E and I started back our weekly dinners in an epic way. We ventured to south street to dine at Pumpkin for their sunday night five course tasting menu. It was everything we thought it would be, and more! The dining area is small and intimate. There was a big table there, so it was probably a bit noisier than normal. They were russian, had lots of booze, and were having lots and lots of toasts! Since Pumpkin uses as many locally sourced ingredients as possible, their menu does not come out until the day of the meal. I was really excited about what was in store.
The complimentary bread with garlic infused oil. Yep, even their bread is good! It was crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, and the oil was dreamy. I could have drank it.
The first course was a chilled tomato soup with buttermilk and eggplant. There was a lot more to it, but I can’t even be sure of the rest of the ingredients. The bowl came out with some veggies (radishes?) and some dark crumbly bits and a white foam. The white foam is probably the buttermilk, maybe? The dark crumbly bits tasted like toast. The server poured the soup into your bowl at the table. I wasn’t even sure how to eat this! Do I mix it together? Do I eat things separately? Do I just make my own combinations? I never quite figured it out but enjoyed it thoroughly. The soup was beyond fresh, I could taste the green! What does that even mean? I don’t know, but that’s how I describe it. It was just damn tasty.
The second course for E was the new jersey sweet corn risotto with brandade, leek, and clam. It doesn’t look like a typical risotto. This thing was delicious! The corn was fresh and sweet, the seafood was a nice complement, and there was foam, again!
My second course was a free range coddled egg with sunchoke, morcilla blood sauage, and potato. There were two other thick liquids on this dish that I couldn’t really identify. And again, I was at a bit of a loss as to how to eat this thing. So I just took little bits of each area and just made it up as I went. This was incredibly rich and savory. But I liked it all!
The third course was this beautiful salad of heirloom tomatoes, pistachio, watermelon, and buttered popcorn ice cream. What did I just say? Yes, I just said buttered popcorn ice cream. On. My. Salad. There were several different types of tomatoes, all which were great. There were these tiny little cucumbers that looked like micro watermelons. They were adorable and tasted slightly cucumber-like. The ice cream was a crazy touch, and by crazy, I mean crazy good. It pretty much tasted like straight up butter, but with a slight popcorn taste. The more I ate it, the more the popcorn flavor came out. I’ve never eaten salad with ice cream before. It was an unexpected surprise.
E’s fourth course was the rhode island skate with cauliflower, black olive puree, and a caper sauce. The fish was simply pan fried and was simply delicious. It did not need any adulteration. She particularly enjoyed the cauliflower.
My fourth course was the duroc pork loin with quail egg, turnips, chocolate dusted mushroom, black garlic paste, and horseradish cream. Ok, this is a pretty strong statement, but I’m going to make it. This is the best pork I’ve ever tasted. Ever. I’m being completely serious. Plain and simple. In all honesty, I did not even know that pork could taste like this. It was just perfect. The garlic paste was super savory with a slight asian hint to it, and I loved it with the pork. The turnips were great. The quail egg was a bit of a letdown. It didn’t really have any kind of flavor. It wasn’t even particularly egg-like!
E’s fifth course was the flourless chocolate cake with cardamom, passion fruit concentrate, and coconut sorbet. This thing was rich and creamy and strong! The passion fruit dollop was the most concentrated flavor of passion fruit I’ve ever experienced.
My fifth course was the caramelized white chocolate goat cheesecake with apricot sorbet, fig, and brown butter. The powdery stuff? It’s butter! This cheesecake was awesome, with just the tiniest hint of goat cheeseness (yes, sometimes I make up words). I’m not the biggest fan of goat cheese, but trust me, it’s great. The apricot sorbet was perfect, the figs were mildly sweet. This was truly a meal to remember. Every single dish knocked our little socks off. And I don’t think E and I will ever stop talking about the buttered popcorn ice cream! Service was friendly and excellent. And you know that getting five courses of food of this type of quality and inventiveness is nuts at a price like this. We can’t wait to come back!

