To Repeat or Not Repeat

Have you ever been accuse of not repeating things? I think this is the particular woe of the true foodie. There are so many recipes to try and restaurants to visit. Even though I love many of them dearly, I have a tendency to forget about these favorites and instead blaze a new trail. So this blog is to some respects to help me remember the tremendous successes, so I can make sure to revisit them.

This past Monday was my husband's birthday, so I made reservations at a lovely French bistro called Le Pommier on the Carson Street in the Southside. To be honest, visiting this place had been on my mind since the Primanti Bros trip when I passed Le P's window and saw they were serving Thanksgiving Dinner. As we had just moved to Pittsburgh and knew practically no one in town, we had decided to eat out on Thanksgiving day. So I called Le P and was completely crushed to find out they didn't have any seatings left. So Le P was destined for a birthday celebration.

We arrived at 7 PM and realized that the restaurant was kind of quiet, we shouldn't have worried because by 8 PM the restaurant was humming nicely for a Monday evening. We hung our coats in the coat room and sat down near the window. It was chilly, but we both wanted to be able to see the people and traffic pass by. We both chose the $35 four course prix fixe but with different options along the way. We chose a new wine, a Chanin, something I had never tried before. It had a wonderful color and with a few minutes of exposure to air a nice full bodied flavor. I had the squash soup with creme fraiche and chives, a salad verte, cumin crusted bass, and nice little raspberry pot de creme. The crusting on the fish was perfect and even though it was heavy on the spices it had a nice clean fresh taste. He chose the pate, salad verte, roasted chicken with truffle risotto, and macadamia nut ice cream. The risotto was truffley and the chicken had a nice melt in your mouth quality. At the end of the meal, my husband declared that was the best roast chicken he had ever had and that we must come back. While I thought the fish and the pot de creme were perfectly prepared, neither were the best I had ever had and I am afraid the best chicken I have ever had still remains a little restaurant I don't remember the name in Rome. The salad verte could have used a bit more inspiration, but for $35 and four courses at least they made their budgetary cuts on the salad course. I am eager to try some of their regular menu items. So the verdict is that we will definitely be repeating this restaurant! Although we didn't know this when we went, Monday is a fantastic budget night to go because they have a BYOB night where they reduce their corkage fees!