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Oct. 30th, 2011
Unfortunately this excellent little neighbourhood trattoria does not (yet) have a website, but pretty much the first page of hits in Google will be for this one (and not the ones in Preston or Bogota) and include contact details.
The cuisine is Sardinian, and I think we may justly apply the word 'robust' to the general style.
The food is delicious and the portions enormous (partner failed to finish what was merely the starter-size portion of one of their pasta dishes for fear of being completely unable to tackle the main course, and neither of us manage to get through our platefuls of slow-cooked rabbit with barley and fresh artichokes*).
Besides the aforementioned tasty bunny, I had a starter of bruschetta ai ricci, i.e. with sea urchins (yes, I realise this was perhaps just a tad cannibalistic). I was at first just slightly thrown by the garnish of baby spinach leaves with what appeared to be sweet chilli sauce, but in fact this went very well with the pungency of the innards of sea urchins. There was also a basket of olive and herb foccaccia-type bread, though one of the reviews I looked at leads me to believe that this may be a distinctive Sardinian riff on the general principle.
In spite of our fullness, we managed to find room for their yummy zabaglione frozen dessert.
The wine list is largely, as one might suppose, Sardinian (and nothing wrong with that).
The service is warm and enthusiastic.
There was a complimentary glass of a rather medicinal tasting digestif.
Clearly the buzz has been spreading far and wide on this one. We were not at all sure that it was a place where one needs to book, but although it seemed a little sparsely inhabited when we turned up, it soon filled up and indeed one hopeful couple without a reservation were turned away.
*They did offer us doggy-bags, which we declined.
Saturday breakfast rolls: brown grated apple with toasted pinenuts, since I'd discovered a package of pre-toasted pinenuts in one of the kitchen drawers. This worked rather well.
Today's lunch: pheasant potroasted with bacon in brandy and madeira (but couldn't find any celery in Waitrose yesterday), served with baby new potatoes parboiled and then sauted in olive oil and splashed with red wine vinegar just before serving, tenderstem broccoli steamed with fennel seeds, and sugar snap peas stirfried with star anise.
This week's bread: using as a basis Greenstein's 100% wholewheat loaf recipe, made it up with approx 2:1 wholemeal spelt and white spelt flour. Crust sprung slightly in baking (it was a bit sluggish in proving, which I put down to my having no fresh yeast, only dried which is probably a bit past its best).