My Perfect Sunday: Dinner and Drinks at Riva

My idea of a perfect Sunday is waking up, reading the paper, walking to the Farmer's Market, cooking my dinner for the week in one pot, walking to the Bally's for a light workout, and having a lovely dinner and cocktail with good company. An extra special Sunday if I get to go somewhere like Bed Bath and Beyond to use my coupon to buy something for my place. And an extra extra special day if I can go to a place like Sur la Table or Williams Sonoma to check out high quality culinary tools you can't find anywhere else. In a perfect world I would get to share this experience every Sunday with someone special.

This Sunday, I was lucky to have a second chance not only to spend some quality time with a important person in my life, but also a second chance to visit a restaurant that I had enjoyed once in the past. Riva is the second restaurant of talented chef Jason Travi of Fraiche. When I last visited Riva in February (see past blog), they were solely known for their pizzas. They changed their menu to include Italian small plates....something pretty unique to the restaurant world. I'm all into the small plates these days so you could try a bunch of different things. They still serve their pizzas sun-tues so we lucked out. We started off with some cocktails. I hadn't had a drink for awhile so it was really nice to enjoy my vodka and pink grapefruit drink with my dinner. We moved on to a few small plates including an asparagus salad with meyer lemon and pecorino cheese along with some tasty greens that we both couldn't figure out what it was. Perhaps pea shoots...or at least it looked like pea shoots. Next, we shared an Octopus Fra Diavola crostini which was spicy but nicely mellowed out with the long crostini pieces. Our last small plate consisted of a braised veal cheek oddly placed on a somewhat sweet tart filled with creamy filling, golden raisins, and apples slices. I have been a fan of the veal cheek every since my taste buds laid taste on them at Sona Restaurant during a wonderful tasting. Of course it was no Sona veal cheek, but it was nonetheless fatty and melted in my mouth. For our pizza, we had the Tradizionale pizza which had spinach, prosciutto, and tomato. Very tasty but if you do go here, make sure you have the Molto Maile....the meatball it to die for.

For dessert we shared an off menu dessert specially prepared by an up and coming baker/chef. It was a flaky tart filled with a luscious Scharffenberger chocolate ganache with golden raspberries and a hint of mint. It was expertly molded into a 4 inch tart pan. Upon first bite, the bittersweet chocolate melted in my mouth and then a few seconds later the raspberry hit my palate, then came the mint. It was seriously orgasmic and I could have eaten another. I can still close my eyes and imagine it. It was truly the perfect way to end my perfect Sunday.