Tuesday, April 10, 2012

DINO's Passover Feast - a perfect find (4-9-12)

Every year we try to head over to our friend Dean Gold's place DINO (www.dino-dc.com) in Cleveland Park (DC) for his truly superb PASSOVER FEAST. Now don't believe that DINO's serves kosher food; it does not-this is a PASSOVER-style meal, and one of the best around if you are not strict about kosher food and just do not wish to eat leaven on Passover.
The meal is served family style and costs $59 for adults and $24 for kids. A flight of 4 pours (3 oz. each) can be added for $24 per person, which of course, we always do as well. I only wish that DINO's could offer an array of Kosher for Passover wines as well, some are truly a find!
The flight is made up of
La Giaretta "Volpare" Valpolicella 2010
Mazzolina "Terrazze" Pinot Nero from Oltrapo Pavese 2010
San Polo "Rubio" Sangiovese 2009 from Montalcino
Collemattoni Brunello di Montalcino 2205 from Tuscany
They are a great tour of wines, but we needed a bit more and went for the spicy full-bodied Mantane 2010 Primitivo from Puglia that is a wonderful wine on the palate with all foods except maybe light fish dishes in cream!
The meal itself includes Matza, the best White Horseradish around (it has an intense lemony flavor that I love) and two types of Haroset-an Ashkenazi-style and a very sweet Sephardi "ball" made from date, fig and poppy seed that begs to be combined with the horseradish.
Dean's "Better than Ella's" (his mom) Chopped Chicken Liver was a looser style made from organic liver this year with much more flavor, due to marsala instead of Madeira wine. If you haven't had homemade Gefilte Fish, you must try "Jack's Fish Market" served here with some carrots and a dash of red Hawaiian sea salt. A guy sitting next to us was so intrigued he ordered it as his starter and raved as we did!
Spring Salads include a Beet, Fennel & Onion Salad with loads of flavor, Spiced Carrots with a great spice, but not overwhelming and a superb simple Spicy Greens Salad with delish vinaigrette.

We moved on to the Dean's "Better than Ella's" Matzo Ball Chicken Soup and these were indeed excellent (although, I love my fluffy ones at home!). Samuel loved the Matza ball, as he always does and we gobbled ours up in the slightly salty soup that was absorbed by the ball.
The main course is made up of East Coast Mahi-Mahi al Mosaica with a Livorno-style Jewish tradition sauce of Tomato, Garlic, Parsley & Spice. We adore this sauce and await it every year. The Chicken this year was PEtti di Pollo-Breast with Lemon, Mushrooms and Marsala. Dean substituted capers for the mushrooms on Samuel's plate (he has lost his love of mushrooms he had in belgium last summer!) and both dishes were superb, but the mushrooms were indeed the star. The Agnello con aglio verde needed a bit more of the sauce made from Red Wine, Olive Oil and Green Garlic as the Lamb Brisket on the bone was a bit dryish.
All these came with a huge plate of Matzoh Farfel, Sauteed Kales & Sweet Potato Tzimmes (the firm tasty with raisin kind, not the mushy one you grew up with your grandma who had no clue about overcooking!). All were superb and after all this THERE IS STILL Passover-style dessert of a choice of CHOCOLATE WALNUT TORTA (intense chocolate with a crust of nuts) or the STRAWBERRY CAKE with SABA which was kind of like a matza-cake served warm with strawberry sauce....think of warm matza-strawberry shortcake without the cream!
It's always fun to have this meal each year and not have to cook at home as well!
Bravo Dino!