Home @ 29 Nov 2007 01:06 pm by Christina Waters
Rancher Jim Dunlop, from TLC Ranch emailed me recently to let me know that the luscious, free-range pastured pork he raises is currently available on the menu at Avanti. And so it is. Lunching at Avanti last week with Simone and Jean-Paul, I sampled an outrageous ragu of TLC ranch pork shoulder - utterly succulent and delicious - spooned over creamy polenta. Truly to die for. . . . But that wasn’t the only cold weather comfort food I’ve had lately.
Last night Dee and I worked our way through a few dishes at La Posta and came up with a few winners. A soup of fresh porcini mushrooms was wonderful. I loved the crostini floating on top, spread with sage and mascarpone. Dee didn’t love that part. I also enjoyed the rare chance to have puntarelle salad - a bitter relative of chicory that is a staple of Roman cuisine - tossed in an intensely anchovy and garlic olive oil. The octopus appetizer, marinated in red wine vinegar with green olive, tiny potatoes and lots of fresh mint, has never been better. But a shared dish of rather gummy gnocchi underwhelmed us both.
The evening’s special dessert was a sensational, very tart, very bold pomegranate
sorbet, strewn prettily with scarlet pome seeds. Terrific. (Couldn’t photograph this beautiful dessert because it was dark - but here’s my quick and dirty illustration. Looks like a bleeding tomato….) Ditto the house walnut bread baked in the wood oven. We both fell in love with a Sardinian wine at La Posta. Cannonau (that’s the grape), Argiolas “Costera” 2005. Round and voluptuous, yet showing enough tannin to stand up to the rich menu. La Posta is across from the mighty Engfer Pizza - on Seabright.
OMG but those dishes at La Posta sound wonderful. I was there on Sunday for the Venetian dinner and loved the fare so much I came right home and blogged about it.
We had a friend visiting from San Francisco who’d said he needed to head home in the afternoon, but I persuaded him to stay through dinner. Midway through the risotto with squid ink, he looked at me and said: “If I ever again say I can’t stay at the beach through dinnertime, just say to me: ‘La Posta dinner; November 2007.’”