Piedmont Wines & The Factory

Tuesday, 21, 2011

Missed last months dinner at the Factory due to their changing the date. Heard it was good so decided to try again. This place is always such a hit and miss.

Again late getting the first course out. Crostini with homemade mozzarella and fresh diced tomatoes with basil and balsamic vinegar. Crostini is getting old. Its being overdone. My piece of toasted bread was odd shaped with a very thick large end. Like they didn't want to waste any part of the loaf. Natalie gushed about making the mozzarella from scratch. Asked her if she bought mozzarella curd but she said no, she made her own curd from skim milk and rennet.  I thought is was tough and had very little flavor. Instead of wasting time making it she should have gone to the local market and purchased a round of good mozzarella.

Next came a salad of field greens with chirizo, curds left over from the mozzarella , olives and a dressing made with olive oil and the brine from the olives. The salad was good. But it was served in a square bowl, all the dressing, olives and chirizo went to the bottom and you were constantly having to mix it it be able to get all the flavor. It would have much better on a plate.

After a long wait our "main" course arrived. Gnocchi with asparagus, white truffle oil, a green asparagus puree and a red bell pepper puree. Both of the purees were very good.  I could not taste any "truffle" which is to bad because Piedmonte, Italy is known for its truffles.  Natalie hand made the Gnocchi.  This pasta should be cut evenly for cooking. It was not. Various sizes and what looked like the uneven ends of the roll of pasta. My Gnocchi on the outside of the plate was cold and in the middle luke warm. It was also heavy and Gnocchi is supposed to be light. They actually talked about it being heavier and prided themselves on it.

Dessert was a chocolate mousse with baked red cherries and cannoli whipped cream with chopped pistachios. This was good.

This was an OK dinner. It again was hit and miss. I sometimes wonder if in doing this BYOB dinners they try to get too creative on the food dishes. Sometimes it is much better to stay in your comfort zone and cook what you are really good at. A little more attention to detail on the crostini and the gnocchi would have been a good thing.  If you can't get your plates out to your customers in a timely manner than you are taking on too much. They have upped the price of dinner to $30 which would be OK in light of the fact that everything has taken a jump in price lately. But this was not a $30 dinner.  I could have had braised lamb shank at Delius with the sides for less money

The big "problem" with this dinner is NO PROTEIN. The only protein we had was a few slivers of chirizo in the salad. They could have added some chicken pieces to the main dish and it would have solved the problem. Natalie had left but we pointed this out to Eric her husband. He looked like he was shocked and did not realize what had happened. I think they were so busy trying to be creative they lost sight of the basics. We also pointed out to him that it would be nice to have the menu posted a few days in advance so we knew what types of wines to bring. Natalie has said she likes to be inspired by the Farmers Market that day. But does she have to be inspired for the entire menu ?  A little less inspiration and more thought would be a big help.

Like Steve said if he had known there was not meat on the menu he wouldn't have opened a $70 bottle of Barolo. There were some good wines on one end of the table. Do not know what was on the other end as they seemed to hording them. They did pass down a Asti but I passed on it. Too sweet for my taste. We had a nice assortments of red & white. The wines passed the test but the dinner ????

Will try again next month and then re-evaluate if it worth the $30.