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Villa Francesca Blogger Dinner

August 17, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 10 comments

I love my Boston blogger friends. There’s nothing quite like a night out eating and drinking with them, and when you add in a delicious, hospitable North End restaurant like Villa Francesca, you have the best Monday night ever.

I left work on a very humid, cloudy evening and wandered over to the North End in what ended up being our first rainy evening in quite awhile. As a result, I was early for the event, just to get out of the rain. I ran into Alicia and Michelle at the bar which was a perfect way to kick off the night.

Kristen soon came up to meet us, and as organizer of the event, she was a fantastic hostess. The downstairs setup was pretty sweet with oysters and Prosecco waiting for us.  Two of my favorite things!

prosecco

I ate several deliciously briny oysters washed down by a glass and a half of Prosecco, all while checking out Villa Francesca’s beautiful wine cellar. It’s quite wonderful to find such a wine cellar in Boston. . . it looks like it should be in a Tuscan villa.

Villa Francesca wine cellar

After mingling with some of my favorite bloggies like Katie, Megan, Daisy, Lara, Renee, and Twitter friend Justin, we sat down for a dinner of never ending delicious food and wine.

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I had started upstairs with a Nero D’avola and kept sipping that downstairs while also trying a sample of the white which was a pale in color, grapefruit-y delight whose name I can’t remember.

Villa Francesca Wine

We all shared a family style antipasto, and the spicy salami was the perfect counterpart for salty cheese and fresh tomatoes and basil. The vegetarian in me looks away when antipasto is served. . .;)

Antipasto

I thought we were all set with appetizers when we were EACH served this Fettucine con Gamberi, homemade pasta with shrimp in a light, flavorful tomato cream sauce. I could have been done eating here, satisfied with delicious homemade pasta. . .

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But there was more! Sole served with some of the best potatoes and escarole I have ever eaten. Everything tasted so delicious and delicately flavored. I was stuffed by the time my plate was taken away. . .

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But homemade, filled to order cannolis were next. And who am I to say no to a cannoli? Especially one made to order. I had mine with ricotta, chocolate chips, and powdered sugar, filled by the owner of Villa Francesca himself.

cannoli

I loved meeting Bill, Villa Francesca’s owner, and hearing about the restaurant’s quality, homemade ingredients. Dining in the North End can be overwhelming with so many choices, so being able to try out a new restaurant at last night’s event was pretty amazing. I for one can not wait to explore their wine cellar more and to eat their food again. It was a delicious evening that I was privileged to be part of.

Grazie to Kristen for inviting me and to Bill for hosting us!

If you live in Boston, do you have a favorite North End restaurant?

Don’t forget to enter my CSN Stores giveaway contest. I can’t wait to hear how you all get ready for fall!

Villa Francesca on Urbanspoon

Tags: Boston, cannoli, Dining out, Nero D'avola, North End, oysters, pasta, prosecco, Restaurants, Villa Francesca, wine

Underwhelmed at o ya

July 23, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 18 comments

The food is certainly art, and there were a couple of tasty plates, but overall I found the highly acclaimed (and priced) o ya to be a disappointment. I would say it was fine, and nothing more. Maybe it was an off night, maybe we were just tired, I just hate when I really look forward to a meal and end up feeling meh about it.

o ya is located in Boston’s Leather District, just outside South Station, and is in an old brick building. They have painted the beams to look like wood, and the inside is sleek, clean, and quite lovely.

o ya Boston image

Our reservation was at the 17 seat chef’s bar. I really enjoy watching food being prepared, and o ya’s chef’s were quite the scene to see. The kitchen and front cooking area were pristinely clean, and we got to see a lot of torching, slicing, and dicing.

o ya chefs bar

To start, I ordered a glass of Sorelle Bronca Prosecco, and my husband had Poochi Poochi Sparkling Sake, our first Sake experience. I didn’t care for it, but he loved it.

While we waited for our variety of dishes to come out, I couldn’t help but take photos of the food waiting for others on the bar. It was artfully prepared, and very photogenic. Tastespotting and Foodgawker, maybe you will like one of these? 😉

o ya

o ya

After peeking at everyone else’s food, we started on our own:

SALMON o ya mayonette, wasabi tobiko, shiso

This was a very bland little dish. The salmon was nicely fatty, but with that fat I would expect something spicy or acidic to contrast with it.

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HAMACHI TARTARE ginger verjus sauce, spiced chile oil

The texture and quality of the fish was perfect, but I was hoping for a bit of spice with the chile oil. Instead, it was overwhelmingly salty.

o ya hamachi

SHRIMP TEMPURA bacon truffle emulsion, chive oil

This was definitely the star of the night. The truffle emulsion was delicious. You can never go wrong with truffles, and the tempura was light and crispy. A bowl of the shrimp tempura, please.

o ya shrimp

SOFT SHELL CRAB

This was also a favorite. o ya does tempura very well.

