Dining a la Mode

Last Friday, I had the honor of going to dinner with my dear Domma and his lovely friend who was in town as a guest singer with the Philharmonic. So highbrow, I know, hmmm. We tried going to Toro but alas, Friday nights are a lot more busy than I anticipated. We ended up at good old Mode, in the former Le Metro location. I like Mode for brunch, for late-night cocktails and dancing but I rarely seem to make it there for dinner.

So I got to try a whole new array of dinner dishes and overall was quite pleased. We decided to order a whole bunch of things and sort of do a tapas-style dinner. Hey, if we couldn't eat at Toro, we could still emulate their style, no?

Our server brought our some FANTASTIC bread and olive oil for dipping. It was really superb, I couldn't stop eating it. The oil was so flavorful and must have been infused with garlic and aromatics. We ordered an appetizer special of grilled shrimp over new potato salad and topped with a quail egg. The shrimp were fresh and tasty but they were no prawns and at $14 for three shrimp, a wee bit overpriced. The potatoes were dressed with a hint of mint, very refreshing. We also had Medjool dates, stuffed with gorgonzola and wrapped with proscuitto, which combines three of my favorite things but somehow it wasn't all that tasty. It was, however, garnished with some greens that had a really great spicy-sweet dressing. Our final appetizer was tuna nicoise. The tuna was black sesame seed crusted and lay on a bed of greens, olives, greens beans and egg. Tuna nicoise is a dish that is high on my list of good eats but I rarely order it becasue for some weird reason, people think it's ok to bastardize it with tuna from a can. Blecch. We also ordered a roasted pear salad that never came but we weren't charged for it and after sharing all that, we still had an entree of duck breast to share. The duck was fantastic;, meaty and rich, crisp skin and placed atop sweet potato-duck confit and braised swiss chard. The accoutrements were a bit salty, and I like salt, but overall really quite good.

I have to admit though, I'm sick of swiss chard and sweet potatoes. I want delicate asparagus and butter-soft fresh lettuce. Hmmm, sigh, spring is just around the corner, hurry up!