Devour Indy - Izzos

Hedonism number three was Iozzos Garden of Italy with my friend Dawn.  It was s drizzly evening and we had agreed to meet at the restaurant, no valet here, but it is really not needed, there is plenty of parking on the street and to the side.  We have dined here before.  I sort of forget how much I like it but Dawn always want to come back, and we do and I am reminded.   Dawn has a thing for their lobster ravioli and was about to be surprised.   She has asked for a back corner table and I was grateful as the only negative thing I can say about this charming family owned business is that in the winter when the door is open, it can get quite Breezy,.  They have put up a glass entry area, but it only really works if folks winter one at a time. The walls are exposed brick, the light fixtures beautiful variations of colored melted glass and the music classic crooner 50’s.   The table she had requested was cozy.  Dawn ordered a Scallop, red pepper, artichoke heart and goat cheese appetizer, and it was delicious.  The scallops are sautéed and seasoned so that they are fabulous as a mouthful of themselves or with all the rest spread and heaped on the accompanying toast.  They had $25.00 bottles of wine  which seemed the best option since we both wanted some and it was a nice Italian red, the waiter said we cant get anywhere else.  Part of me hope he lied, the other part of course dosent like to be “BSed”, but he was was a pleasant chap and  I would be happy to have him serve me again.  We both had the Caesar which is  good.  Our guy brought bread which is accompanied with what I THINK he called a tomato soppy,.   No matter what he called it, the dense warm bread dredged through this tomatoes and oil concoction is amazing, comforting, tasty and sinful.  I have little or no willpower over it.  Dawn’s ravioli  though has changed, they have a new ravioli  and a new sauce, gone is the creamy tomato sauce and now it wears a creamy lemon sauce.   Dawn liked it, while she did not really rhapsodize over it, she did eat it all and sop up the extra sauce with the aforementioned bread.  I had their steak with mashed potatoes and the vegetable of the day was roasted cauliflower.  My steak was  topped with a gorgonzola sauce ( thick but not stringy) and mushrooms in a Demi glaze sauce.  The mashed are masked, but with the Demi glaze, very nice and the cauliflower with a dusting of Parmesan was also good. 

 Coffee was delivered in a cute cone shaped glass cup, and was good.  Dessert was Spumoni,  tiramisu, or cannoli:  It was the cannoli for me and spumoni for Dawn, but they accidentally brought all three.   That said, neither of us indulged in the tiramisu as we were pleasantly stuffed.  A am ashamed to say this is the only pic I took, I was so busy delighting in each course that I totally forgot!

Devouring Indy - Vida

It’s Devour time and I am in the middle of living my relatively busy life and trying to Devour Indy.  Last night was Vida, a restaurant that has lovely mojo for me.  In its prior life it was an Italian restaurant  where I celebrated some of life’s milestones or just ate for pleasure with friends. The food was so good I even managed a work party there once.  But also it went the way of many of my beloved dining/eating establishments, poof .....gone...... Now the Cunningham group has created a whole new space with this old building, adding on , but leaving enough of the old for it to feel like home to me, but a redecorated one at that.  I was not really feeling it last night. I have had a crazy long week and did’t feel like I needed to be out and about, but I really enjoy spending time with my friend Laura so I decided to leave it up to my creator.  If I could get reservations at a reasonable time on a Thursday evening during Devour, then,  I’s suck it up and we could go.  Boy am I glad I did.  Of course I enjoyed the conversations with my dear friend,  that is  usually so, she is smart, has a wicked sense of humor ( in a nice way)  and we have a lot of things in common and we are able to have civil exploratory conversations on the topics that we do not have in common.   

The menu changes regularly and it was not available online as most are.  BUT it is usually so interesting and good that we took a chance.  First came an amuse  bouche it had a tiny bit of tuna in it, but it was so little and it did not offend (I am not a sushi girl at all)). It was mixed with some other goodies  and it did blossom in my mouth.  There were   four entree options: carrots, a green salad, tartare and Tuna.   We both chose the Carrots and it was a pretty good choice.   We have dined here several times now, and the only thing I have found here that I am not fond of is their tartare, it is too coarsly ground and too raw and bloody for me, in other words they don’t work hard enough at it, tartare should be raw of course, BUT, how it is prepared is what changes it into bliss, and unfortunately the tartare at Vida does not take me to Paris.  But last night was not about the Tartare, it was about the Carrots and they were amazing, roasted and the thing about Vida is that while there is full disclosure they have so much stuff on the plate that  it can be hard to figure it out in the moment, but you don’t care because they create this bunch of stuff that  pushed together on your fork becomes a mouthful of heaven.   Somehow there is just enough crunch, flavor, texture.......  

Hence our comfort at going without knowing what was on the menu.   Mains were: Sea Bass, Ribeye, Agnolotti, Scallops and Chicken.  Laura  had the Sea Bass and I chose the chicken and it too was amazing.  The chicken came with goat cheese gnocchi, chick peas and more carrots  with a beurre blanc sauce, and it too was  delish,.  The chick peas had a bit of a bite to them, but they were not the main part of the dish for me and  I would definitely  consider myself privileged to have it again.  The waiter conferred with the sommelier and brought a Tempranillo to go with my main and I thought it odd until I tasted it,  It was a perfect paring and a nice wine as well!  Dessert and coffee (extra) were even more amazing.  The only dessert option is their ricotta donut has with maple cream and bacon.  I swear this is the food of angels,  the doughnut are perfectly fried to lend a tiny crunch but are airy  inside, the maple cream is almost ethereal and with the bacon  it is the ying and yang of perfection.   

Coffee here too is  lovely, the coffee is exceptional and it is  served with a bit of fuss, it comes in its own  little pot, (almost like in Paris at Le Fleur en Isle!)  accompanied with coarse cubed sugar (also like Paris!) plenty of cream, and for those who have to have fake stuff all sorts of sweetener.  It was raining when we left, but who cared it we were so sated that we hardly noticed!