Vincent's and Grappino's

I had planned on sitting by myself at Grappino's drinking iced-tea, eating the pasta alla vodka, listening to local musicians butchering famous songs, and reading the latest issue of Business Week. Alas, Jim, who teaches at an HISD middle school called for dinner. So we walked to Vincent's where I had the Pasta Julia. It's a marinara based pasta with spinach and roasted chicken thrown in the mix. Good, but the chicken was over-cooked and the Spinach clumped together like drowned wet napkins. I managed to resist the iced-tea for all of 10 minutes before calling the waiter over and giving in to my addiction.

After dinner, I fulfilled part of the weekly (as of last week) ritual, and wandered to Grappino where I polished off the creme brulee. Today's custard wasn't as good as last week though--not enough real vanilla bean flavor. One of the things I really like about the creme brulee at this Mandola bar is the darkness of the caramelized (or really burned) glaze. Too many restaurants are afraid of that burned sugar flavor. The bitterness matches well against the sweetness of the creme brulee. Tasting Menu has a really good example of a nicely caramelized creme brulee