Valentino's and White Truffles

Wednesday, November 15, 2018

Long drive to Santa Monica, freeway was a crawl. Did get to Valentino's just a couple of minutes late. www.valentinosantamonica.com.  Joined Stan and Karen for dinner. This place has been on my bucket list forever. Very pricey but well worth it. 

Stan had ordered a 1990 Vietti Barolo off the wine list. Excellent choice. Since there was a bottle ordered from the restaurants wine list they did not charge us corkage for the other two bottles we brought. Corkage is $50 each.  Plus Stan being  a regular helps also. I brought a 2010 Kosta Browne, Russian River Valley, Pinot Noir and Stan & Karen contributed a 2008 Pol Roger, Blanc de Blanc Champagne.  All the wines found their place with the food dishes.

Started out with a plate of house made Parmesan Crisps. I make these at home but Valentino's obviously used a much better grade of Parm than I do. So thin and delicate.

Next was a Uovo Tartufo. House made sheet pasta wrapped around a very soft boiled egg with a delicate cream sauce and white truffles shaved over the top. Rich and decadent. The yolk just oozed out of the pasta when cut.

Then came the Risotto with white truffles. Perfectly cooked risotto, creamy and rich

Then onto the Tagliatelle with sauce and shaved white truffles. Excellent dish but we all agreed that the Risotto was the choice for us.

Our first non-truffle dish was an Grilled Octopus with squid ink infused Israeli couscous. Another excellent, rich dish.

Last we had a Mushroom Mousse. This is not on the menu. But they always have it if you know to ask for it. Rich mushroom mousse sitting on a pool of Saffron sauce. Perfect foil for the bread.

Valentino's flies their fresh pasta in every day from Italy. No wonder their prices are high.

All the food had high marks, all were extremely rich and I felt it.  I will be having soup for lunch tomorrow to balance myself out.  

After all these small plates we opted not to order a main course. No one could bring ourselves to eat anything more.

On the way out I saw a group in a side room.  I spotted Bennett that used to work for Wine County and then left to become a distributor. It was his high end wine group getting together. Made a quick stop to say hello. Nice to see him after several years.

Valentino's will be closing after a run of almost 50 years. Should happen in the next 4 to 5 months. But the owner will be opening a new place in Newport Beach next year. New name will be Louie's of Newport. Anxious to try it.