Chez Ma Cousine

Some things we learned about Geneva during our layover:

1. Restaurants can be expensive. When we researched places in Geneva, a lot of them were pricey and several seemed more formal than we could handle on a layover. I also read somewhere that Geneva is one of the most expensive cities. Is that true?

2. A lot of places in Geneva are closed on Sundays. Walking around some streets near the lake, they were incredibly quiet because everything was closed. Although we had one or two places on our list that appeared to be open on Sunday from their websites, we started to think nothing might be open.

3. Geneva has some steep hills. We were following the GPS on my blackberry to try to locate the chicken place on our list, and had no idea that the slightly curvy road went straight uphill.


Luckily, it was the correct road, it led to the restaurant we were looking for and the restaurant was open on a Sunday!

4. Order the special at Chez Ma Cousine. Everyone else does.


It seemed like everyone there was eating this same special (or some other form of chicken). It's clearly what they're known for but we got two different dishes so we could try more during our one "real" meal in Geneva. (We did get the special - more on that later.)

5. In many places in Europe, alcohol costs the same as a glass of water.


A got a beer (we think the Kronenbourg 1664) and I got a glass of white wine. Didn't cost much more than water!

6. Goat cheese salads are good. (To be fair, we already knew this.)


We got the salade de chevre chaud (warm goat cheese salad). It consisted of lettuce, tomato, egg, pan fried goat cheese and chives. There were also croutons, which were not listed, and a delicious mustard-type dressing. This was a good dish for a travel day - it wasn't too heavy, but still had plenty of flavor, and the ingredients all seemed very fresh.

7. The rotisserie chicken special at Chez Ma Cousine is a good everyday meal. It was basic but well-done, healthy and satisfying. It's the type of meal we could see ourselves going for on a regular basis if we lived near one of the branches of the restaurant.

The special came with a salad:


While mostly greens, the salad had the same dressing as the goat cheese salad, which we thought was very tasty.

It also came with potatoes:


And the rotisserie chicken:


Yum.

After lunch, we strolled around Geneva some more, and then went back to the airport where we... ate more food. Someday, we'll actually get up to the "Aegean" part of this Aegean Honeymoon series...

Taki Sushi

I like spicy sushi rolls. So, when stuck at the office last night, it sounded like a good choice for delivery. I ordered from a place near the office, Taki Sushi, which, despite how close it is, I have never been to or ordered from before. It was fine but I don't think I'll be replacing the usual sushi places that I order from in my "rotation."

I started out with some shumai:


It was fine, but I've definitely had better shumai. It reminded me of those big bags of shumai that you can buy at the Asian grocery store and reheat later. Maybe it was...

The roll combo I got came with a choice of miso soup or salad. I'm dumb, as I should have gotten soup because of my sore throat, but instead I got the salad:


I like the salads at Japanese restaurants (even when they consist of only lettuce) because I love the dressing, which is usually a carrot ginger dressing (or something similar). There was something about this dressing that tasted unusual and a little funny (not in a rotten sense, but in a weird sense). It was kind of sweet and citrus, but simultaneously tasted like it was trying to be the usual carrot ginger dressing. Not sure what was up with that but I didn't really want more than a few bites. If it was supposed to be just an orange salad dressing, then I guess it would be fine, but I am not a big fan of fruit-flavored salad dressings, which would explain the dislike.

The roll combo came with 3 different rolls. From left to right, they were spicy tuna, spicy salmon and spicy California rolls:


The spicy tuna and spicy salmon both tasted like just mashed up fish plus spicy mayo. The California roll was your standard California roll with the spicy mayo drizzled on top. I think the biggest problem with each roll was that the flavor was mostly just spicy mayo instead of having a flavor of its own. I really like spicy tuna rolls but I wouldn't put this in my top 10 list. They were fine but nothing I'll be craving anytime soon.

(I know recently there have been plenty of posts where food was fine but nothing special. I promise that I'm not just hating on everything. There has been food that was good recently - like the polenta at Schnitzel & Things if I ever get around to writing about it or the Katchkie turkey sandwich that I had the same day as the sushi - so it's not like everything has sucked or my taste buds are malfunctioning.)

If you're in midtown NYC, what's your go-to sushi place for delivery?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

When the August custard calendar came out, our "priority" flavors were strawberry shackcake (Thursday) and blueberry coffee cake (Saturday). (Caramelized peach, fromage blanc raspberry swirl and basil would ordinarily be interesting, but we're fairly sure we have had them all before, even if we didn't blog about them (yet).) As it happens, the first flavor we tried for August was chocolate peanut butter fudge (Friday).

