Friday, April 30, 2010

Bricco Redux (who doesn't love redemption)

After our first outing to Bricco, my friend was so disappointed she sent them an email and they sent her a $50 gift card. We went back a few weeks ago and were mightily impressed. Granted they were treating us like royalty, but all in all this is a place to which I'll return (but probably not on restaurant week).

After much finagling (and some shameless flirting with the guys next to us), we got their table, the same one as we had last time with both chairs having a view of Hanover Street. This time they did have the main ingredient for their version of a manhattan (still not on their online drink menu so let me see if I can remember (strawberries, vanilla bean and maybe something else marinated in bourbon (I never got the brand from the waitress or the bar manager who eventually came over. My friend asked if he knew a drink called Golden Dreams and he said he email a friend in Miami because he didn't). The manhattan was interesting but a little too light for me. You could taste the strawberry but not the vanilla. My friend got a vodka martini. Each drink was $12-13.


We split the zucchini flowers stuffed with truffle ricotta cheese and tempura vegetables ($19) which would have been enough for a meal. You can't really tell from the photo but the flowers were nicely fried and more golden; the vegetables were a thick slice of eggplant, onion, red peppers and green beans.


Friend got the swordfish (I got the clams off that dish).


And I got the salmon, broccolini and rabe puree (wasn't impressed with either of those), broccolini rabe and what the menu says is salsify cannelloni which I had (mistakenly) identified as potato last time (but it sure tasted like yukon gold potatoes to me). Whatever is was....mmmm good.


So at the end of the night we are pretty darn satisfied. We are settling up thinking the bar manager has forgotten the Golden Dream recipe but...wait for it...he brings the drink and the recipe to my friend.

Golden Dreams:
2 oz. Galliano
1 oz. Creme DeCocoa
1/2 oz. Triple Sec
3 oz. OJ
3 oz. cream

Not really my cup of tea as it's pretty sweet but I could see this at a Sunday brunch...and I certainly wouldn't refuse one if it were offered.

Total for the evening was about $116 plus tip so it ended up being about the same as we spent on the first visit but seemed to have a lot more and a lot better food.


Flowers are amazing (no retouching other than cropping!)




Franklin Cafe Southie (Chef Ramsey has left the building)


I've been wanting to go to this place for quite a while so when some friends were visiting from NYC, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. We got a bunch of tapas and one hamburger. Pizza never should have been brought to the table as it was burned. Hamburger was stacked way to high to get a normal sized mouth around. One dish was crazy salty, another had no flavor (sorry, it's been about a month since we went so I don't recollect specifics of what we had but none of it made me swoon.

The drink was a their version of a manhattan - pretty mild and not cold!

Because this place has such a good reputation (place was packed by 7 pm on a Monday night), I will give it another try but that's it.