It was worth it, but I think I may just look at pictures of food for lunch today.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I need a sandwich.

Entry Filed under: Foodstuffs, Remodel Hell, Baby Madness, Running