We've been meaning to switch it up and try Boca, because it's been at the top of Cincinnati Magazine's Top Ten Restaurant list at least a handful of times and everyone who goes says to go. But Nicola's. How do we pass that up?
Then for our sixth anniversary last year, we weren't able to go to Nicola's because we were driving to the cottage for a week's vacation and Donnie ate cold spaghetti out of a Snapware with his fingers. And I figured that if we could pass up Nicola's for that, we should at least give Boca a try. This is the year.
Actually we had tried to go to Boca for my birthday dinner this year, but somebody didn't realize you needed to make a Saturday night reservation with more than a week's notice.
That somebody wasn't me.
And lucky for somebody, our anniversary fell on a Monday.
Which meant while we had no trouble getting a reservation, the downside was that I had to get ready in the bathroom at the office and take my pre-date selfie in my cubicle:
Donnie picked me up at work and we drove over to Sixth Street. We were seated directly under the restaurant's most impressive feature, a massive gold and crystal chandelier:
Unfortunately, when it came time to order our drinks I realized that I had my fill of wine over the weekend and wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I chose an IPA from Strongville, Ohio, which was good, but really, who orders a beer at Boca? (Answer: A Classy Broad.) Donnie had a nice pinot noir:
Next, we ordered the sourdough bread from Blue Oven Bakery, which we smeared with Vermont Creamery butter and little spoonfulls of salt.
I had been studying the menu online ahead of time and had pretty much resigned myself to what appeared to be the one vegetarian dish--some kind of pasta. I don’t love pasta, and so I was thrilled when I asked the server for vegetarian recommendations and he brought out an entire vegetarian menu.
We started with the pomme soufflees, which are little pillow puffs of fried potato served with bearnaise sauce. The presentation was impressive but there wasn’t much flavor to the potato and the bearnaise was also sort of bland. Although I had been leaning towards the caramelized brussels sprouts, our server sold us on the pommes with a story about how they are a tribute to the Masionette, which occupied the space for decades. He also said that on a good night only two-thirds of them actually puff up.
Next, we had had the grilled romaine salad with an anchovy garlic emulsion, big shaves of parmesan cheese, and grilled toast. This was my favorite thing. I eat romaine lettuce every day of my life and this puts each bite to shame.
We also split the beet “Mezzaluna” salad with hazelnuts and goat cheese. The flavors here were great, and the presentation was the cheeriest out of all our dishes. Donnie talked about trying to make this at home and wondered how he could recreate the way the beets were sliced thin and folded over the goat cheese like little raviolis. I told him that’s why people go to culinary school and to leave it to the experts:
For our entrees, Donnie had a lobster tortellini with butter sauce and I had mushroom risotto from the vegetarian menu:
The risotto doesn’t look pretty in this picture, but it was rich and creamy with just enough bite from the cheese and the pepper.
When it came time to choose dessert, Donnie gave the menu a cursory glance, saw that there was cheesecake, and settled on that. This sparked a long conversation in which he insisted that cheesecake was also my favorite dessert.
I’ll spare you the details of this conversation but the truth is, cheesecake doesn’t even make my list of top five favorite desserts (a vanilla cupcake, ice cream, cookies, brownies, custard). Cheesecake is fine, but it would really rank towards the bottom of my top ten, somewhere behind rice pudding, plain dark chocolate, and a York Peppermint Pattie. Plus, we can get cheesecake any day, anywhere, and I wanted to try something different. Something we could only get at Boca.
Which is how we ended up with this:
This indistinguishable blur--pardon my poor photography--was a creative dish called “The Candy Bar”: peanut butter nougat between two layers of brownie, covered in dark chocolate and peanut butter powder. It was served with caramel ice cream and a chocolate lace cookie on the side. We had it with black coffee to cut the sweetness.
About the time we were polishing off the candy bar, a handsome stylish man walked in and the couples at the nearby tables started murmuring. Apparently this was someone named Don Cheadle, who I had never heard of, but looked up online later.
Although Mr. Cheadle shares my fine taste in restaurants, I can pretty much guarantee he didn’t get ready for the evening in his cubicle. Which just goes to show that fine dining is a luxury that is relatively accessible to the Everyman. An opportunity for someone like me to crawl out of their cubicle, smear on some Burt’s Bees, and sit within earshot of someone who spent the day shooting a movie about Miles Davis.
Even if exactly one year ago they were eating spaghetti with their fingers.
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