When my dad comes to town it’s our tradition to have a nice dinner out and shoot some pool. I chose dinner at Lark, since I was craving their pork rillettes and I wanted to see if it would be just as good as the first time I ate there.
There were three of us for dinner and the waitress suggested ordering 2-3 dishes a piece, so this is what we chose:
Pork Rillettes, Apple Bread and 12th Century Chutney ($9) – Good, but not nearly as good as the first time I ordered them.
Chorizo Pamplona with Spicy Olives & Breadsticks ($8) – Also good, but I was expecting hunks of chorizo and this was sliced very thin like salami, so it was hard to taste the full flavor.
Warm Spanish Mackerel Escabeche with Fried Capers & Chorizo Oil ($11) – Mackerel is usually too fishy for me, but the crisp, briny capers really mellowed out the flavor.
Roasted Oysters with Herb Butter, Pernod and Bacon ($14) – These looked beautiful, but somehow the flavors didn’t really come together right for me. Dad loved these.
Farro with Black Kale, Red Kuri Squash & Mascarpone ($12) – This was my favorite. The farro had a texture like risotto and was sweet from the squash. It paired beautifully with the bitter kale.
Baked Anson Mills Taragna Polenta with Roast Pork & Sage ($13) – The polenta was really good and cut into cubes, but the pork seemed a little dry and was sliced thin like deli-meat and then layered on top.
Squab with Yellowfoot Chanterelles and Trofie Pasta & Parmigiano Regiano ($14) – This was my second favorite. I usually don’t like squab, but this one was perfectly cooked (very rare) and was really flavorful with a taste and texture more like meat than poultry. It came with an amazing sauce and hand rolled pasta that looked a little like spaetzle.
We ended our dinner with a selection of three fabulous cheeses:
Pont l’Eveque – Normandy Cow
Charollais – Burgundy Goat
Thistle Hill Farms Tarentaise – Vermont Cow
After the cheese course, we were too full to eat anything else, so we went to play pool for a while, then headed to Le Pichet for a late night dessert of apple cake and pastis.