Sonata is an adorable BYOB in Liberties Walk. When I say adorable, I really mean it. Both E and I could not get over how cute the space is. I mean it’s pretty much just clean and simple, but also totally cute. It seems like a fairly subdued place, but the night we were there there was a very large birthday party table so it was a bit noisy from their festivities, but that doesn’t seem standard. And I love the music-related name. Their menu changes seasonally and is very small. In fact, it’s probably changed to the spring menu by now. I like the small menu because I don’t have to waffle between too many choices. We did get some help from our awesome server on some of his recommendations.
Freshly baked complimentary bread. It was warm, delicious, and herby.
We got the crispy pork belly as an appetizer. It is a giant and thick hunk of pork belly with a thick crispy skin with smoked tomato marmalade, compressed apple, and calvados molasses. Holy crap, this thing is just awesome. I mean pork belly in an of itself is awesome, but then you put all this other stuff with it and damn, I just can’t tell you how good this is. And it’s so damn pretty, too!
E got the cod entree. There are three pieces of potato wrapped pacific cod on napa cabbage and hedgehog mushroom in a sweet onion cream. The fish was super fresh and cooked perfectly and E could not get over how much she loved the cabbage.
I was also pretty crazy about my entree, the chicken. It was a pan roasted bacon wrapped chicken with chestnut stuffing, bourbon whipped potato, haricot vert, and glazed cipolini onion. First off, the chicken was beyond tender, having been pounded, but then once wrapped in oodles of butter, it gets even more tender and beyond juicy. I love chicken that melts in your mouth. The potatoes were great, the green beans were just crispy enough, and I love the cute little onions so much that I wished the plate was full of them.
Ok, onto the dish that E loved the most… her dessert! It was basically a trio of chocolate goodness – warm chocolate beignets, chocolate decadence, and a chocolate hazelnut chipwich. Ok, so these beignets, they were warm and had ooey gooey chocolate on the inside. Like seriously. And she pretty much wanted to marry this chocolate decadence.
I got the apple pie for dessert, only these were adorable little mini fried apple pies with vanilla whiskey ice cream and caramel sauce. These were so cute and tasty! The ice cream was pretty intense… I thought to myself “it’s like vanilla, only with extra awesome.” Then I realized that the awesome was whiskey.
And with our check came these homemade chocolates with caramel and  sea salt. Yes, they were as good as the rest of the meal. E and I both loved our meals at Sonata so much that we can’t wait to go back. Not only was the food perfect, the service was excellent. Everything was just spot on. Even the executive chef, Mark Tropea, came out to check in with us after our meal. We felt so honored. We can’t recommend this place enough!

Since I can’t get ramen at home, whenever I’m in a place where I can, I get it. Upon Shirley‘s recommendation, I went to Boom. It’s by the same people who run Blue C Sushi, which is a Seattle conveyor belt sushi place. There are a couple of Booms in the area and I visited the one in Bellevue, which is connected to a Blue C. The place is big and modern, with a bar, lounge, and dining area.
I decided to try the pork buns just for kicks. I had no idea if they’d be decent, and to my surprise, I liked them! The buns themselves were warm and soft and fresh. The pork was shredded and fatty, which made it a bit juicy. For veggie fillings there was lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, and cilantro. It was all served with a ginger cherry plum sauce. Really, these were pretty good!
I wanted some spice so I got the kimchi tofu, with braised pork, tofu, kimchi, raw egg, and green onion in a spicy miso broth. The broth, kimchi, and the noodles were all pretty good, but it was a bit weird. The pork was in big hunks. It made it hard to eat. They really should think about slicing it. I liked the tofu quite a bit. But cilantro in kimchi ramen? Do they not know how much old korean ladies tend to abhor cilantro? To mix cilantro and kimchi is a bit scandalous. It was still nice to eat ramen though. I already miss it. Service was meh. I ordered a drink but I never got it. Yep, the server just completely forgot about it. At least he didn’t charge me for it, that would have made me livid.