Nana's for dinner

Friday night I went to Nana's with two friends. For dinner we shared three very delicious starters: duck pate, crab and asparagus with a butter sauce, and wagyu beef meatballs with pasta and ricotta salata cheese. We drank a Gruener Vetliner that was dry, minerally, and chalky.

The mild and creamy pate is always delicious at Nana's. It is served with a variety of pickles, coarse grain mustard, raspberry preserves and crostini.

I enjoyed the crab the most on Friday. It's hard to beat the delicate crab and asparagus flavors enhanced by a butter sauce. The chef at Nana's really outdid himself. Run to Nana's to get the crab and asparagus!

One of my friends enjoyed the meatballs the most. The tiny meatballs were made of wagyu beef. Wagyu is a type of cattle that is typically fed a diet of beer resulting in intensely marbled meat. It's also known as Kobe-style beef which is generally priced outside of what I'm willing to pay for food. I am not sure that I can tell the difference between Kobe and regular beef, but the meatballs were certainly flavorful and tender. The pasta and meatballs starter would be fine for a light dinner.

For dessert we shared a coconut pound cake with creme caramel sauce and blackberries. I could have polished it off singlehandedly with no problem!

Nana's for dinner

Last night I went to Nana's for dinner. In need of vegetables, I had the field greens salad that included radish, fennel and cherry tomato in a lemon vinaigrette. The fennel with the lemon vinaigrette was a lovely combination. I might have to try some think slices of fennel the next time I make a salad.

My main course was an item listed under the starters. It was a bowl of wide pasta with a duck sauce. The duck had been ground and cooked for a long while. It was delicious, warm, comfort food, perfect for a cold night. My friend had venison. It was surely good because not a morsel was left on his plate.

The menu had several interesting game dishes: venison, bison, and wild boar. I'd love to try the wild boar. I like boar so much that I'm ready to go hunting for one!

For dessert we had gooey pumpkin cake with eggnog ice cream. The cake had a layer of dark ginger then a layer of lighter pumpkin. It was gooey indeed. The ice cream lived up to its billing and tasted exactly like frozen, creamy eggnog. YUM! The dessert was garnished with a ginger (I think) crisp.

We drank a big, bold red, a blend, from the Barossa Valley in Australia.

I cannot wait to eat there again! Besides good food, the service is always friendly and attentive.

Nana's after work

I'm so lucky to have Nana's as my local restaurant / bar. It is a 5 minute walk from my house. Last night I met some girls there after work for drinks and apps. The apps were hearty enough for us not to need dinner.

We shared a bottle of Vouvray that was buttery, crisp, bone dry and ever so slighly effervescent when it was poured. I'm obsessed with finding good Vouvray here after my sojourn in the Loire last month where the wine lists had pages of Vouvray!

For our apps, we shared three items: 1. cheese plate comprising two goat cheeses from Celebrity Dairy and three cows milk cheeses from Chapel Hill Creamery, 2. liver pate with currant jam, mustard, and cornichons, 3. gnocchi with lamb ragu.

The cheese plate and pate are regular features on the menu. My girlfriends and I order them often. The pate is silky smooth and the liver does not overwhelm the flavor. I like the cheese plate although I buy the local cheeses all the time so I would have liked something different and something blue.

The gnocchi with lamb was just great! I am picky about how lamb is prepared. Sometimes it is tough and too strong. This lamb was braised for hours and perfectly tender. I am thinking of going back some evening soon and just ordering that for my dinner if it is still on the menu.

Dinner at Nana's: wild boar!

Tonight I had dinner at Nana's with a friend. The menu was more spectacularly inspired than usual. It was plate-licking good.

I had wild boar with bernaise sauce and grilled radicchio and a root vegetable that I did not recognize, but who cares about root vegetables when there is wild boar on the menu! I first disovered wild boar when living in England and France. It is kind of like pork but the texture is smoother and the flavor is sweeter and gamey. I don't know how else to describe it, but I seriously wanted to lick my plate at Nana's. I should have done it just to shock people.

My friend, who has lovely manners and would never lick a plate even if I bribed him, orderd a Kobe beef flank steak with polenta, cipollini onions, and rapini. Apparently it was real Kobe beef (these cows live their lives drunk on beer). I don't think it tasted any different than any top quality piece of beef in a nice restaurant, BUT its tenderness was amazing. Usually flank steak is tough, sometimes tougher than shoe leather, but this was as tender as a filet.

For dessert I ordered a strawberry crostada with candied citrus peel and ice cream. My friend ordered creme fraiche, butter pecan ice cream. Both were delicious. Two bites in, we traded plates. I love love love butter pecan ice cream.

I'm not really into hunting but I might just give it a try if I can get me a wild boar!

In the meantime, head to Nana's before they change their menu!