Meal of the Month: February

Another month, another Meal of the Month. February seemed to fly by. For the most part, I was still on a pretty good detox from my international travels…but no fear my friend. There were still plenty of amazing meals.

From dim sum at Yank Sing with some good Aggie friends, to a rainy day brunch at Ella’s (complete with good friends AND mimosas!), to lots of home cooked meals—butternut squash soup and baked salmon with Jason and Eric, pasta with Chris and Tatiana (and Easton!), and a delicious chicken dinner with Sarah and Michael! So many good meals. Thank you friends for cooking such delicious meals for me!

I had the pleasure of a great mid week, last minute meal with Wendy and Mark—and we celebrated crab season at Thanh Long in style with two crabs and garlic crab noodles. YUM.

There was also the fun Friday night at A16 with Michelle and Paul (and running into friends Michael and Chad!), and yes, I did eat the maccaronara again! I had lots of bites with Tarlan at Zare at Fly Trap (delicious bone marrow and delicious pistachio meatballs!), a Sunday night catching up at the chef’s counter at SPQR with Kerry (fried brussel sprouts anyone?), and a delicious meal at Aziza with JT and Sarah!

Then, near the end of the month, celebrated Dad’s birthday with family and delicious food—chicken, whole fish and crabs (two!)

But, the best meal of the month? That would have to go to Incanto. I was with a chef friend, Seis, and PR friend, Lisa, and we bellied up to the counter and just started salivating as we looked at the menu. As we were sipping on our prosecco and eyeing the menu, we each started shouting out the things we wanted to try. There were a lot of items.

We started with an awesome savoy cabbage, Taylor Gold pear, chervil and toasted mustard salad; blood orange and fennel salad with San Remo olives; spicy lamb pluck; chrispy beef tongue (served with potato, poached egg and salsa verde!), and an amazing spreadable sausage bruscetta. It was amazing.

We moved onto the handkerchief pasta with a rustic pork ragu (served with an egg on top!) and the pasta chitarra, Sardinian cured tuna heart, egg yolk and parsley (my FAVORITE dish of the entire night).

Really, at that point, we should have stopped eating. We should have said thank you very much for the best meal, but we are stuffed. And instead, we moved onto the mains. We devored into the Venetian fluke with minutina, celery and sea urchin and the slow roasted lamb neck. Amazing. Both were so good.

Now by this time, we REALLY should have stopped. I mean, come on. There was only three of us. But no. We looked at the dessert menu. There was the lemon thyme panna cotta with candied kumquat that I had heard so much about (and umm, panna cotta is one of my favorite desserts ever anyways...served with kumquats? You KNOW I was going to get!) But that's not all. There was also a carrot cake, served with a carrot creme fraiche ice cream. This was brilliant. And ironically? Just a few weeks earlier? I had made a creme fraiche ice cream and stirred in chunks of carrot cake. Now, mine was good. But this was better. It was also served with a blood orange caramel and maple candied walnuts.

We had to be rolled out of there. Every dish was amazing. Incredible. I don't know why I don't make it out there more often. There are no excuses. No reason. I want to have this meal every month.