The Kitchen Club

February 14th-

For Valentine's day, we struggled to find a restaurant that didn't bind you to a prix fixe menu. I hate prix fixe. Your options are reduced, and you are committed to a certain amount of food.....always too much for me, which either leaves me feeling guilty that I wasted it, or gluttonous because I didn't. We finally decided on The Kitchen Club. They had a prix fixe menu, but also let you choose from their usual offerings. That I can handle. We had been here once before, but it had been so long ago, that all I remembered was that the food was good, and there was a cute little French bulldog who sauntered around from table to table looking for samples. It was crowded when we arrived at nine thirty, so we were led to the tiny bar area, (Chibi's Bar), in the back to wait for our table. My first order of business was to see if the Frenchie would be dining with us that evening. It wasn't difficult to locate him, since I had to literally step over him to get back to the bar area. I was happy. The wait was short, and we were seated and handed the menus to look over. We ordered drinks, Nathan, red wine and sake for me, which took so long to get to me that they gave it to me for free. Nathan went with the prix fixe Valentine's day menu, while I ordered, as you can guess, from the regular menu. First, came our appetizers....dumplings, the specialty of the house. We had crab and duck with ginger. Both were good, but we agreed, the crab, (which happened to be on the special menu), was better. Nathan had the steak, which was good, but nothing to write home about. On the other hand, my miso black cod was melting in my mouth! It was pure perfection! After our entrees, they brought out dessert. The menu said it was to be chocolate cake with espresso gelato. I felt bored. I've had this before. That is, until it arrived and I put the best piece of chocolate cake I have ever eaten into my skeptical mouth. It wasn't the sickening sweet taste of sugar that I remembered from chocolate cakes in the past. It was bittersweet heaven! The gelato was a good complement. We left the restaurant happy.....and I even got to feed the Frenchie (Chibi)!