Russet |
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1521 Spruce Street
Within minutes, sesame-seed crusted rolls and butter arrive in a basket with a wait-person anxious to open your bottles of wine. A first taste of the creamery butter on the warm wheat bran bread portends a brilliantly farm-fresh flash. Appetizers are not to be missed. Begin with; 1)“warm pig’s head terrine, $8"; 2) “salami toscano, $10”; 3) “carrot sformato, $9"; or 4) “beet ravioli. $11". Many order from the appetizers’ side of the small brown menu, for all courses. 2.) Salami Toscano is eaten as if it were served at a grape pickers’ picnic in Tuscany, where chili oil is used with abandon. Cabernet Sauvignon tastes like Muscatel after burning up your tongue in a pyre of sweltering salami. Too hot for me, and I was graciously asked if it could be replaced with carrot sformato. 3.) A brick of golden rustic carrot orange appears bound by 25 year old balsamic and a bunch of headdress watercress. The pungent Nasturtium melds with the balsamic to caress the carrot mélange on all its rectangular sides, so that when a forkful touches your lips, you pucker before you insert between them. These carrots seem to have been picked within the hour, and finessed into a superb root vegetable flan. 4.)The best of all is beet ravioli. Imagine a ravioli skin infused with just-squeezed real ruby beet juice, and then packed with hazelnuts and ricotta to be sprinkled with parmigiano-reggiano cheeses. The reddened ravioli are silken, glistening, deeply flavorful mixtures of freshest farm ingredients. I’ve not devoured better in Provençal, Nice or Rome. Groans will travel abroad from your appreciative larynx. “2nd” on the menu are Entrées including “lancaster bison rib chop, $37.” I did not order it because I had seen its huge formation on another diner’s plate, and it resembled a haunch of boldly sauced carcass. “It tastes like venison,” said our waitperson, seeing me eye it. I thought it best not to shuffle off to buffalo, but I could be wrong.
This halibut spurts butter as you pierce it. It flakes upon the slightest motion of your knife as if it were smoked sable. Each layer is thick and moist, melting in anxiety in mid-air before you can garner its flesh. Your eyes glaze over and your head spins as you press tongue to cheek, attempting to stop a premature swallow. Try just about everything served with ramps, rhubarb, finn potatoes, zucchini, garlic mustards, baby broccoli, garden radishes, baby chard and asparagus. All are parlayed on your platter from Pennsylvania farmers on the date of delivery. The sound decibels at Russet make for thankless attempts at conversation. Best to go in two’s and sit close to each other. You’ll be exclaiming about the quality of your repast PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS |
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Copyright 2012 Richard Max Bockol, Esq. | Back |