The August custard calendar - what would you pick first?
We were looking forward to chocolate peanut butter fudge because it should be a good combination of flavors. I was thinking it would be like a Reese's peanut butter cup, and after a long day at the office, that would be a nice treat. This is also a combination that A gets when we go to Coldstone, so he was thinking it would be fairly similar.


It was ok, but nothing special. It definitely tasted like chocolate. I thought it had peanut butter flavor too, but A didn't think it was very strong and he had hoped for more (especially since Coldstone's has more peanut butter flavor). Not sure where the fudge comes in, but it just tasted like chocolate. It wasn't bad but not worth getting again, in our opinion.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge
A's rating: 5.5/10
M's rating: 5.5/10

Babbo: First Course

M started writing our culinary journey at Babbo here. As mentioned, we got the pasta tasting menu with wine accompaniment. Our first course was one of my favorites.

Black Tagliatelle with Peas and Castelmagno
Even though the pasta had a cream sauce, it was very light. The fresh peas were so flavorful, and they added a very fresh and clean flavor to the dish. I had never tasted actual fresh peas before, but if they all taste like this then I definitely need to eat more. For lack of a better description, they were just so full of clean, pea flavor. Being avid fans of Top Chef, M and I both now understood why fresh pea puree could make a dish so delicious.

The paired wine was the Controguerra "Ciafre" Illuminati 2007. It was very clean, crisp, and had hints of fruit. The crispness of the wine helped contribute to the lightness of the dish.

The Trouble With Fries

I didn't always love fries. For a period of my adult life, maybe about 5 years, I didn't really eat fries. I made special exceptions for seasoned fries or curly fries, but otherwise, I never ate them. I didn't feel like I was missing anything. They were kind of unnecessary. After all, I could just have onion rings!

My turkey burger with a lot of fries
Fast forward to the present day and fries seem to be everywhere, and there are even more places that have good fries. But it's starting to get to me. They're such an easy sabotage food for trying to get into shape!

Tonight I ordered from Connolly's because they were close to the office and had a fast delivery estimate. I wanted to eat while working and then run to the gym before they closed. I got the Aztec turkey burger (not so bad), with cheese (not so good), tomato salsa (good), guacamole (not great but not bad). It was supposed to come with lettuce and tomato (as you can see, they are not pictured, since they forgot to include them), pickle (fine but not crispy like I like them) and fries (and look at all the fries). The problem with the fries is that they were unexceptional. I shouldn't have eaten them but they were there and I have no self-discipline. I made it to the gym but the workout, while fine, didn't feel great in the end because I still feel overloaded by greasy mediocre fries. There was nothing wrong with the fries, but nothing great about them either.

(And on the "Aztec" turkey burger - it was fine but not really very "Aztec" which makes me think spicy and flavorful. It just tasted like a guacamole turkey cheeseburger.)

So, in an effort to get back into a better lifestyle, I'm cracking down on fries again. I'm not cutting them out altogether but I don't need these ordinary diner or pub or fast food fries. Between seasoned fries, curly fries, waffle fries, sweet potato fries, Shake Shack and Five Guys, and Dutch/Belgian-style frites, I think I'll have more than enough options for good fries without needing to resort to "generic" fries that are nothing but inches added to my waistline. And if I decide on any particular day that I really want fries, then so be it. There's no point in getting fixated on something to eat and then thinking about it non-stop so that you eat more of it. But I will be making more of an effort to not eat regular fries. It's not worth feeling like this later.

Gazpacho Sandwich

I found myself at Hale and Hearty today picking up a late lunch and went for my usual soup-(half) sandwich combo. The gazpacho sandwich sounded interesting and I had never had it before, so I went with that. I thought it would be a good match for my soup.

Looking it up later, I found out it was the new monthly special sandwich! (I also forgot it was the first of the month...) I really liked it so I hope it sticks around for a bit.


The "gazpacho sandwich" consists of "fresh mozzarella, plum tomatoes, cucumber, roasted red peppers, red onions, fresh basil leaves, fresh mint leaves, olive oil and vinegar on a seven grain roll." It was the perfect summer sandwich. Light and refreshing, but still tasty.

I paired it with a chicken barley soup which was also quite tasty:


New soup, new sandwich, both good. Will have to go back at least once this month to make sure I can get another gazpacho sandwich!

