Un buon pranzo

Or, as my former colleague Paul Tissandier would say in his inimitable French accent, A good dinner where dinner rhymes with thin air.

Kim and I continued our punctuated wedding anniversary celebrations with a fancy Italian dinner at Il Casale in Belmont,  highly recommended by the Boston Globe and, more importantly, by our gourmand friend Gloria.

My one deviation from a pure Italian experience was a draft Blue Hills IPA which was the best beer I've had in more than a year.  While, I've not been drinking much beer lately (since the fateful Reno trip), I haven't yet taken beer off the list of topics this blog supposedly covers.  The insalata semplice was really good, though not exactly simple.

From i primi I chose gnocchi, something I nearly always choose if it's available.  They were very tasty, if somewhat tired looking.  But I know how hard it is to get gnocchi both to look alert and also to taste good.  From among i secondi I decided on the trout, a big hit with the reviewers.  It was really excellent.

Fortunately, we had left a smidgeon of room for i dolci.  I ordered something called bűnet which I admit I've never heard of before.  It was a thick kind of custard (or a very thick blancmange), known over here as flan, with a robust chocolate flavor with caramel sauce.

Their menu is a strange mix of Italian and English, I must say.  I detect a certain degree of Harvard MBA influence here.  It must be a tough choice: use all English words and lose the sense of authenticity; use all Italian words and have the waiters playing translator all evening.  But occasionally there are odd combinations such as tomato sugo instead of sugo di pomodoro or simply tomato juice.

But the evening was very enjoyable and I would definitely recommend Il Casale to anyone who doesn't mind spending well north of $50 per head (or should that be pro capite?).

And while I'm on a culinary theme, I should also note that there was one restaurant in Saratoga Springs that I especially liked: Tiznow.  The fairly large dining room was entirely empty while the four of us were there, so we get pretty good service.  The food was very good too.