Thirtysomething

FARMiCia

Last night, Ron and I went to dinner with our friends Deidre and Frank as part of Restaurant Week. We had decided on FARMiCia, as they had a pretty extensive menu relative to most other Restaurant Week participants.

All in all, we had a pretty good experience. The wait for the food seemed unreasonably long, given that the restaurant wasn't that full, but other than that everything was enjoyable. Deidre and I started with p.i.n.k. cocktails (which are disappointingly not pink) and the boys tried out a couple of beers. A choice of white, sourdough or rosemary bread was offered with herb-flavored butter. I chose the rosemary and thought it was delicious (as it should be; FARMiCia is owned by the same folks as Metropolitan Bakery).

Slowly, I've been dipping into the seafood world by trying out dishes involving crab. So I chose the crabmeat and pear salad, which was delicious, albeit, crabby. I only ate about half the crabmeat, but it was a generous portion. There was a lime dressing that added nice kick and almonds gave a nice texture. I also tried Ron's crab cake and honestly, I really liked it. Should have ordered that, maybe.

As my entree I decided on the ribeye steak, with chive mashed potatoes. I had been torn between the steak and dijon mustard pork chops (with mashed sweet potatoes--yum!). The steak was very flavorful and came with a blue-cheese butter. I'm not a super huge fan of blue cheese, but I found that it works really well with steak and this was no exception. Ron had the St. Peter's fish (tilapia), Frank had the tuna and Deidre had the swordfish. Everyone seemed to like their entrees. I tried the polenta (which I've never had before) that came as a side with the swordfish. It's sort of pleasingly bland.

Finally, for dessert, I had the vanilla bean creme brulee, as did Ron. Ron didn't care much for it. I liked it well enough, but the shortbread cookie that came with it was disappointing. It kind of tasted like a Shoprite sugar cookie that I used to get as a kid. Deidre had the apple puff pastry, which she loved. Frank got the apple and pear crisp and I don't think I asked how he like it--me bad.

After dinner we dropped into Jager's, a dive bar down the street from FARMiCia. They have an impressive wall of beer on tap and an even more impressive shot menu (who knew there was even such a thing as a shot menu?). Not surprisingly since it was a school night, we opted not to do any shots. By the way, being smoke-free makes dive bars a lot more enticing. I enjoy me a dive bar anyway. And unscheduled stops for after-dinner drinks with good friends is one of my most favorite ways to pass the time.

Labels: food, peeps

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 8:40 AM