Free Gruyère

One of the things we really loved about our long layover in Geneva was relaxing by the lake and taking in the city. We watched the marathon and the marathon "cheering" groups, looked at the boats on the lake and enjoyed using the free city wifi. (Why can't we have that?) At one point, we noticed a large crowd of people and went to investigate.

Lots of people were grabbing small samples of cheese that this man was chopping:


So we got some too.


We later realized he was also cutting up blocks of cheese that people were buying. I guess these were samples to try to entice you to buy Gruyère.

It seemed like there was a big Gruyère festival as there was also a band there...


... playing the theme song from "The Rock." (Love that movie, but no idea what it has to do with Gruyère.)

Around the back of the exhibition, more promotions for Gruyère:


And in the cooler, more free samples that they gave away to passersby:


We were super excited to get free Gruyère! If you're not familiar, Gruyère is a Swiss hard yellow cheese, and because of controlled origin, it can only be made in Switzerland. The samples were as good as any Gruyère we've had, or even better, since it didn't have to travel far. Authentic Swiss cheese for our day trip to Switzerland!

Katchkie Farm's Awesome Sandwich

I don't think we have ever introduced you to one of our favorite sandwiches: the turkey and cheese sandwich from Katchkie Farm.

The sandwiches come in all different shapes and sizes
Katchkie Farm shows up at various greenmarkets with items for sale (like produce or jars of pickles or sauces) as well as ready-made meals (sandwiches, cold soups, pickles, beet chips). A few years ago, I happened upon their booth at the Rockefeller Center Greenmarket, got both the vegetable and turkey sandwiches over the next few weeks, and haven't been able to get the turkey sandwiches out of my head since then. Unfortunately, the RC Greenmarket is only around for a month each summer, but Katchkie started going to Port Authority on Thursdays for their mini-greenmarket, so whenever I'm lucky enough to have time to walk at lunch, I can venture over there year-round. Being at Port Authority also means that A was able to try their sandwich, which he also really likes, so now we both can enjoy it!

So what's in this awesome sandwich?

I want another sandwich just looking at the photo...
Turkey, cheddar cheese, greens from the farm, caramelized onions and bread made by Bread Alone. You have to try it. One of my favorite turkey sandwiches ever. It's really the ingredients that make the sandwich, as the combination of turkey, cheese and onions isn't exactly revolutionary. Their ingredients are just that good!

Migros

I love how European airports have full supermarkets and not just newsstands with snacks. While in Geneva, we spent some time sightseeing at Migros. A few photo highlights:

variety of pizzas

vegetable combinations made easy - wish we had these

tarte flambee - a special place in our hearts because of db bistro, so we love tarte flambee

not just food but cute stuffed animals for souvenirs too

the sour gummy candy we bought
There was a surprising lack of gummy candy in Geneva and I noticed there was no Haribo (my favorite brand) in the stores we visited. We tried the Bizzl mix here which was some sour fruit-flavored gummy candy, but it wasn't that sour or that fruit-flavored. It was fine, but not Haribo.

Do you know of any US airports with full grocery stores inside? I don't think I've ever seen one!

Aux Bonnes Choses

We arrived in Geneva and one of the first things we did was grab a snack. We checked out a few places and decided on Aux Bonnes Choses (which I think means "good things" in French). It was located in the railway station that was connected to the airport and had various snacks and pastries (croissants, quiches, sandwiches) that all looked good.

We picked up a peach iced tea, which in Europe, tastes sweet just like gummy peach candy:


For snack, we split a tomato mozzarella focaccia sandwich. I thought they were going to give it to us cold, but they put it on a panini grill before serving it, so we got a warm and toasty grilled sandwich:


It wasn't a very thick sandwich, as you can see from this side view, but it was tasty:


The sandwich tasted rich and buttery (probably from the bread). It tasted like it was lined with a pesto before the tomato and mozzarella were added. Once melted together, it all tasted really good. With a snack in our bellies, we investigated more of the airport before heading out to explore the city!

EWR to GVA

We started our honeymoon journey on a cramped overnight flight from Newark to Geneva. As we mentioned before, we weren't sure how good the food would be on the flight so we got a snack from Smashburger before leaving. That turned out to be a good idea because the food was mediocre.

A and I got different entrees (there were two choices). But otherwise, both dinners were the same. They each came with a salad:


As you can see, it's a rather boring salad. Mostly iceberg lettuce, with some tomato, cucumber and carrots. The only thing that made it less bland was the dressing. But the only dressing option was an unhealthy caesar dressing. Neither of us really thought too highly of the salad.

The meal also came with a cold boring dinner roll and a package of milano cookies. A likes milano cookies, so I gave mine to him.


