Oh, Campania is fabulous, but totally not for a typical college student's budget -- I believe Dad spent about $75/person, and that was with one of the less expensive wines, and splitting appetizers and desserts.
It's high-end Italian, where that starts blurring into nouvelle. Going into a bit more detail of what we had, which I think gives some idea of the place:
For starters, we had the black truffle infused pasta. This was served in a very simple sauce (basically butter and cream, I'd guess), so that the flavor of the pasta itself could come through. The only garnish was a few slices of truffle, to goose the flavor. Subtle stuff -- when you first bite it, it seems to just be a soft pasta (sort of like chow foon noodle), but the truffle flavor blooms on the tongue as you go.
The duck confit was basically half a duck, either roasted or pan-seared (possibly both). The breast was sliced into several chunks that were perfectly tender, and served with an array of fruits to compliment it: blood orange, pomegranate seeds, and a puree of something apple-y. It also came with a deeply roasted half onion, caramelized to high sweetness, that complimented the duck perfectly. The leg was left intact for nibbling off the bone, and that's where the sear really came through, dark and flavorful.
The four of us split the two major dessert plates (each of which is made to order, so you have to order it with the meal). The pear tart was a loose puff pastry shell with whole pears in sauce baked inside; the chocolate souffle was baked up crisp on top but molten on the inside. Each was topped with a small scoop of high-quality ice cream and a nest of spun sugar.
Our only complaint was that they didn't quite take my stepmother at her word: when she says "rare", she means "rare, dammit", and her leg of veal was overdone for her taste. But they made that up remarkably efficiently -- they insisted on replacing it, and had a fresh one (properly red and chewy) in front of her in only about five minutes.
All quite sinful, and well worth the money IMO, but expensive enough to definitely be a special-occasion restaurant.
In that neck of the woods we're always drawn to Carambola, especially for a great lunch.
Oh, Carambola (now Elephant Walk) is great, but it's not really the same kind of meal. It's more what I think of as a good date restaurant, rather than a once-a-year occasion place where we linger over dinner for a couple of hours. (Although that does remind me that we don't get there nearly often enough. Don't know why -- it's just far enough from the heart of Moody St. that I usually don't think of it, I suppose.)
Speaking of not-cheap good meals, have you eaten at Oga's, on Rt. 9 in Natick?
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It's high-end Italian, where that starts blurring into nouvelle. Going into a bit more detail of what we had, which I think gives some idea of the place:
For starters, we had the black truffle infused pasta. This was served in a very simple sauce (basically butter and cream, I'd guess), so that the flavor of the pasta itself could come through. The only garnish was a few slices of truffle, to goose the flavor. Subtle stuff -- when you first bite it, it seems to just be a soft pasta (sort of like chow foon noodle), but the truffle flavor blooms on the tongue as you go.
The duck confit was basically half a duck, either roasted or pan-seared (possibly both). The breast was sliced into several chunks that were perfectly tender, and served with an array of fruits to compliment it: blood orange, pomegranate seeds, and a puree of something apple-y. It also came with a deeply roasted half onion, caramelized to high sweetness, that complimented the duck perfectly. The leg was left intact for nibbling off the bone, and that's where the sear really came through, dark and flavorful.
The four of us split the two major dessert plates (each of which is made to order, so you have to order it with the meal). The pear tart was a loose puff pastry shell with whole pears in sauce baked inside; the chocolate souffle was baked up crisp on top but molten on the inside. Each was topped with a small scoop of high-quality ice cream and a nest of spun sugar.
Our only complaint was that they didn't quite take my stepmother at her word: when she says "rare", she means "rare, dammit", and her leg of veal was overdone for her taste. But they made that up remarkably efficiently -- they insisted on replacing it, and had a fresh one (properly red and chewy) in front of her in only about five minutes.
All quite sinful, and well worth the money IMO, but expensive enough to definitely be a special-occasion restaurant.
In that neck of the woods we're always drawn to Carambola, especially for a great lunch.
Oh, Carambola (now Elephant Walk) is great, but it's not really the same kind of meal. It's more what I think of as a good date restaurant, rather than a once-a-year occasion place where we linger over dinner for a couple of hours. (Although that does remind me that we don't get there nearly often enough. Don't know why -- it's just far enough from the heart of Moody St. that I usually don't think of it, I suppose.)
Speaking of not-cheap good meals, have you eaten at Oga's, on Rt. 9 in Natick?
No, I don't know it. What sort of food is it?