The Restaurant

Yaaauuuuuttttt!! The Restaurant at Rowayton Seafood. Rowayton; home to supreme existentialist Andy Rooney. Yaaauuuuttt. Nice little place on the water in southern Norwalk. It's officially Norwalk but I was informed that they have their own post office. Good company. We got a 200000000006 Grgich Hills Fume Blanc to start. I always liked this wine in my retail days but I probably wasn't as good a palate back then or maybe the wine was better. Anyway, it had this indigenous, Finger Lakes tinge to the palate. Like fresh concord grapes skins. I picked those babies during my childhood so back off. Not a whole lot Fume or Sauvignon to it. Interesting but not worth the dough. Nice Belon Oysters from Massachusetts and some Umami Oysters from Rhode Island. Good and clean, fresh and no miles in an airplane. That is what one of the guests was interested in. Green or not-green, it's part of the conversation these days....well sort of. I'm not a a green Nazi but it doesn't hurt to at least contemplate it. Dinner was a mixture of seafood stew, some scallops on the table and a single salmon steak. I had lobster ravioli in a cream sauce with parsley and a side of sauteed spinach. Very fresh, very simple and quite good. No complaints. The second bottle we had was the 2005 La Spinetta Ca Di Pian Barbera d'Asti. Very nice wine. 2005 really made wine making easy on the European continent I think. I like. This particular bottle was good out of the gate. Easy fruit, soft tannins and just a good, easy drinking persona. Everyone commented on this wine but it didn't' really go with any of the food. Warm chocolate cake for dessert and a double espresso to go; probably why I'm wired now and writing. Sitting here drinking a two-day-old, 2006 Capiaux Cellars Freestone Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Russian River. Sean Capiaux made a name as the winemaker at Peter Michael and currently makes killer Cab's at O'Shaughnessy. This label is his own and he sources some serious fruit. After two days this has nice spices, potpourri hints and a little sour cherry-cranberry thing going on. The structure is still there and probably the only thing wrong with it is that it is a little bitter. I rather enjoy it. The wife is drinking a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA and has just given up on it. Looks like Daddy is gonna finish it. Van Morrison Live at Montreux 1980 on WLIW21. Didn't know I like Van Morrison that much until Bert played it on Christmas Day to complement my wife's childhood video's she received from her mom.

-Ernie-