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CHICKEN YAKITORI celeriac puree, perigord black truffle

While the other dishes we had were, overall, nothing to write home about, it was the chicken that really turned the night. While we understand that it was Poulet Rouge, meant to have a pinkish hue, I doubt that the chicken was supposed to have a giant vein running through it. I am definitely off chicken for awhile. . .

To their credit, o ya took this off of our bill after explaining that many people are put off by the Poulet Rouge. I feel like this is something they should mention when it is ordered. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be nearly raw chicken. The peanut sauce was like any garden variety jarred sauce.

o ya chicken

I expected to and wanted to fall drooling at o ya’s door on my way out. Instead, we left a little hungry and unwilling to try anything else. I don’t like writing negative reviews, but I feel like we hyped up our visit to o ya so much, I couldn’t NOT write about it.

Have you ever had an experience that was the opposite of what you expected?

Don’t forget to enter The Secret Ingredient cookbook giveaway! And I have been without a Friday guest post for awhile. The Friday Foodie Feature doesn’t seem to wrangle up much interest, but I am still interested in sharing a weekly post from a blogger or reader!

Tags: Food, o ya, prosecco, restaurant, sashimi, wine

Bloggers at Vlora

June 26, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 10 comments

My weekend kicked off to a great start last night. After what felt like a forever work day, I spent some time wandering and shopping the Copley Square Farmer’s market. It was the perfect way to decompress; you really can not go wrong with lots of sunshine, fresh flowers, and local fruits, veggies, cheeses, and baked goods! Oh how I love the farmer’s market!

Copley Sq Farmer's Market zucchini and squash

One of the things I love about local food is how, before our eyes, the options change and grow, especially as we launch officially into summer. So many of these things were not available a few weeks ago!

Atlas Farms Organic Tomatoes Atlas Farms sunflowers

I really wanted to stock up, but since we are away all day Saturday and I had dinner plans tonight, I just bought some of these adorable UFO-shaped Patty Pan squash. I plan on stuffing them with some sort of mixture, feta, garlic, and olives maybe?

pattypan squash Copley Farmer's Market pattypan squash

Copley is such a great place to be on a warm summer Friday! The flowers are certainly different than they were in this photo.

Copley Square flowers Copley Square Boston

After some more wandering and shopping, I reached my final destination for the evening, Vlora Mediterranean Restaurant. Earlier in the week I had been invited by the ladies from We are not Martha for a blogger get together to meet Erica from Itzy’s Kitchen. Erica went to high school with Chelsee and Susie, and she was in town to visit family, so it was the perfect opportunity for them to reconnect and for the rest of us to meet her. Besides, do a bunch of Boston food bloggers need an excuse to get together? 😉

Vlora

I had been to Vlora once before for Restaurant Week and enjoyed a really delicious lunch, so I was excited to return. Since I was a little early, I sat at the bar and ordered a Prosecco which was dry and bubbly, ideal for the summery night. Vlora has a great wine selection and a beautiful, airy Mediterranean decor.

Vlora Boston wine

While waiting at the bar, I met Erica and got to see Bridget again.

Vlora Boston

Soon enough, we were all seated at a comfy long table with lots of natural light. Perfect for taking photos! It seems like bloggers ALWAYS have something to talk about! It’s a great community to be a part of.

Vlora and Boston bloggers

Vlora was kind enough to let us sample some of their favorite dishes before we ordered. There was the watermelon and feta, an Albanian dish that combines sweet watermelon with salty, creamy feta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and parsley. I would return to Vlora for several plates of this alone, it was so good, so simple but completely flavorful and delicious.

Vlora watermelon and feta

We also tried the trio of pies which each had a different filling, yogurt, spinach and feta, and tomato and onion. I had the yogurt pie which was flaky and filled with a creamy seasoned yogurt.

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We also had arancini, pan roasted zucchini with garlic yogurt, and grilled octopus which was meaty and scrumptious. Everything was so simple and reminded me that good food doesn’t always need a million ingredients, they just need to be good ingredients.

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I grabbed a few photos as the sun was setting, and the blue light’s in Vlora’s atrium made for a kind of cool effect.

We then ordered more food, of course. I ended the night with a perfect vegetarian moussaka, layers of eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, potato, Swiss cheese, and tomato, served with garlic yogurt and cucumber sauce.

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I had so much fun chatting with Colleen and her sister Meg who is going to be married in Ireland in a week and a half (jealous!). I also spent lots of time talking with Alicia and finally had the chance to meet Naomi.

All in all it was a great night. The food at Vlora is awesome, and I really want to try about 20 other menu items, so we will definitely be going back. And the company was fantastic. I loved meeting Erica and now want to go to Charleston, and it was great to see all of the others. Seriously, we should plan a Boston food blogger conference. Anyone want to co-plan with me?

I have The ALLY Foundation Pink for a Change gala in Newport this evening, so I should be back with some beautiful Newport mansion photos. I am also cooking up a fun giveaway for the week ahead.

Later gators!

Vlora on Urbanspoon

Tags: blogger meetup, bloggers, Boston, Copley Square Farmer's Market, Farmer's Markets, Food, Vlora, wine

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