My buddy invited me to dinner at his restauraunt on Monday night. No he doesn't own the place, he's a prep chef there, which is practically the bottom rung of the kitchen staff. But it's a quite nice restauraunt. Essentially he's in charge of making the pasta and other small tasks, such as hucking beans, and a particularly nefarious task peeling the skin off of chick peas. Monday being a pretty slow night for restauraunts, especially for nice ones he gave us a tour of the main kitchen, which was small, functional, and a surprising contrast to the dining room. In addition we went downstairs to where my buddy spends his days, saw his pasta machine, and the counter where he works. I think if I redo my kitchen I'm just going to go with a completely functional industrial look and put 18/8 stainless countertops throughout.

We sat there and ate, the staff noted to my buddy "Doesn't food taste better in the dining room, rather than downstairs next to the kegs and storage."

The food was good. The restauraunt serves a contemporary Italian menu. We sampled a lot of different things. Simple and light cheese gnocci served with a simple marinara. Fettucini with osso buco veal ragu. Garganelli with chantrell mushrooms. mmm....

And of course my buddy was raving about the tender non-gamey lamb, served with carmelized eggplant. I ordered tuna, which it seems, the popular yuppie way of prepare it, is currently to serve it rare... very rare... pretty much sashimi rare. It was a new recipe for the kitchen, they update the menu every month and a half or so to keep it fresh. It was good, although a bit different. I've had tuna like that served so many ways, they did cook it right, but served on a bed of tomatoes, with fried chilis and mint leaves, definatley wasn't very Italian, but it wasn't unconventional either. Maybe they could serve a filet or a tenderloin the same way.

They served us desert and coffee, I had a wonderful Ceretto Moscato d'Asti.

I told my buddy to send our thanks and regards to the staff when he went to work the next day.