madbaker | A birthday dinner... OF PORTENT!

bonacorsi and I made reservations for Friday evening at Sociale, a "local" Italian trattoria-type place. The dinner was scheduled for 6:30.

About 4:45, we got a call. The restaurant apologized; due to an unspecified "kitchen emergency", they weren't opening that evening. They offered us a credit for a future reservation. But still - finding a new reservation at 5 PM on a Friday? Eek!

After a bit of work with OpenTable we got a 6:15 reservation at Rubicon. A bit pricier than we had wanted to pay, but what the heck. We got changed into nice dining clothes (I wore the pinstripe suit and navy fedora; I needed a violin case to complete the outfit).

Then the taxi didn't show up. We called again and eventually it got there. It was a grumpy old man who complained about not being able to find our address. We don't care - we just want our ride. He also took a less-than-efficient route to the restaurant. Very small tip for him.

Rubicon, by contrast, was lovely. They deserve their Michelin star. After an amuse-bouche of foie gras and another of clear squash soup, we had:
Sashimi of yellowtail with quinoa
Potato and dried Friarelli pepper Agnolotti in a lemon broth
Pancetta-wrapped bass (I want to try making this one!)
Gnocchi with Rabbit sausage
Lamb with a kale ragout
lemon-buttermilk sherbet and vanilla poached quince
cocoa nib crepes.

None of the dishes were huge; we did not roll out of there, but the quantity was sufficient. And I made a point of asking which vegetables came from our CSA supplier.

Now I'm hungry.