Davanti Enoteca (Del Mar)

Davanti Enoteca was introduced to me through a book club meeting a few months back. My friend that picked the restaurant compared it to Cucina Urbana, which itself is quite the popular place and quite delicious! For San Diego Restaurant Week Fall 2013, dinner was a three course meal for $30/person

We had a choice between 4 appetizers, 3 entrees, and 3 desserts.

The Corn and Walnut salad was a fabulous appetizer to begin our dinner! The freshly cut corn off the cob and hint of mushrooms filled every delicious bite. This is something which I'd love to make at home!

The Escarole Apple Salad is a generous salad appetizer contained nibbles of gala apples, pecorino dolce cheese and hazelnuts. The menu also mentions celery but I don't even remember tasting any! Maybe it blended in really well! I loved the light vinaigrette dressing, which was a perfect touch to keep the salad from being too dry or too wet! I've become a huge fan of sweeter vinaigrettes lately. After two decent sized appetizers, we had to slow it down to make room for everything else!

This item isn't on the regular menu but it was part of the restaurant week selection. As we cut into the pork chop, you could see the juices glistening in the middle. Each bite was succulent and there was a nice crisp sear on the edges. The garnish on top was a compliment to the meat as well. As for the beans, they were on the firm side, possibly great northern beans? There were a few pieces of ham interspersed which helped out with the taste of the beans.

Scallops were the fish special of the day, though they aren't fish per say. The two pieces we each had were cooked through but without being tough. The creamy sauce was dip-worthy and helped balance out the seasoning of the scallops. The plate was small but I was already pretty full by this point!

The Mango Carpaccio was so beautful when it came out. There was a lemon or lime sorbet surrounded by fresh strawberries, blueberries, and nectarines (as I believe them to be). At first I thought the yellow was sauce but after sampling, I found the thinly sliced mango instead! Hence the 'mango' in the name, which I had completely forgotten about! Everything on the plate was so good! This was my favorite dessert of the two.

The Torte al Limone was richly decadent but definitely too lemon centric! We loved how our forks sliced through it like butter for serving. The insides were moist and not overly sweet.

To go along with our meal, we sipped on the Fall Berry Cocktail and some moscato which was a pairing with the dessert. I was so excited about everything that I forgot about the moscato until halfway through dessert!

You really can't go wrong with anything on the menu but here are a few other recommendations that I've tried:

• ricotta + honey comb
• mascarpone polenta + ragu of the day
• Pollo ‘Sole Mio’

This is one of my new favorite restaurants!