Dinners out: Spice Street and Four Eleven West

I had some fantastic meals this weekend. It started off with a quick dinner at Spice Street after working wine tasting at A Southern Season. I had seared scallops over saffron rice with peas, red beans, and other goodies in it. This is the first time I've recognized what saffron actually tastes like, and I loved the savory richness it brought to the whole dish. I've been really impressed with that restaurant the two times I've been there...

Saturday night Katy and I went to Four Eleven West for some Italian food. They've always been good, but the dishes we had that night were outstanding. The starter was an artichoke dip served cold with thin, crisp pita wedges. The pita was on the edge between bread and cracker, and it had the wonderful, slightly ashy crispness that comes from a really hot wood oven -- similar to pizza crust in Rome. The icecream scoop of dip looked like industrial chicken salad, but it tasted more like a Caesar dressing, with that little bite the really good ones have. We tried to figure out what was in it, and we know artichoke, mayonasise, dill, and Parmesean; and possibly sour cream, lemon juice, garlic, and anchovy. I'm not sure what else, but I'll try to recreate it some time.

My entree was black pepper angle hair (pepper in the pasta dough), covered in a dill cream sauce with more black pepper, and topped with a mostly raw slab of smoked salmon (cold). Killer good. I'm too lazy to make pasta and don't have access to that kind of salmon, but I'd definitely go back for that dish!

Sunday brought a tarte Tatin and homemade vanilla ice cream, but that's another post...