Charlie Trotters
elayla and I went to Charlie Trotters for our anniversary last night. It was really nice. I had the most beautifully prepared fish I think I've ever had in my life. (Which is to say the technical preparation, not specifically the flavors, although those were good also.) It was moist and practically fell apart in my mouth while still managing to be cooked through. Seriously. Awesome. Had a great rabbit dish that used just about the whole animal, which was cool. There was loin, leg, liver and KIDNEY! Sweet. Although I was very slightly disappointed that the food didn't really have a wow factor (well, for me at least, I'm sure it would have had a wow factor for a lot of people.) What I mean is that the food was really good, but nothing was really surprising. Several other places we've been (Alinea, Tru, Trio, etc), the conversation has been almost exclusively about the food while we were there. Here the food was very good, but the conversation was about other things primarily. But there were a few 'extras' that we both really appreciated. The valet was free, they gave you bottled water automatically and the coffee and tea at the end of dinner was also free. I always think it's a bit odd when you've just spent more money than anyone has a right to on dinner, then they're asking you if you mind tap water or charge you extra for bottled. So that was definitely a nice touch here. Also they sent us home with a little box of cookies, which we haven't eaten yet.

But possibly the best part of the evening was the sommelier. We asked for help picking out a bottle and she was very engaging initially, then steered us toward a great bottle of Chenin Blanc that went beautifully with the food and was only $38 (which is even more impressive considering that when I scanned the wine list I didn't see any bottles under about $45.) She came back and talked to us about the wine a few times randomly through dinner and when our bottle ran out too late in the meal to merit a whole new bottle mentioned that the wine we had gotten was available by the glass. We ended up also getting three dessert wines between the two of us. They had a Tokaij on the menu, so elayla had to get that, then we asked the sommelier for two other suggestions. We got a Recioto di Soave, which we'd never heard of but the sommelier was very excited about and was very good - very very sweet and tasted strongly of ripe apricots, but still not at all cloying. The other was a Pedro Ximenez that was great and not even on the menu. It had this amazing hit-you-in-the-face taste of blueberries when drank alone that faded into the background when drank with food. Perhaps because we got the 3 different dessert wines, we ended up getting 4 different desserts between the two of us, all at the same time. It was a lot of fun tasting the wines with each dessert and seeing which paired best. Although I do kinda wish we had gotten a 4th wine. 3 of the desserts each paired beautifully with one of the wines. So I'm curious if a 4th glass would have complemented the last dessert.