A's entree was chicken with tomato sauce and green beans over rice. It wasn't too bad. Relatively healthy and way better than mine. At least it had flavor.


My entree was not very good at all. I got spaghetti thinking it would be a safe option. It shouldn't be that difficult to make a good pasta (or at least a decent one). I also figured that, since the meals were probably sitting for some time, pasta might be a better choice since the chicken could easily dry out. I was so wrong.


The dish was flavorless. There wasn't much tomato sauce at all and what was there didn't have very much flavor. It felt like eating just for the sake of eating, without enjoying the actual food. The meatballs were dry and didn't add much flavor either. How can meatballs have no flavor?! I ate the whole thing because I was hungry for dinner but it was so bland.

Throughout the entire dinner, I just kept thinking about how our last flights had much better food. The last time we left NYC for Europe, it was on KLM and we had this fantastic and healthy chicken curry meal. I was not impressed by Continental's dinner. A had a better meal, but was still not that impressed.

If I was not impressed by dinner, I was even less impressed by breakfast.


Breakfast consisted of a croissant, some canteloupe and honeydew, and a little packet of strawberry jam. Not healthy at all! We already have such a reputation in the US for eating complete crap, and the airlines can't even serve a healthy container of yogurt? (That's what we had on KLM last time.) It was mid-May and the height of allergy season, so I couldn't eat the melons either. All I ate was the strawberry jam. Woohoo, that's a great breakfast. Although A didn't have as many issues with it as I did, he still thought it was nothing special.

This flight, combined with the next 4 flights on non-US airlines, confirmed what we had already been thinking about flights. The food on the non-US flights is so much better. Lesson learned!

Cafe 45

It was 103 degrees when I went for lunch today. Too hot to trek too far for lunch, but I still took a walk around the block before stopping at Cafe 45, a new midtown deli that opened this week. (For those unfamiliar with what these generic delis are, they're those "one-stop" places you can go for lunch to pick up sandwiches, paninis, salads, soups. Many are owned by Asian people and have Asian food counters like udon, etc. They usually also have a hot/cold bar.)

I think the balloon people are cute
I don't usually go to the generic delis because they're not that exciting, but a 50% off grand opening special will draw me in. I got a salad (always craving those in hot weather), which is $6.95 for the small size.

The giant spinach leaf blocks everything else
For the base price, you get the greens, 1 item from group A (meats), 1 item from group B (nuts) and 3 items from group C (your regular vegetables). I don't put nuts in salad so I was able to switch it for 1 from group A and 4 from group C. Group C is cheaper so they were better off anyway.

I got a spinach salad with spicy chicken, chickpeas, onions, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. It was fine. Nothing special, but good for a hot day like today (and for under $4, even better!). I did like that the vegetables all seemed very fresh, especially the onions. Some of the generic salad counters have veggies that are just OK.

Cafe 45 also has some Asian options like bibimbap. Maybe I'll try that next time.

Cafe 45 is on 45th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues (closer to 5th).

Coolhaus

When word that LA-based truck Coolhaus was bringing its ice cream sandwich slinging ways to NYC, there was definite excitement within the food enthusiast (M and I don't like the term "foodie") community. This truck was especially exciting for me as I love ice cream. It could be 30 degrees below 0 and I would still go out and eat ice cream. In fact, I think I may have done that in the past...

Anyway, months have since passed since their trucks started hitting the NYC pavement, and many glowing reviews have been written. M and I had still not had a chance to locate and consume their delectable frozen treats, though. My coworker R and I had made a previous attempt when they were parked right down the street from our office, but when we got there the truck seemed to be having issues, and no one was serving.

This time, we got much luckier. R and I made the trek over to Bryant Park in search of an afternoon snack. We approached the beautiful pink, slanted-topped truck with excitement as there was only one person in line reading the menu. I opted for the special of the day: peanut butter cookies with bananas foster ice cream.

Coolhaus Truck

Ice Cream Sandwich

The sandwiches are by no means small. Two cookies roughly 3.5 inches in diameter sandwich a giant glob of ice cream between them. It all comes with a piece of edible paper surrounding them so you can eat the drippings that are caught. Oh, and there will be drippings. These sandwiches get pretty messy.

Luckily, R has started buying into my blogging so he offered to take a picture of me eating the sandwich. I happily accepted.

