Gale M.
Yelp
I am so fortunate and grateful to my friends for celebrating my birthday with lunches at my favorite places. Last week a friend who shares my birthday week and I had a joint celebration at Zio Peppe, absolutely one of my favs. We began with lemon swizzle cocktails. They are tart and sweet, the glass rimmed in green sugar, and so good.
Our starter was the tamale polenta, with smoked cheddar, roasted chiles, red pepper relish, and kernels of corn; definitely my polenta of choice. For our main course we both wanted the Caesar salad, and because it was our main, we added shrimp. The shrimp were expertly cooked: tender with that perfect slight resistance when biting into them. I have reviewed Zio's Caesar before, with the perfectly tangy dressing, lots of parm, and the giant garlicky buttery croutons that taste like the best garlic bread you've ever eaten.
That was last week. This week, I was treated by a dear friend and we just had to repeat the lemon cocktail I had the week before. We enjoyed it as much as I had previously. We split a Caesar salad, because that's another must-have. We settled on two entrees to share: the Green Chile Garganelli Bolognese and the Ravioli Sonorense. The bolognese is described as New Mexico green chile garganelli, braised beef short rib, bolognese sauce, salsa verde, Pecorino Romano. The short rib was luscious and fork tender, and the sauce for it and the ravioli were so tasty that we had to order bread to mop up the sauce and not waste a bit of that deliciousness. The menu describes the ravioli as Chile Ricotta Stuffed Egg Pasta, Marinara, Poblano Chile Con Queso, Beef Chorizo, Pecorino. I describe it as amazing. The bread deserves its own commentary. It was served hot and chewy from the oven, perfect for dipping.
We were stuffed, and our personable and helpful waiter (who I suspect is one of the owners) was packing up our leftovers. But my friend said we have to have a birthday dessert. We decided to share the flourless chocolate cake. Funny how you can be so full and yet make room for a fudgy extravaganza, described as decadent chocolate bourbon cake, chocolate mirror glaze, espresso buttercream. It was so good! There were no cake leftovers.
And, lucky me, I have two more b-day lunches to look forward to. I feel like the middle schoolers I taught for so long, celebrating a birthday month, not just a day.