Today is my 10 year anniversary with Joseph. Yes, I know that we are living in sin and unmarried, but we still celebrate anniversaries and even if we ever do get married I'm not starting again from zero! Anyway, we aren't much on gifts or anything, but we do like to treat ourselves to an expensive and very likely out of our price range meal once a year [and as I'm turning 30 next month, it's very likely we will do this twice this year - stuff like that doesn't happen all the time, yknow]. So off we went to Tutti Matti, my favourite restaurant in the city [though honestly I was a bit disappointed this evening, but part of that is my own stupid fault]. The good folks over on Chowhound [one of my favourite websites/message boards] would categorize this restaurant as a regular Tuesday night dinner out type of place, but for us, it's definitely earth-shattering special due to its prices.
So, we had ordered and drinks had arrived...but not so much the complimentary bread [and I am a girl who loves her carbs, so I was getting a bit peeved]. Then, something special arrived - it was an amuse bouche, compliments of the chef. I ate panzanella. For those not in the know, panzanella is a bread salad, originating from Tuscany [Tutti Matti is a Tuscan restaurant]. It is typically prepared in late summer - I think because of the abundance and awesome flavour of tomatoes. I have seen recipes for this in my cookbooks, but I was always kinda grossed out by the idea of soggy bread [I don't even put tomatoes on sandwiches for this reason]. However, this panzanella was free and prepared by a competent kitchen so I ate every last bite. It was incredibly garlic-y [so perfect for an anniversary dinner] and prepared with an outstanding olive oil and featured cherry tomatoes in all different colours and spring onions [and maybe other things, but the restaurant is very dark]. I didn't take a photo because I can't bring myself to be bold enough to take pictures of things in restaurants.
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2 comments:
I actually made this once. My recipe was layered, and incredibly time consuming; after the first serving, the layers just got all jumbled up anyway.
However, I loved the way the dish tasted!
I still don't have the confidence to make this salad @ home. I think it would taste like soggy bread and I would hate it. I don't even like wet-ish ingredients on sandwiches.
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