Sonoma DC: Sonoma good for my belly!

Rob and I have a tradition of celebrating Valentine's Day with a meal out, and preferably not on the actual Hallmark mandated date. This year we waited a little later than usual to make a reservation on one of the days surrounding the 14th, so our first choice was booked. This ended up being a fortuitous problem, as we ended up at Sonoma restaurant near our home on Capitol Hill. What a meal.

Throughout the meal we shared a bottle of a Primitivo Puglia by Matane vineyard. Such a fantastic wine we are figuring out how to get some to have at home. It is a lighter red, so it went really well with both of our main dishes: I had pacherri with black pepper, chives, ricotta salata, chiles, and creme fraiche. Rob had a deconstructed lasagna with veal ragu and maderia fonduta. But first let's discuss our first and second course. Oh yes we had a three course (ok actually four course) meal. That in and of itself was heavenly. And we weren't rushed at all, we had time between each course to sip some wine and chat. It was soooo nice.

For our first course we had the house-made burratta cheese with tomato jam and fried bread. Did you read those words, fried bread, yea the whole thing was amazing. I have never had such a wonderful combination. The cheese had a great creamy center, but was a perfect smooth companian for the tomato jam. I should mention I don't like tomatoes, but apparently tomato jam is just fine thank you very much. Along with the burratta cheese we had the pei mussels with paprika, chorizo, and focaccia. The mussels were perfectly cooked, and the chorizo and paprika gave them such a nice spice; they complemented each other perfectly.

Next course: boston bibb salad with roasted apples, goat cheddar, toasted walnuts and vincotto. We split this, and they brought it out on two separate plates, how nice! We didn't have to fight over the last piece of cheddar, and trust me we would have fought over the last piece of anything of this salad.

Finally onto our entrees. First I should mention that we ordered pasta dishes, which are not actually entrees according to the menu. Those will have to wait for another trip to this restaurant. As I mentioned I had the paccheri which is a long tube shaped pasta. The best part about my dish was how simple it really was. The pasta was obviously freshly made and perfectly cooked, just a bit al dente. The chilis, ricotta, and black pepper worked perfectly together. It had a peppery spicyness but at the same time it was smooth and welcoming. Really it was a grown up comfort dish. I plan to try to recreate this recipe in my kitchen. I have a plan as to how I think I can do it, I just need to find some fresh paccheri in DC.

Finishing up the post, Rob had a sort of deconstructed Lasagna, where the lasagna noodles were cut up to be slightly larger than fettucine and they were mixed in with the veal ragu and maderia fonduta, topped with parmesan cheese. Rob thoroughly enjoyed this and said the ragu was excellent, but in hindsight he wished he had gone with a different pasta dish, the papperdelle.

And on to dessert, which I still have dreams about, because oh my goodness homemade salted carmel ice cream is the best ice cream I have ever had. Yes this is above any ice cream containing cookie dough, shocking I know. We had this ice cream over apple bread pudding which is super yummy too, but really the ice cream was the best (it was so good we had to order an extra scoop!).

So to summarize, Sonoma rocks, it is definitely a special occasion restaurant where the checkbook is concerned (and this is probably a good thing as I would be there far too often if it wasn't). But a fantastic and fun restaurant. I look forward to another meal there, hopefully sooner rather than later!