Valentine’s Day

In this post I have to boast a little about how wonderful my hubby, Livio, is. I have been quite sick all week due to a cold that I caught on the SAME day that I had foot surgery. Talk about bad luck! I thought that was going to completely ruin Valentine’s day, but Livio surprised me with this gorgeous bouquet of flowers at lunch.

I was still feeling pretty down about my foot and being sick so I wasn’t feeling up for doing much in the evening, but Livio insisted that the restaurant he booked our dinner at would make me feel better- and it sure did! We got gussied up and Livio gallantly carried me down two flights of stairs and we went to one of my favorite places and a sister restaurant of the most renowned in the region; il Calandrino.

Here are some snapshots of the place that I took from their website. It is a very modern restaurant by Italian standards. I love how they use old wine crates to serve bottled water and wine from next to the table.

They had a special valentine’s day menu along with their regular menu alla carte.

To start off we toasted with some prosecco!

 

Followed by our first course from the valentine’s day special menu “Black truffle risotto with a red beet reduction sauce and gorgonzola cheese”. It was pink! Very fitting obviously and VERY delicious- a perfect balance of flavors and complexity.

We then ordered from the regular menu ” beef tenderloin wrapped in pancetta with Balsamic vinegar, sesame and sunflower seed sauce, and grilled Treviso radicchio”. The meat was super tender and cooked to perfection! The radicchio was also delicious and we paired it with a juicy Montiano Merlot from Lazio.

 

To finish up we spoiled ourselves a bit to not one, but two dessert options. We ordered a selection of 6 petit four, each one as pretty as it was delicious

 

And, to top it all off, we ordered the “hot chocolate sformato with hazelnut gelato and espresso”

 

this was TRULY one of the best desserts I’ve ever had and I would go back just to eat this again!

What an experience! Obviously we both left very satisfied and I was really happy Livio convinced me to go as it definitely helped me feel better despite having a bit of a difficult week. Sorry if I used this post to shamelessly brag about my husband, but he deserves it.

Anyone else care to share their Valentine’s day plans? Did you do anything special?