after dinner sneeze

t says:  Friday night rolled around and g and I lacked plans.  It was time for date-night!  But where to go – where to go?  It was cold outside and we didn’t want to be bothered with a cab … so we instituted “dz Dining Requirements” – I’m coining the phrase right here, right now.  As we scanned the list of neighborhood restaurants, we found one that fulfilled criteria numbers 1 through 4: FridaySaturdaySunday.  And even though it was right around the block, we had never gone!  And why not?  I think it’s because every time we go online to check the menu, we get turned off by the silly pic and slogan on the website.  We decided that tonight was the night to put that behind us.

10/2011, Friday Dinner, Party of 2.  We walked in to a very very bizarre atmosphere.  It had these mirrors all over the place, a chalkboard illuminated by blacklight, and weird murals (and I’m sure there were some other weird things there that escape my memory).  We didn’t know if it was intentionally bizarre or if someone thought it was “cool”.  Be that as it may, we took our seat, pulled out our bottle of wine (that’s right – NO corkage at FriSatSun – even though they sell alcohol!  Buzinga! … and we’ve had it twice before – we like it a LOT), and got ready to eat.   Bring on the food:

"Poached" asparagus

g ordered the aspargus appetizer.  g liked it a lot, but I felt that the asparagus could have used a few more seconds poaching.  I preferred the tomato-caper vinigarette which had a sourt-sweet-salt which was quite nice.  I found myself eating it on the table bread (which, by the way, is delicious – crusty outside, soft inside).  Overall, though, I felt like the dish was too much summer, and not really fall … which was the next dish:

butternut squash ravioli

A sucker for pasta, I of course picked out the ravioli.  It smelled like a wonderful mix of hearty fall flavors – seeds, nuts, squash.  Unfortunately, I found the dish to be quite mediocre.  The ravioli’s dough was a bit dry/sticky and there wasn’t a whole lot of filling (but the little that was there was pretty good – a creamy butternut flavor) and the sauce was a little bland (I actually can’t remember what it was supposed to taste like … so I guess that makes it very bland).  On the flip side, nothing tasted bad – it was just … too “subtle” for my taste.  For example, when I think of butternut squash and pasta – I think of a mouthful of flavor more along the line of this risotto that we make.

salmon with rice and swiss chard

The grilled salmon and lemon creme fraiche was similarly mediocre.  I take that back.  The fish was cooked superbly – a beautiful texture.  So … they mastered the hardest part of the dish (the fish cookery) … but missed out in other areas.  The fish could have used more seasoning (salt, pepper, and maybe an herb or two), and the creme fraiche was on the weak side.  The rice … straight-up bland.  It boggled my mind – why would someone let this dish out of the kitchen?  Then I got the answer: the Swiss chard.  Mmmmmm.  It made everything better.  It brought in a salmon-worthy accompaniment and sang with our wine (the rice, on the other hand, was beyond repair).  Was the resultant flavor worth a full 20-something-dollars?  No.  But, it was a sizable piece of fish that was cooked well – so I’d go as high as $19 (it is fish, after all …).

g's crabcake

I don’t have much to say about g’s crabcake because I only had one taste.  From what I gather, the cake, itself, was a nice consistency and rich (g couldn’t imagine having to eat the two-cake “large” plate), but lacked oomph (noticing a pattern here?).  BUT – the jicama slaw and mustardy sauce swooped in to the rescue.  Tada!  All better!  g liked the dish just fine – and I liked the flavor combos more than those in my salmon.  I think I’d like my crabcake a little more “crabby” (i.e. more obviously composed of crab – less filling), but, given the richness and accompanying flavors (and the size), I’d pay $19 for this dish, too … and that’s exactly how much it was!  Woohoo!

After such sizable plates of food, g and I were both kind of full.  As we stared at our wine, we realized that we still had a glass or two left.  We obviously had to stick around for dessert, right?  Having the larger sweet tooth, I was the one that had to decide our dessert fate.  Molten chocolate cake was on the eerily-glowing blackboard (the blacklight, remember?).  I figured why not?  Plus, if we really finished the bottle of wine, then the dessert’s taste wouldn’t matter so much …

molten chocolate cake ... with whipped cream

This dessert was awesome.  I’ll say my one quibble with it up front so I can go on gushing about it afterwards: yea, it could have been served warmer.  There.  Done.  Now let’s talk about how delicious it was.  The crusty outside gave way to moist cake and a thick, sweet, chocolate that you could eat with a fork (I hate it when it’s too liquid-y).  I was about to say, “you know, this might be too sweet” but just put a forkful covered in some of the whipped cream … shazam!  That was it!  The whipped cream [to me] tasted unsweetened and it added a perfect balance and beautiful additional texture to the cake.  Was it a simple “molten chocolate cake and whipped cream”?  Sure.  But it was a delicious, delicious guilty pleasure.

In summary, I’d say that FridaySaturdaySunday did a “good” job.  Sure, nothing was particularly novel,but at least now I know that every bite should have a mix all of the components of the plate.  Add on the reasonable portion size and that the excellence of the dessert and bread.  Add on the fact that they’re BYO and have a bar. Add on the dzDD compliance.  Voila.  You have a restaurant that I’d be ok with going back to again in the future (maybe with dz?).  Of course, I’d order something different (except the dessert … that’s staying the same) – but at least I’d come back!