f**king delicious!. "pardon my french" i said to our waitress as i used the title of this review to explain my feelings about the caponet of goose confit with cabbage and sherried goose brodo that began what can only be described as one of the culinary highlights of my life!
in my opinion far too many food writers dissect what they've eaten when, oftentimes, an emotional response would be far better ... and our server seemed to appreciate the earthy language as being appropriate for this fine dining rendition of rustic northern italian fare.
the prologue to our meal had been a negroni with marcona almonds for my wife and a gin with blackberry & huckleberry jam stirred into it, and a fried rabbit's liver for me! would i think of putting gin and jam together , let alone accompanying it with fried rabbit offal? heck no ... but holly smith and her team must have a palate just like mine and i thank them all the more for that!
alongside my caponet of goose confit my wife had the spot prawns with lardo bruschetta. she loved it but was kind enough to share the paper thin lardo with me ... a deliciously sweet 'condiment' when melted atop the caponet.
the appetizers were followed by a salad that we shared, and which was thoughtfully served on two plates. the roasted beets on marcona almond butter with gorgonzola bombolino were sumptuous, every element working perfectly together. two plates were returned to the kitchen scraped clean of every last trace of food ... i think we both considered licking our plates but thought better of it as the entrees were still to come.
we had asked the wine steward ( so much less snobby a title than 'sommelier') to recommend an italian wine that would not taste too "pinot-y" to us,having drunk a lot of oregon's finest recently. after a taste of one wine established our benchmark for the flavors we were looking for, she suggested a wonderful 2004 brunello di montalcino that just improved as the evening wore on and was nicely within the budget we gave her.
then came the entrees. my wife had the goats cheese gnocchi, beautiful pillows of potato with sweet heirloom cherry tomatoes ... she liked it but had a hard time keeping her bread out of the jus that accompanied my braised rabbit!
ah, the braised rabbit ... chef smith's signature dish and oh what a graceful but strong signature it is! as one blogger review put it "i've eaten a fair few rabbit dishes ... we brits do that" ... yes indeed, but never have i eaten such deliciously good rabbit.
the loin the belly and the thighs each received their own treatment, the latter being stuffed with porcini and wrapped in proscuitto. what made the dish was the perfect jus that accompanied it ... thick enough to cling to the food and flavorful without being overpowering. our server's description of the kitchen staff dipping bread into the leftover jus at each night's end was all too believable ... and who could blame them!
desserts were a panna cotta with cardoon honey and vanilla sea salt and a chocolate truffle tortino with mint gelato and sour cherry balsamic reduction. both were beautifully prepared, with the panna cotta edging the tortino in the voting for "best dessert".
a complimentary glass of moscato d'asti was another thoughtful gesture in an evening made even more enjoyable by the friendly attention of really good staff.
it had been three years since our last visit to cafe juanita ... i don't think we'll wait anything like as long before our next!