About once a month, Vino hosts a Saturday Night Supper where Chef Keith Endo trials new dishes along with Chuck Furuya's wine pairings. For $33 per person, it includes an appetizer or salad, an entree and dessert. You can choose your meal with Chuck's suggested wine pairings or omit them if you wish. Since the Mrs was originally scheduled to work this weekend but discovered that she had the weekend off, we paid a visit to Vino to sample Chef Keith's delicacies.
We started the evening with the Mrs' usually Duo of Sushi (ordered from the Hiroshi side of the restaurant) which is a pair of cold smoked salmon sushi with miso and cold smoked hamachi. We always have it because it's ALWAYS good! We also tried Chef Keith's special Seafood Sausage which is chunks of scallop, crab, lobster and shrimp in sausage casing served atop a sauce of uni lobster sauce and tomato concasse. Instead of the usual mousse like consistency of seafood sausages, this one had small chunks so you could taste each ingredient. And the uni lobster sauce... we sopped up every last drop with Keith's home made bread.
I selected the dinner with wine pairings though Iwanted to test my palate (and judgement) against Chuck's selections. The salad consisted of a Fennel Pollen Crusted Swordfish on local greens with roasted baby beets, Naked Cow Dairy feta and a sherry vinaigrette. I felt that my selection of a 2007 Quenard Chignin complemented the salad a little better than Chuck's selection of a 2008 Le Poussin Dry Rose. The floral flavors of the Chignin more than held up to the fatty swordfish and sherry dressing while the Rose simply had its acids highlighted and its fruit muted against the vinaigrette. (:))
The entree consisted of a Braised Oxtail Ragout on Fresh Pappardelle and Chuck's Primitivo based 2008 Tormaresca Neprica had enough concentration and sweet fruit to hold its own against the rich oxtail ragout while my 2006 La Mozza I Perazzi simply had its acids highlighted against the rich meat and flavorful tomato based ragout. (:() Oh well, win some, lose some.
And since man does not live by food & wine pairings alone, we ordered a bottle of 2003 Chateau Bernadotte Haut Medoc. No funk, not closed, but loads of ripe currant, a touch of mint and loads of tobacco on the nose with a dried red fruit and tobacco with a touch of dried herbs on the palate with a moderate finish.
We finished dinner with the Apple Tarte which is always good.. especially with the caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream...
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