Restaurant Week: Terramia

[lillibet]

I haven't been down in the North End since we moved back to Boston, so I made a point of booking a couple of our RW meals in the neighborhood. Tonight, Tom & steve joined us for dinner at Terramia.

I had checked beforehand to make sure that they were expecting us at 10pm and to ask about parking. They validate at a lot a couple of blocks away, but we found a spot that only a Mini could love, right on Cross Street. I had scoffed at Mapquest's estimate of 11 minutes travel time, sure that it would take twice that long, but we were parked twelve minutes from the time we left the church. Tom & steve were waiting for us, having arrived early and passed the time watching the streetlife from the benches in front of the restaurant. The staff warned us that the kitchen was closing, so they'd like to get our orders in quickly, but they were very pleasant about it and seated us at the windowside table set for five. I found the choices somewhat difficult, mostly because it was hard to decide that I did, in fact, want the pasta options in two of the three courses, but I was very happy with my picks. steve and I both started with the salad of arugula and endive in Italian honey dressing with cinnamon-poached pear, shaved ricotta and walnuts--a very nice mix of flavors. Jason and Tom took the cauliflower soup with pepperoncini oil and a crostini topped with crabmeat and cheese. J thought the bites that included the crostini were very good, but that the soup alone was somewhat bland. For our second course, steve and I had the sundried tomato ravioli in goat cheese sauce with exotic mushrooms and truffle emulsion. That was an amazing dish, rich with mushroom flavor and perfect in texture. J took the smoked buffalo mozzarella with prosciutto, eggplant caponata and basil aioli, another very tasty combination. Tom chose the slow-cooked duck leg with Sicilian peperonata, spinach, red wine vincotto--he said it was generally good, but that the non-crispy skin was sub-optimal. As our mains, steve and I had the tagliatelle pasta with a sauce of veal, beef and pork meat with marscapone, all topped with grated parmesan. The pasta was robust and the sauce hearty and we were both well-pleased with it. J and Tom both took the filet of pork tenderloin in a mustard sugar glaze with pistachio, onions, sweet panettone and celery root. He found it somewhat too sweet for his taste, although the meat itself was very good. They don't offer dessert, but since we've eaten more desserts in the last week than we usually do in a year, we were very happy with a third savory course. Throughout the meal, the staff moved quickly, but without rushing us--they never brought a course before the last one was finished, but we didn't wait more than a minute between them, so we were finishing up a scant forty minutes from the time we arrived. I hope that we'll make it back there before long, although I'm distressed to note that our amazing ravioli is not on the regular menu and will hope that it shows up as a special.

Comments

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

We ate at Terramia once, just picking it out while wandering the North End for dinner on a whim, something probably edging up on 10 years ago (I remember because it was early enough in my working career that I was
amazed that we had spent So Much Money on one meal) and we really enjoyed it.

We went back a second time and were less impressed, such that it
didn't turn into one of our favorite restaurants, but it was still a good
meal the 2nd time.

Now I think we'll have to put it back on our list. (Although the things I remember being really great the first time were all fish and seafood; seems like that was just a chance encounter with a particular inclination that
season...)