Saturday, May 17, 2008

Just Rest Between Meals

Well, it wasn't just resting for either of us really. Dick went to work while I went back to The Bookworm - one more time. Yes, it was open so I wandered the aisles and tried to resist temptation. I did get the Te of Piglet and a cookbook from the Gilroy Garlic Festival. I'll have to make it back to Gilroy CA for that festival. The town smelled of garlic even on a regular day. Delictious.

On to the camera store for rechargeable batteries and a different card, and then TY Lee for a heads up on a great new food store, Sunflower. It's like Trader Jo's or Whole Foods but with much better prices. Again, it was really hard to resist buying when I thought of the reality of airline regulations. The ginormous artichokes were a real hard buy to have to leave, but they would have taken about 1/3 of my suitcase.

We had set a 5:45pm date with Lee and Max at Radda with the understanding that we would ALL try to make that time. And we did! Both couples arrived at almost exactly the same time which made our getting a table pretty easy. Then came the hard part..the menu.

Radda menu

This is a fairly new restaurant that Lee and Max had tried, but from the winter menu. Now we had a spring one and looked long and hard.

Lee and Max shared a Caesar salad but it didn't get a photo op. I had the Radda salad which was lemony but in a different way from their Caesar.

DSCN0043

Dick went with a small order of pasta with olive oil and garlic and a good sprinkle of red pepper. It was truly heady with garlic, and we were sure there would be no vampires round us that night.

Spaghetti with garlic and olive oil

On to our entrees...Dick chose the veal meatballs with lentils - lentils with bits of pork cheeks in them. This is the 2nd time he's had pork cheeks!
Veal Meatballs with Lentils

Lee had the pork chop with plums and ricotta salata. It was quite a piece of meat and the plums certainly added a good sweet/tartness.

Lee's porkchop with plums & ricotta salata

Max had a dish we were curious about..a pasta that is a bit larger than penne with a wild boar ragu. He said it was perfect, and the dish was empty pretty quickly!

Pasta with boar ragu

And finally I had the Radda Tortellini which were just wonderful. I actually didn't ask what the stuffing was but I really liked them with the greens and broth.

Tortellini Radda

Oh yes...the happy diners. Sometimes with the food and the nattering, we almost forget to get a picture of the happy eaters.
Cooking Forum Friends Meet Again
While there were take-home boxes of lentils and some porkchop, that didn't stop us from thinking about dessert. Thinking about it and then ordering it! Then, what a surprise.. Lee's business partner Charlotte was spotted across the room. In fact it was Charlotte's hubby who took the above picture.
Look who joined us! Charlotte

Back to our food and talk..

I had to have a taste of my berry panna cotta before I took a picture. It was sliding down my happy throat as I took this.

Berry Panna Cotta

Dick's expresso ice cream sandwich was messy but delicious. We all tried to get a taste without covering ourselves in the caramel.

Expresso Ice Cream sandwich with Caramel

Lee had a double dose of plums that night...a strawberry plum tart with an expresso chaser.

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Happily full, we said our goodnights and good byes and planned to meet again on another trip to Boulder. Thank you so much Lee and Max for finding time to meet up with us, and pick such a great location. HUGS !!!

7 comments:

M.L. said...

That espresso ice cream sandwich looks absolutely delicious!

/// said...

YUMMOOOOOO! :)

/// said...

WOW. This looks FAN.TASTIC.

Juddie said...

oooooh YUM! Looks great!

Thanks for dropping by my blog again and for the tip about travelling in your part of the world. I dream of visiting the northeast part of North America in Autumn .... I'm sure it's breathtakingly beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Wow everything looks so good! My favorite pasta dish even though it is usually very thick and filling is anything Alfredo...! Especially Seafood Alfredo!

Nathalanes Place said...

oooooooooh man that looks pretty inviting and delicioso. My favorite pasta are tortelinis. Yours looked fantastico. And the desserts, my favorites too. Man I wish I had been there. I wanna thank you for your kind comments on my blog. Very respectful too. Greatly appreciated by both me and my daughter. Blessings.

Bellgirl said...

wow, looks fabulous! It's a long way from here, but I'll ring and make a booking.