Friday, though, we went to our favorite local dinner spot, Fioretto Trattoria. Surprisingly, I've never touched on it before, but it's an unassuming little spot in a strip mall at the western tip of Culver City serving very high quality Cali-Tuscan at reasonable prices in an unpretentious atmosphere. Frankly, I owe it more than that. I would be raving at you in person, but I'll save that enthusiasm for upcoming reports. I will say this: we now go on Fridays almost exclusively because that is when our favorite waitress is working.
If you check out the website, you'll see that they serve a seasonal menu augmented by specials that change every week or so. The good thing about that is that we've always got something different to choose from. The bad thing is that we often don't get there enough times in a season to have everything we'd like to. Worse problems to have, I guess.
At this point, I need to apologize for failing you, dear reader. You see, after BoW reminded me to snap some shots of our first course, I flippantly stated that I had done so on our previous visit (when our choices were nearly the same), thinking that not only had I already taken those pictures, but I had written about the dishes. Sadly, as my good friend TF pointed out to me, I had been slacking on my writing and had let it slide...
Chef David does great things with soup, and the garlic soup with greens was no disappointment. Something tells me it's because he makes his own fond de veau. Frankly, that stock is the thing that elevates Fioretto over most of the "Italian" places you'll find on the west side. It only seems to come out of a can here if it does in Italy, too. BoW had the Rosso salad which made excellent use of the red and golden beets that are very rich and seasonable in the fall here in SoCal.
The gnocchi with walnut pesto was something we had both looked at on our previous visit, and having had a long, hard run that afternoon, BoW decided it was for her.
Chef's gnocchi are light and almost fluffy compared to the weighty dumplings found in most checked-tablecloth establishments. The walnut pesto was meaty and rich, as expected. The only disappointment was with the plating. The artichoke base was slightly under-seasoned and brought a little too much watery liquid with it, undermining the earthy and savory impact the dish should have landed with.
The star of the dinner was definitely the beef ribs. As we have discussed, this is a popular dish on the LA culinary landscape. I won't get into an examination of why right now, but modern foodies have taken Bourdain's lead into the realm of poor-people food and stopped before getting too far above 116th street.
Chef's preparation is simple. The meat is slowly braised in some good wine and finished with a simple sauce that doesn't try to "elevate" this already lofty experience. Along side are a rectangle of simply grilled homemade polenta and a handful of lightly fried spinach. Only Chef Ford's pea tendrils have anything on these lowly greens, and his beef cheeks represent a nice point of comparison to these ribs. At the end of the day, this is much cheaper meat, treated with similar respect, and resulting in similarly delightful cuisine. The cheeks have a texture that the ribs can only aspire to, but the richness and decidedly bovine flavor of the ribs is like nothing else. It's the same reason I like flatirons better than filets. If I want texture, I'll eat Japanese.
To be fair, the texture of these ribs was prefect. I didn't have to use my knife at all for this meal, and pulling the ribs apart into strands, I was able to maximize the surface area that contacted my taste buds. I'm in it for the food.
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