Restaurant Review: Donato Enoteca
June 27, 2009
I’ve decided that the time has come for me to embrace my first love, food, a bit more fully. More concretely, that means I’m going to start reviewing restaurants I go to and dishes I help make!
First up we have the very newly opened Donato Enoteca in Redwood City. Chris and I suffered through the Giro de Peninsula on Saturday (suffered because it was over 100 degrees for a significant portion of it - and 100 degrees when climbing is not fun) and decided that trying a brand spanking new restaurant would be a good way to treat ourselves. So I booked a reservation on OpenTable and we were on our way!
What we got (see whole dinner menu here)
Munchin’ Bread:
- The bread they bring out is totally yummy, though the spread most certainly had olives in it (which Chris didn’t mind but I did). The bread was certainly yummy enough to eat on its own, though. Very cool airy yet doughy with a firm darkened crust.
Appetizer:
Prosciutto e Pinzin (Traditional Emilia-Romagna dumplings with 18 month aged prosciutto) ($9)
This was sort of an uninspired beginning. The “dumplings” were, as Chris said, “like an empty thin crust empanada.” Or, for those of us who have never knowingly eaten a so called “empanada” it was just sort of dry puffed-out nada. Now, the prosciutto on top was delicious but what about the whole dish? The two pieces didn’t integrate for me at all. It was like a dry hollow puffy bread thing to the left and super yummy prosciutto to the right. I’d recommend you pass on that one.
Main Course:
Bigoli (small tube pasta with braised ox tail and asparagus tips) ($14)
- Portion size: too small (if you are hungry this will not be enough to make you happy)
- Other than the size of the dish it was quite tasty. Chris was totally digging the braised ox tail and its yummy juices flavored the dish nicely. The only complaint other than its size – not enough asparagus.
Tagliata di agnello (Lamb with balsamic reduction (I believe) and vegetables (brussels sprouts, carrots, green beans)) ($19)
- Portion size: lovely
- This was definitely the winner in my eyes (finally I choose well!) The lamb was seriously delicious, nicely cooked (perhaps just a hair overcooked on the sides). The only complaint has to do with the vegetables. The flavoring over them masks the taste of each (except the brussels sprouts, which Chris said were way too overpowering for the dish). I thought they were tasty and nice from a consistency/feel perspective but would have appreciated a little more of their natural flavors coming through. Just a little more! The sort of corn-o-meal pancake things were good for soaking up the little left over juices, too. Overall the lamb was quite delicious. I definitely would have eaten more!
Dessert:
Tiramisu ($9)
- I took two pictures because I was so surprised by this one! It was really a sort of tiramisu pudding. Still tasty but if you’re looking for (what I at least took to be classic tiramisu consistency) be prepared to be surprised.
Overall the meal was lovely and the price was much more reasonable than I thought it would be.
First food review: complete!
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2 Responses to “Restaurant Review: Donato Enoteca”
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Mmmm, craving some tiramisu right now.
ciao Heather, thank you for your review! We look forward to seeing you again. Grazie, Eric