Some of you may know, the better half of 4417 celebrated her birthday this weekend! Yes, we packed the long weekend with cleaning, gardening, shopping, lobsters, brunch, and bowling; more on that later. This post is about a birthday dinner, just the two of us at a restaurant we've been salivating over for a long time now. We've failed to get a reservation a few times now, so this time i made no mistake an planned two weeks in advance.
we like the light hearted, homey, family feel of the space
we started with the special, suckling pig rillette with a pickled mustard seed dressing. the arancini con stracciatella is a riceball served with arugula and carmalized onion.
house made pappardelle with ontario goat ragu
ontario rainbow trout with dandilion and pearl onions, and a N'djua & clams dish
i promise you, she's very happy and extremely full, but dessert is on its way!
i had the budino, which is a chocolate mousse/pudding with seat salt and a hazelnut merigue
may had the tiramisu. chef rocco's version is made with blood orange zest and prosecco.
Wow wow wow, what a celebration meal, it felt like it was my birthday too. Maybe it was because we had some truely well executed homestyle Roman food that we really connected with, but i think we both agree our server, Scott really added to our dining experience. He took the time to carefully explain each dish, and made suggestions on why we might want to choose certain dishes in combination with each other. He helped us pick out wines that suited our taste, and he gently convinced me that I probably couldn't finish all that i wanted to order, haha. The warm neighbourly service and cozy down to earth dining room was definitely refreshing as it contrasts the slightly tenser environment we've experienced at pizza libretto in the past (same owner).
The dishes were all very well thought out, relying on simple ideas and quality ingredients. There is clear presence of local ingredients in the menu, the fish dish reminded me why rainbow trout is probably one of the most forgotten and underrated proteins ontario has to offer. The obvious high note in our meal for me was the pappardelle as the pasta had the perfect chew only roman's know about and the goat ragu is braised to an almost silky texture without any gamey flavours. And birthday girl will now be suggesting we go to enoteca sociale every week for her favourite tiramisu, it was simply the best we've had.
Thank you for an amazing and memorable meal, and happy birthday may!
we like the light hearted, homey, family feel of the space
we started with the special, suckling pig rillette with a pickled mustard seed dressing. the arancini con stracciatella is a riceball served with arugula and carmalized onion.
house made pappardelle with ontario goat ragu
ontario rainbow trout with dandilion and pearl onions, and a N'djua & clams dish
i promise you, she's very happy and extremely full, but dessert is on its way!
i had the budino, which is a chocolate mousse/pudding with seat salt and a hazelnut merigue
may had the tiramisu. chef rocco's version is made with blood orange zest and prosecco.
Wow wow wow, what a celebration meal, it felt like it was my birthday too. Maybe it was because we had some truely well executed homestyle Roman food that we really connected with, but i think we both agree our server, Scott really added to our dining experience. He took the time to carefully explain each dish, and made suggestions on why we might want to choose certain dishes in combination with each other. He helped us pick out wines that suited our taste, and he gently convinced me that I probably couldn't finish all that i wanted to order, haha. The warm neighbourly service and cozy down to earth dining room was definitely refreshing as it contrasts the slightly tenser environment we've experienced at pizza libretto in the past (same owner).
The dishes were all very well thought out, relying on simple ideas and quality ingredients. There is clear presence of local ingredients in the menu, the fish dish reminded me why rainbow trout is probably one of the most forgotten and underrated proteins ontario has to offer. The obvious high note in our meal for me was the pappardelle as the pasta had the perfect chew only roman's know about and the goat ragu is braised to an almost silky texture without any gamey flavours. And birthday girl will now be suggesting we go to enoteca sociale every week for her favourite tiramisu, it was simply the best we've had.
Thank you for an amazing and memorable meal, and happy birthday may!
