Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Tavalo's, Dorchester

Tavalo is a newer restaurant/bar that is part of the expanding Chris Douglass chain which includes Ashmont Grille right across the street from Tavalo. We, of course, choose the full bar over the almost empty dining room at 7 pm, Friday. Odd start to our night - I send the young female bartender into a mini-meltdown with my standard "Do you have any unblended rye?" She gets the usual deer in the headline look, turns her back to us and fumbles around a bit, then moves over to the equally young mail bartender. Several minutes go by when neither of them turns around to face us. She goes off to do something and he continues to ignore us for several more minutes. Finally he comes over to us. I go through my hole rigamarole...very little of each sweet and dry vermouth, stirred not shaken...blah, blah, blah. No rye. Only a few types of bourbon so I go with a Knob Creek perfect manhattan. The guy on the bar stool next to me comments after I place my order that he's never heard anyone ask about unblended rye. The drink turns out pretty good flavor-wise but it's not very cold. Good thing about the wait is we have had plenty of time to figure out what we want to eat. We get an cheese plate which wasn't bad but wasn't great. We got the Goat Cheese, peppers, carmelized onions and roasted garlic pizza (we asked for and got no olives - I have never understood olives on pizza. The thing just looked awful and tasted pretty bad too. The female bartender must have seen the look on our faces because she came right over and asked if we didn't like the pizza and almost in the same breath offered to get us something else. We try the margherita pizza. We can't return the second pizza but it was seriously flawed too. You can't complain about the ingredients because they have chosen to make pizzas with tomatoes instead of sauce and it was quite pretty even with the not quite red tomatoes. But the entire center of the pizza dough was not cooked. Given all that though, I would try this place again and I might even give the pizza a try again. The bar staff eventually warmed up to us, the patrons next to us were friendly and it might be a good place to catch a Celtics game.


This just sounds really creepy.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Sunrise, sunset



I wish I was down there for as long as it took me to post all the pictures and reports. It was, quite simply, one of the loveliest places I have been in a while. As we were driving home after just 2 1/2 days, my friend and I both commented on how relaxed our bodies and brains were.

Two weddings, no funeral


































The girls had the biggest wedding party I've ever seen - 12-14 bridesmaids and equal number of grooms. I thought the dock was going to collapse.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Gustare Oils and Vinegars (or better living through chemistry)

You may think you have experienced raspberry vinegar and, indeed, you may have. But I was under a seriously mistaken belief that I had. That is until I tried the raspberry vinegar from Gustare, 425 Main Street, Chatham, MA 02633 Tel: 508-945-4505. We were assured that the website would be up an running soon but several weeks after the visit, it is not. Trust me, their product more than makes up for this lapse. As we were wondering around downtown Chatham, we walked into this little piece of heaven. Wall to wall olive oil and vinegars in every imaginable flavor and samples are the name of the game here. All of the large metal containers have spouts and tiny plastic cups next to them. The bottle are beneath the containers. Friendly but unobtrusive staff explains the process and encourages you to try as much as you want. It is almost impossible to decide as we make our way around the store that is full of customers. Porcini Olive Oil is the first thing we try and it's a winner (and later purchased). In inquire and are told that the saleswoman has used it on pasta, when cooking eggs, on bread. I used it with pasta, assortment of mushrooms and chicken - cooked everything has I normally would then put it all in a pan over a low flame and drizzled a little oil on it. My side was a salad with the raspberry vinegar and oil dressing. So simple, so delicious. The saleswoman also told us that she used some of the vinegars as marinade and as a flavor in sparkling water. I'm thinking proseco but haven't tried it yet. What I did try with the pear cardamon vinegar was to put a bit in a gin martini. It sinks to the bottom as you measure it in the shaker but stays separated after shaking. I'm not saying this was the best drink I've ever had but it was interesting and might just need some experimenting with ratios.