Cramming my face

That initial bite into the sandwich wasn't the best. I was expecting a softer set of cookies since my idea of a peanut butter cookie is soft and chewy, but these were a little on the harder side. Added to my mistake was that I took a pretty big bite. Walking in near 90 degree heat and then taking a huge bite into ice cold ice cream really didn't feel good on my mouth. Flavor-wise, it was amazing. Feeling-wise, my teeth froze in ways that I never knew they could.

After the initial pain subsided, I started to think about the flavors I had swirling in my mouth. The cookies, even though they were harder than my normal preference, had all of the wonderful peanut butter flavor you would want. The ice cream was subtle in its flavor, but you could definitely taste the banana as well as the caramel undertones you would expect out of bananas foster. Overall it was an amazing sandwich. Perhaps the one benefit of the cookies being slightly hard is that they kept squishing ice cream out the sides whenever I took a bite so it slowed down my eating. That allowed me to savor the sandwich for longer as R lamented that he had eaten his too quickly.

I really hope to visit Coolhaus again, and next time I'm hoping M can come as well since I know this is something she would enjoy.

Around the World

The original idea behind this food blog, and the impetus for us to start, came during the 2010 Men's World Cup. We had made the plan to attempt to eat at a restaurant in NYC representing every country participating in the tournament. It was a daunting task and one we knew that we had virtually no chance of completing, but it certainly gave us a reason to start chronicling our eating adventures. In the end, we were able to eat 17 out of the 32 countries.

As the World Cup ended, we realized that we couldn't just make this an every 4 years type of blog, that wouldn't work. We had always planned at some point to start an exploration of the world's food. After all, two things we both enjoy are eating and traveling. In the end we opted to try and eat food from a restaurant representing every country.

Originally, we were going to do this alphabetically by country. But, thinking about it further, it seemed like that could be difficult to do sometimes. Some restaurants specialize in regional cuisine or the cuisine of more than one neighboring country. Do we count that for country A or country B? Can we go there more than once if it's the only place? What if we get stuck on someplace like Kiribati or Nauru? (That could still happen with the way we're going to do it, but at least we get to face this all at once.) Doing a "walk" around the world seemed like a better idea.

So that's what we're going to do. A walk around the world. The only "rule" for a restaurant to qualify is that it has to be outside the country it represents. (For example, we went to a Cypriot place in Santorini, Greece, so that would count.) Old visits don't count. We have to go to each place at the time it comes up in our "walk." And we'll go to as many restaurants per country/region as it takes to explore the region, instead of just crossing it off our list. We're also not going to do this exclusively. We still plan to eat at all types of restaurants, just make a special effort once in a while to tackle this walk around the world. This could take us a very, very long time. We're ready.

We're going to start with our neighbors to the north - Canada. It's harder than you think trying to find Canadian places other than Tim Horton's (but we still may go for some timbits). Then we'll go through Central America, the Caribbean, South America, the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Middle East, Europe and then, finally, Africa. We'll tag all the posts with WorldEats so join us in our journey!

Salted Caramel

The Friday custard flavor of the month is salted caramel.


We tried it tonight but were both underwhelmed. I'm not a huge fan of caramel to begin with, but thought I might like this because a couple of weeks ago I tried Pinkberry's salted caramel yogurt and liked it. I think the problem here was that there was a lot of caramel and no salted flavor. All you could taste was caramel. Although he likes caramel more, A was also a little disappointed by it because it was just caramel and not salted caramel. If you like just caramel, you might like it more.

(Ending this post now because I don't think I've written the word "caramel" so much in my life.)

Salted Caramel
A's rating: 5.5/10
M's rating: 4/10

Flying Elephants

We just returned this morning from a long weekend in Portland, Oregon. (Now we have another trip to write about... although this one is shorter and had more home cooking, so hopefully it will be quicker to blog.)

We flew out of PDX, Portland International Airport, which has, in previous years, been voted one of the nation's best airports. It really has a lot going for it - clean, eco-friendly, free wifi, retailers (including food outlets) have to charge the same prices they do outside the airport, no lines to check in, no lines for security, quick moving TSA screening, spacious and not very crowded. After the misery that is the JFK JetBlue terminal, PDX airport (like the non-humid air in Portland) was just so refreshing.

Before we left PDX, I made a pit stop for some soup at Flying Elephants Delicatessen (the airport version of Elephants Deli, with several locations in Portland). I wasn't feeling too well after several cases of motion sickness over the weekend (sigh, minivans and traffic) and needed something to calm my stomach. I was originally going to get Wendy's nuggets but this was the healthier choice.


