monday night, revisited.

so by this time, i'm probably sober enough to recount our dinner from monday night at Vetri, a craig-laban-four-bell restaurant, and called by some "the best italian food in philadelphia." now, this is not spaghetti-and-meatballs, red gravy sicialian famers' fare that most people associate with italian food. this was unusual, creative food from all over italy.

we went with my parents, and two friends, who were treating us. one of them was italian, and i will say right here that he was highly, highly impressed.

we decided on ordering the chef's 5-course tasting menu, which must be ordered by everyone at the table. the sommelier, informed by the chef as to what would be on the menu, guided our host to an unusual white wine, and then a red to complement the meatier dishes. they had made their transition to their autumn menu, so the dishes were perhaps richer and earthier than could be entirely enjoyed on an 80 degree evening in september, but the food was still certainly excellent.

we started off with an "amuse-bouche" of warm beet salad with a lemon vinaigrette and mini arugula. then came ripe olives in oil, and brick-oven-baked bread.

the first course was "foie gras fantasia," which was foie gras done 3 different ways: seared over brioche, as a soup with corn mousse, and as "pastrami", smoked and pepper encrusted over another brioche. yum. foie gras is an acquired taste, but it's definitely one i've acquired ^_^

the second course was one i should have bowed out of early on when the waiter asked if there was anything on the menu that we didn't particularily want to eat. it was peach slices and porcini mushrooms in a chicken-broth-and-cream reduction. i don't like mushrooms. i just don't. they're musty, even porcini. everything else was good, though.

the pasta course consisted of 3 different pastas and a saffron-licorice risotto. by this time we'd switched to the red, which better accompanied chestnut linguine with wild boar ragu, spinach gnocchi with shaved romano, and sweet cow's-milk ravioli with crunchy basil leaves. it was all very good.

(do keep in mind this was the "tasting" menu...for instance, there were 6 ravioli total, one for each of us).

the main course was roasted baby goat. now, i've had goat before, but that was in the caribbean, in a pumpkin stew. a chunk of roast goat over polenta tastes a lot different than cubes of goat stewed in broth, pumpkin, and spices. it had also been smoked slightly, to mask its gamey taste, but it was still...gamey. and fatty. i ate about 1/3 of it, because by that time i was very full and mildly drunk as well (my father finished my portion). probably if i had been sober, and had had it a la carte, instead of as a 4th course, i would have enjoyed it a lot more.

the last course was, of course, dessert. like the pasta course, this was a mixture of different things: peach panna cotta (mmm!), fallen chocolate polenta souffle', intriguing butternut squash gnocchi in maple and cinnamon cream, and peach-huckleberry "cobbler" (more like crisp) with "double cream gelato." the gelato was more like eating sweet butter. it was all amazing. then assorted petit fours.

wow. just...amazing. really. definitely great food, creative, great service...the sommelier was fantastic. we won't be able to afford to go back probably for another 10 years, but i'm glad i had the experience at least once :)