Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Chardonnay's Restaurant - Seekonk, MA

So for my birthday dinner, I wanted to go to Chardonnay's in Seekonk, MA. The menu was very unique, but the thing that caught my eye was the pumpkin ravioli. I was expecting a savory dish of round pumpkin ravioli served in a brown butter sauce with some herbs. Instead, I got the most unbelievable dessert-like meal ever.

First, I sampled my dad's noodle salad, which is served cold with hot seared shrimp and scallops. The shrimp were unbelievable. The croutons on my husband's salad were made on site and were delightfully crunchy, toasted in seasoned olive oil versions of the bread that was brought to the table for us to munch before dinner. My mom's dinner choice was a wonderful shrimp scampi that would have tempted me to order it if they could make it without the white wine (though I was fine to taste a small piece of the sweet, succulent shrimp). I believe the scampi was also seasoned very simply with plenty of garlic, parsley and salt and pepper to complement the white wine.

My ravioli was square rather than the round I had imagined, and the brown butter sauce was more of a dessert sauce. Thick, syrupy and loaded with brown sugar. The dish was topped with candied pecans. How is this not a dessert? Well - the pile of sauteed spinach accented with finely diced tomatoes seated in the center of my ravioli wasn't dessert-like, but it was pretty darned good. Once I finished my meal, (well I did leave some spinach behind) we went back to my house where Sarah unveiled her "I made it all by myself from scratch" cheesecake from Trader Joe's. Very tasty & topped with pieces of oreo cookies. Yum

So all in all, a very tasty birthday :)

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