Parigi

So far, so good on my new year's resolution followers. This weekend, I attempted to try a new sports bar (but was thwarted by a sea of Badgers. No, really. Apparently, 1st & 10 was the official Wisconsin Rose Bowl watching party and had to change locales when there wasn't a seat to be had. I'll go back. It looks like my kind of place) and I tried a restaurant that I had never been to before -- Parigi.

Parigi is one of those places that I'm surprised I've never been to. It's down the street from my office in Turtle Creek. And I've had Janice Provost and Chad Houser's food before, just not at Parigi. The last time I went to 48 nights, they were the guest chefs and the food was so good and just so much fun. I then sampled their fare at CFF #1 and enjoyed it. But each of these events had a whole lot of wine associated with them, so I wondered if I would enjoy Parigi's food as much if I wasn't lit.

PMc had missed my birthday celebrations and wanted to take me out. Never to turn down a meal, particularly with one of my favorite people in the entire world, I readily accepted.

We arrived at Parigi within a minute of one another. I had just parked and was being stalked by the valet who informed me that if I was going to Parigi, the entire lot was dedicated to valet. Annoyed, I handed him my keys. Nothing is worse than valeting your own car.

We walked in from the back and I couldn't help but wonder if I could have avoided the valet issue by saying that I was going to the AT&T store next door, go through that store and enter Parigi through the front door instead. But, whatever, keys had been turned over by then anyway. Parigi is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. They make the most of the space but it sure is cozy. Made cozier by what seemed like 10x more staff than needed for this small place. I'm not sure why there's a host. Seemed like the bartender could have performed double duty just fine.

We looked over the menu. Lots of good stuff here. In addition to the regular menu, there's always brunch specials for the burger, omelet, fish, and risotto. We each chose a special. PMc chose the risotto which had chicken, mushrooms and asiago cheese. She let me have a bite and it was delicious. The mushrooms were so good, we decided they were made with crack although by the end of the meal we had determined that said crack was actually white wine and a stick of butter. My kind of crack!

I ordered the fish special. It was Scottish salmon with a butternut squash bacon hash and fresh veggies. Salmon was very nice but a bit overcooked for my liking. It was, however, was the butternut squash bacon hash that was the standout. Bacon makes everything better!

While were were eating, a couple walked in with a big white dog. I knew Parigi let dogs dine on the patio during nice days but inside the restaurant, hmmm? Well, it turned out to be a service dog, or at least that's what it said on its leash. It didn't look like any service animal I had ever seen and you would think a service dog would be trained not to lick its privates in a restaurant (we had an excellent view of this event) but decided to accept its leash moniker as fact. I'm now wondering if I can pass my mutt off as a "service dog" just by getting him a fancy new leash. Although since Mur does not fetch, knows no tricks (other than looking cute), and rather enjoys licking his privates in public, I'm thinking my scam would be noticed immediately.

After the dog seemed to settle down, we then ordered the dessert trio (it was, afterall, my birthday celebration and what better way to follow up a show than dessert, huh?). It contained smaller servings of the Chocolate Blob (which I think is just undercooked brownie), the pie special of the day, buttermilk (my favorite), and some ice cream. Everything looked so good that one of our fellow diners stopped at our table as he was leaving and said "looks like I forgot to order something." We didn't offer to share. We were enjoying it too much.

Glad I went to Parigi and will likely go back again. Even completely sober the food is great. You should try it too.

PMc pointed out to me this weekend that we had made a new years resolution together on NYE 2009 that we would spend more time together in 2010. I think it was the only resolution we both kept in 2010. I was so glad to start my 2011 with a great brunch at Parigi with her. Here's to resolutions worth keeping and making again and again.

Cheers!