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French Toast

Mercato Restaurant & BYOB

La Viola

So I've been on this BYOB kick lately, more to come. It all started when my friend Jonathan and I went out for dinner after he worked and we decided to just wander and we walked by a place he'd been before called La Viola which he said was a good Italian BYOB. Then we proceeded to walk all the way back where we'd come from to pick up a bottle of wine. We decided on a cheap Riesling (made in Australia, don't remember anything else). The wine was sweet and the place was small and cute, maybe 8 tables or something like that. It was around 5:00pm so there weren't many other diners. All of the waiters had accents, ours was eastern european. I ordered the special which was a papardelle with veal, shrimp, and peas in a white sauce. The pasta was homemade and delicious ! Jonathan had chicken stuffed with ham, cheese, spinach, and peppers over a tomato based sauce with potatoes and cabbage. It was pretty good, but I liked mine better. Prices from 13-25ish depending on the meat you have. Definitely would go back here.

Horizons Finally

I went to Horizons for a friends birthday but I was on a tight schedule because of RA (resident assistant) duties. I've wanted to go to horizons for a long time and was sorry I couldn't really do it justice. We started off with foccacia dipped in herb oil, it was warm but a bit dry. I ate my entree while everyone else ate their appetizers. My friend Nicole had the bbq seitan over a smoked potato salad, topped with a celery branch and in a ras el hanout, not to be confused with satan. It was amazingly delicious, the consistency was of slow cooked pork but the taste more bland like chicken. The bbq flavor was very strong and the potatoes fresh and crisp. The drink her boyfriend has was adorable too, the Texas Tea. Her friends Matt and Luka had the heirloom salad which I didn't try but they ate it up so fast it must have been good. Her boyfriend had the chilled cucumber avocado soup which he said was interesting. I had the summer vegetable bouillabaisse(lobster mushrooms, saffron, white bean rouille' and olive bread crostini). I thought it would never fill me up but I was really full after eating it. I almost wish the sauce was more like a cream sauce, a little thicker though. It tasted great!

Swanky Bubbles 2

So the first time i went to Swanky Bubbles it was for restaurant week my sophomore year. This time it was for a friend's 21st birthday. It was a weeknight in the summer so we pretty much had the place to ourselves ! I ordered an ume shu sour (plum wine), veggie tempura, and tried my friend's sushi. The tempura was so yummy, i love tempura and its pretty hard to screw it up (unless your home cooking it with ingredients from a japanese grocery store and you can't read anything and your me). The sushi was mehh, they are pretty big on their sushi but i really wasn't impressed. The presentation of everything was nice though. I did try some of the risotto which was delicious, creamy, filling, and too much for the guy who ordered it to finish haha. I actually liked their restaurant week food better, so I don't think I would go again until they change their menu. I definitely need to come up with my own rating system, doing that soon...

solea

when i went to boston we went to this tapas place solea. i wrote about my trip on my other blog thevictoriousvp.tumblr.com. The tapas we had were tortilla espanola, arroz y habas, queso de cabra montanes, gambas al ajillo, vieras al azafran, chorizo a la plancha, ravioles de mariscos, palta reina, setas al ajillo, patatas bravas, camarao piri piri. My favorites were the patatas bravas which are potatoes with a spicy aioli, questo de cabra montanes which is baked goat cheese with tomato and basil (mmmm delicious i gotta try this one !). The ravioles de mariscos were creamy and definitely not dry as i find common in seafood ravioli. The arroz y habas are rice and beans, they had a lot more flavor and tasted different then the way my family cooks them. I love sharing food so tapas are great. For the desserts we shared filloa de dulce de leche which was a crepe with fresh berry and dulce de leche filling, super yum. The other dessert we tried was tarta de chocolate, i thought it was dry and too dense. other then the chocolate dessert dinner was great !