alles Gute zum Geburtstag manfriend!

In celebration of Eric's bday, we went to dinner last night.  Lucky for you, I just barely remembered to take pics of all our food!! 

We decided to go to Rioja since I had a gift certificate and neither of us had been before.  We had reservations for 7:00 but on Monday, we would make them or not so we cancelled them.  We then figured since it was a Tuesday, there wouldn't be a wait or that many people so we didn't re-make a reservation but we were wrong.  We arrived at 6:00 and asked if they had a table.  All that was available was the Chef's Table, which is just a bar, and a small 2 person table by the bar.  We decided we'd sit at the actual bar and wait for their next open reservation which was 8:00.  For a while, we toyed with the idea of going somewhere else for a change in scenery but 2 hours, 4 pieces of bread, and 4 drinks later, there we sat....still at the bar.  

We were finally seated a little after 8:00, quickly ordered another round of drinks and perused the menu.  We decided to split an appetizer and salad along with our entrees.  Here is how our dinner panned out: 

 Appetizer: Fritto Misto-crispy calamari and baby artichokes, marinated castelvetrano olive-fava beans, piquillo peppers, Valbreso feta crema

 They had several breads but these were the two I munched on at the bar and at dinner:

Rosemary Sourdough
Onion Mustard

Eric tried the rosemary/goat cheese biscuit as well which is the house specialty.  I tasted it and it wasn't too bad since I generally dislike goat cheese.  The cheese flavor only really came out towards the end, before swallowing.




I thought their presentation of salt and pepper was interesting just because they were in mini bowls.  The salt was pink sea salt.  

 We split the Rioja House Salad next which was made up of:

baby arugula
Medjool dates (NOT figs)
gorgonzola
toasted almond vinaigrette.

Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of this dish because of the gorgonzola.  I was hoping it was in bigger pieces on top or to the side but they had tossed the whole salad together and for me personally, the gorgonzola was just too overpowering.  Luckily, Eric liked it so it was ok

This was my entree.  I don't remember what it was called but it was the special of the day.  It's made up of:

crab meat wrapped with cucumber and topped with radishes
crab meat raviolis
asparagus
mushrooms of some sort
fried crispy capers
lemon butter sauce

I think this dish needed a little more "heaviness" to it such as more cream, some white wine, or maybe some parmesan.  The lemon flavor was a little overpowering for me.  However, it did work very well when as a bread sauce :)  It was a little heavy on the asparagus which I don't usually eat but in the process of ordering food, it slipped my mine what was actually in this dish.  Overall, it was good though.  Eric seemed to be a fan.

Further away view but you can get the gist of it.  Eric ordered the  smoked pork tenderloin with spring risotto.  This consisted of:

carnaroli rice with English peas
pea mascarpone mousse
sugar snap pea-nasturtium salad
lemon yuzu vinaigrette

I can say that this was the most perfectly cooked pork tenderloin that I have ever had.  I usually dislike pork since it's always cooked well done and tastes incredibly bland.  This, on the other hand, was cooked medium and very tender.  It was incredibly smokey though, which I wasn't a huge fan of.  I have to wonder if it was due to my dish being so light and lemony though.  The risotto was a little crunchy for me but the flavor was good and Eric pointed out the peas were a nice touch and I agree.  This was definitely an entree that worked well together as a complete bite.

 We realized after the entrees that it was inching 10:15.  Valet closed at 11:00 and we had been at this one restaurant since 6:00.  However, in the greatness of birthdays, we had to have dessert!! What better way to do this than to get it to go :)

The dessert was chose was the Chocolate Caramel Napoleon.  This consisted of:

layers of chocolate caramel ganache

vanilla Bavarian creme

peanut butter flour less cake

chocolate corbet

peanut butter caramel

It was a great end to a delicious, fun-filled evening.  The sorbet was a perfect consistency, having not melted in the car ride home.  The peanut butter flourless cake was a perfect touch of peanut butter with dark chocolate.  I think a touch of sea salt would have made this dessert a little more delicious but I was definitely not complaining.  

The entire night was great.  The company was the best and the food paired it well.  I think we would both love to go back again and try different things.  

Hopefully, Eric enjoyed his birthday just as much as I did! :)