Gorgefest 2005

This weekend was "The Weekend of Food." I feel as though I ate non-stop, and all of it was of fantastic quality.

The gorging began Friday evening when E cooked a nice dinner of roasted garlic pasta for me. The pasta was flush with the aromatic flavors of garlic, a big plus for me since I {heart} garlic ever so much that I even find myself contemplating putting a bit of it on absurd things like ice cream. With a bit of shredded parmesan cheese and some red pepper flakes, this was a delectable dish, and couched between a nice side of steamed broccoli and bagettes crusted with a homemade brushchetta that I'd made earlier in the day (I was not too bowled over by THIS unfortunately). The evening was topped off with some rich ooey gooey brownies for dessert around midnight.

Saturday night, we'd finally made reservations to eat at a fancy Tremont restaurant like we'd been planning way back in February. We settled on Fahrenheit because, unlike all the other Tremont restaurants, it had more than one vegetarian entree to choose from.

Dinner started off with avocado and french brie bruschetta. It was good, though not knock-your-socks-off impressive, mostly because I could have easily made this at home: Toast a baguette, slice a nice ripe slice of avocado and place it on top, slice a bit of warm brie and place that on top of the avocado, and drizzle some sort of creamy garlic honey viniagrette over both and garnish with a few ripe cherry tomatoes. However, when they brought out the free bread- goods, that's when I started to get a bit more impressed with the quality of the food. The bread was the sweetest, most crumbly good bread I've had in a while. It was so good that I felt like one of Pavlov's dogs while eating it. This was served with some kind of herby butter and an olive/olive oil dip, but it most certainly didn't need anything spread across it to be appreciated.

The bread festivities were followed by the salads. After a bit of thought, I'd settled on the Bing Cherry salad. I'm not a fan of cherries, mind you, but it sounded so good that I figured I could just pick the cherries off if they weren't doing anything for me. What I didn't realize was that when they said "cherry salad," they meant cherry salad. The bulk of the salad consisted of cherries with a sweet balsamic dressing drizzled over them and some blue cheese nestled in the little cherry-curves. There WERE a tiny bit of greens, sticking out of a toasted bagette like tail feathers on a peacock, but the majority of the salad consisted of cherries. I was leery at first, but the cherries were FANTASTIC, especially when coupled with the sweet viniagrette and blue cheese. I was definitely pleased with my choice. I also tried a nibble of E's salad which I'd made fun of him for ordering (simply because it was the most average of salad's listed) but I deserved a swift kick in the ass for the teasing as the viniagrette dressing was out of this world--I don't think I've ever tasted a dressing as yummy.

For our entrees, we settled on two pizzas that we'd decided to split with one another. E got the Meditteranean pizza which consisted of pesto, tomatoes, kalamata olives, and red onions. I got the Portobello 'za which was topped with portobellos, caramelized onions, goat cheese, and rosemary. Both were fantastic, but I preferred mine out of the two. And they both were just as good when reheated in the oven for dinner on Sunday. I felt a bit lame sitting at a fancy restaurant with our table decked out with... er... pizzas of all things. Fancy restaurants really need to start working on their veggie friendliness so us veggie-heads don't end up looking so lame (*Note to Patrick for when he starts his own food-slinging business). But it was definitely worth it since their pizzas were moreso a delicacy than something slung into a quickly-driven car and arriving at your door half-cold.

After some tasty conversation--I haven't had good dinner convo like this in quite some time--and after our bellies were wobbly with food, we settled on desserts. I had gone to the restaurant with my heart set on the chocolate tart that was on their on-line menu and was a bit disappointed when I realized that it wasn't on their regular menu for some reason. So I moaned and groaned a bit with disappointment while E settled on the chocolate cake that had bumped the tart off the menu. I settled on one of their specials for the evening, a mango-tapioca tart. Both were cute as buttons when they arrived--E's cake was circular and drizzled in even MORE chocolate. Mine was like a sunrise, speckled with brilliant yellow-oranges, a sweet sauce dripped on top of the plate that looked like a rising sun. And both were delicious ways to end the evening. Mine was sweet, light, and refreshing, and E's was rich and chocolatey. We were both pleased.

The bill came out to about $70. This is the most I've ever spent on a two-person meal. I was happy that E was the first one to pop my cherry in expensive dining, and it was a good place to do some bing cherry-popping at.

The food didn't stop here, however. Sunday, we dodged the torrential downpours and ventured over to the Taste of Tremont around 3:00. The streets were jampacked with people, and we spent a good 20 minutes roaming around and gazing with drooling mouths at all the food stands. As soon as I saw the Sokolowski's stand, I knew I was getting pierogies. I'd heard rave reviews about them, and given that I'd probably never drag my ass over to the actual restaurant just for pierogies (despite it being about a 30 second walk from my house), I'd figure now was a good chance to try them. E and I ordered a dozen of them for $7. These were also melt in your mouth fantastic. I've never had a pierogie that's come even in the vicinity of tastiness to these pierogies. They were draped and oozing with delicious butter and onions and peppers, and they were full of homemade goodness. I topped this off with a chocolate-covered frozen banana afterwards (which always reminds me of going to the zoo when I was little)--a perfect way to bust the final button on my pants and end the weekend gorge-fest.

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