Sorry for my several week long hiatus! I took a hint from this lady and decided it was a good time to step out and smell the roses (REAL roses, not ones on other peoples blogs or cute felt ones on Etsy). She is a blogger who I lovingly follow and she says:
"Does anyone else bore of the endless blogger/twitter/flickr cycle? Don't you want to just, oh I don't know, chuck the macbook out the window and take a walk around the block?"
What an idea! Anyway, I am back! It's an icy Saturday morning and sitting on this blue couch with my blog feels juuuuust right. There are so many things to catch up on but I think I'll stick to just a few...As promised a review of the Thomas Street Bistro as discussed here.
WELL, my mom and I made the trip here on a Friday night. We made reservations because I heard that this place is really tiny and fills up quite fast on weekends, as it definitely did. We got there at about 6:45 and were promptly seated by the owner (who is also the only host/busser/server and apparently also helps with cooking). I ordered the bolognese, as I always like to try this dish wherever it is offered. I am on the hunt for my favorite and right now (and I can't see this really ever changing) it is here. My mom ordered the Poulet Poupon, a grilled chicken breast served with a dijon sauce, side of linguini and sauteed vegetables. For wine, I ordered a glass of the house red and my mom, a glass of the house white. The house wines were the only glass pours offered and the menu didn't say exactly the type of wine we would be getting which indicated to me that it must be ever-changing. Adam (the owner/everything man) brought us our wine and told me that I would be drinking a Malbec (very tasty!) and didn't tell us the specifics of my mom's white. She seemed to enjoy it though!...and she was DD so that one glass better have been good! Soup comes with dinner. We enjoyed a yellow lentil soup. It was perfectly seasoned and even tasted like it had a little curry powder in there. We were next presented with little crackers with hummus and tomato. While they were perhaps not Top Chef material, they tasted nice. And finally, our entrees!! My bolognese (or bolognaise as those silly French spell it) was quite traditional except for the large pieces of bell pepper and zucchini in the mix. Zucchini is perhaps my favorite vegetable so I loved this little touch. The dish was perfectly seasoned and while perhaps a tiny bit dry, quite good. My moms dish was pretty self explanatory. Also well seasoned, nicely cooked and included zucchini! While both were good they lacked a sort of "wow factor" that I find in some of my favorite European restaurants, a sort of refinement that makes a meal in a restaurant somehow different from one cooked at home. The meal was topped off with some Tiramisu. It was the perfect balance of rum, cream and espresso which is, for me, kind of hard to find. My favorite is here.
The ambience? The people were great and the attitude of the place, very simply, felt like home. Two musicians playing jazz on guitars were seated in the corner. We were seated next to a little old Greek lady named Dora and her friend Karen. Dora sweetly insisted on filling my glass from her bottle of Malbec every time it was near empty. Really, you have no heart if you write a rant on Yelp about this place. While I can't put my finger on why the food isn't my absolute favorite, there was no shortage of soul in that place. And soul in a restaurant, my friends, is something to cling to with both arms and legs. This one was frustrating. I wanted SO badly to say that the Thomas Street Bistro was my new favorite place. I wanted to want to go back weekly for the rest of my life, bring my babies there (when I have some many years down the line, of course), become a fixture there, drinking wine in the corner! You know, I will go back. I'll try different dishes (and certainly let you know what I think about them!). YOU should go there, without a doubt. The food is good but also importantly it's the kind of place that reminds you that people are nice and that new dining experiences are great.
With that said, we're right in the thick of the holiday season so I'm excited for many more new places to write about this month! My family has always prioritized good eatin' at new places together over lots of other stilly stuff. Man, I like those people!