The deli had a lot of options, including selected items (not mine) for 50% off, since it was the end of the day. There was a sandwich of turkey and Tillamook cheddar (Oregon-based) that looked really good, but I was more queasy than hungry, and a sandwich would have been too much.

They had 4 different kinds of soup - a summer corn chowder (sounded delicious, but wanted to avoid bacon and cream before a flight), a chicken soup (same thing, also had cream), the soup I got (more later) and a fourth soup that I can't remember.


I got the summer vegetable soup, which consisted of carrots, celery, turnips, potatoes, fennel, white wine, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, lima beans and fresh basil. It sounded so healthy and looked great. The soup came in 2 sizes. I got the large and it was $4.50. It came with bread, but that was nothing special (would have preferred the saltines that came with the small size).


Tomatoes probably should be listed as the first ingredient since the soup is predominantly tomatoes. All the vegetables tasted so fresh and tomato soup is soothing, so this was the perfect pre-flight snack for me. PDX has a lot of options that look good, but I would recommend Flying Elephants if you're looking for soup, sandwiches or salads.

Happy Birthday Shake Shack

This past weekend, one year ago, was a big weekend. The long-awaited Shake Shack Theatre District finally opened (after many days of me walking by and checking on status) and the World Cup ended, officially marking an end to our eating challenge. What a great summer.

To celebrate Shake Shack TD's first birthday, they had some specials at our local Shake Shack - a deli dog topped with pastrami (that I guess we had before but only A remembered that) and birthday cake concrete (which I had once before in November and loved). We were waiting for a sofa to be delivered at home so I went out to see if I could bring Shake Shack home to commemorate the occasion.

It was packed and the line was down the block. After all, it was a Sunday in the summer. C-line (the line for cold food only) was the way to go.


The birthday cake concrete consists of custard plus cake. The one I had last November had vanilla custard with chocolate cake, marshmallow sauce and rainbow sprinkles. This one was a little different, but I'm looking at this picture now and realizing they never asked me vanilla or chocolate for the custard. They seemed a little overloaded (more on that coming up).


This custard didn't have chocolate cake but it was like they mixed in a real birthday cake with the icing and everything. The green icing with the custard was probably my favorite part.


But do you notice anything off with this picture? Maybe something that says that they were rushing through the orders and didn't care as much?

We love Shake Shack, but where is the rest of the concrete? That concrete isn't even close to full. I thought maybe I just forgot how much they fill it up but I went back to look at photos of old concretes. While the fill level varies from concrete to concrete, they all had more than this. How disappointing, especially when birthday cake concrete is my favorite of them all. Unfortunately since I got it to-go, I didn't notice until I was picking up lunch elsewhere and almost home.

In any event, happy birthday Shake Shack! If you see this, can we please get another half concrete to make up for this empty one?

Babbo: The Beginning

New York City has so many amazing restaurants. There are so many that we still haven't been to and that we want to visit, and before tonight, Babbo was on that list. Babbo is Mario Batali's (very) popular restaurant in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park. It's one of those places that is in such demand that you often have to call a month in advance to get a weekend reservation. We had a gift card from A's brother and his wife from Christmas, so we called up a month before our engage-a-versary* and claimed a spot.

* We celebrate multiple anniversaries a year. Even though we're married, why should we stop celebrating other special occasions that we've celebrated throughout the years, like our dating anniversary and our engagement anniversary? It's always better to make time for happy things (in my opinion) so we continue to celebrate all the anniversaries.


The townhouse where Babbo is located was apparently formerly a restaurant called The Coach House, as signs in their bathrooms (at least the ladies room, not sure if it's in the men's room since they don't have a bowl of lemons either) tell guests. Considering I love looking at old ads, I enjoyed seeing the ads for dinner starting at $3.75 and about giant lamb chops, and newspaper reviews describing $2.50 complete dinners.

The dinner started a little oddly as the person seating us said he would seat us on the ground floor so that he could "see" us. It was a little strange. We weren't even sure what that meant. I was also a little sad because the lighting upstairs looked so much better for pictures. But other than that (which wasn't bad, just odd), the service was great. They were attentive but not smothering, which is the perfect amount.

We decided to order the pasta tasting menu with wine pairings. To extend the experience even further, and so that we actually end up posting something about Babbo instead of never finding the time, we're going to post about the tasting course by course.

The meal started with the amuse bouche - Babbo's signature chickpea bruschetta.


The chickpeas were mixed in an olive tapenade. The bread was perfect - not too soft or soggy and not too hard to bite in half. We love chickpeas so this was a great start to the meal.

Coming up: the pasta parade begins!