Impermanence. The idea of nothing lasting forever. Be it good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. Nothing lasts. It will always change. Well guess what did not last for me today? A very detailed blog post introducing a new restaurant and cheering a success. So let’s see what I can recapture. This time remembering to save in word and then copy into my website.
Over the past week, we visited i.e.(Italian Eatery) and I was given paramters for an outing and the people who used the suggestion were thrilled.
First the restaurant. Housed where Carbone’s (on Cedar, near Minnehaha Parkway) used to sit, it the recently opened ie. First impression is good, quite good. We had a reservation, seated on time. Food runner brought us crispy garbanzo beans (we were corrected by server calling them the Italian version ceci beans). Nice crunch and seasoning and clearly a new addition to the before dinner snack. We found out they bake before they fry the beans, which may be the reason they have not worked for me at home.
Wine list is nice, but pours are small for $7-$12 range. They did offer a $4-$7 taste option which seems silly to me given the fact they are making a hefty profit from the short pours they charge for a full glass. Most places offer a taste and I think ie should do the same.
Food. Really good. We started with the pan-fried yam ravioli. Lovely texture. Crisp on outside, smooth and creamy, though not heavy. Sweet and spicy. Nice arrangement of flavor drizzled with truffle oil as a lovely finishing tough. We had brussel sprouts as a vegetable side, which we were informed, is the most popular side. I liked the idea of Caesar sprouts, but what we received seemed to heavy and overdressed. Sprouts can stand so beautifully with so few ingredients. I think some tweaking is in order. We ordered the bucatini that was superb housemade pasta, cooked to perfection with a deep, delicious fennel sausage, smoked paprika, white wine and pecorino. Truly perfect pasta. We also ordered the Red Snapper, topped with a panzanella salad, truffle vinaigrette and the “of the moment” celery root puree. Fish was cooked perfectly and a really nice combination of textures and flavors. There was no bread service, which was a little surprising, but fine. Nice ambiance, volume could be a bit much for some folks, but we were a-okay with it. Really nice server. Will visit again and will suggest to others.
http://www.italianeatery.com
Suggested Burch to friends who were looking for a good Anniversary celebration spot with good drinks, food, and options for meat eaters, as well as vegetarians. Made my day to receive a text with them expressing how satisfied they were. One thing I noted was that they ate upstairs which to my knowledge limited the options for vegetarian options. Last we were they you could order from entire menu downstairs, but upstairs could only order off of the steak house menu. Still nice options, but more limited.
http://www.burchrestaurant.com/02