Everyone has a Happy Place

Mine just happens to be Rivoli's restaurant on Solano.  At least once a year for as long as I can remember we have gone to Rivoli's.  Usually, it is in the wonderful company of Walter and Lydia on New Years Eve.  But tonight, Kris and I ventured there in the hopes of recreating some of my best memories with a smaller party.  I was worried that without our "in" the service would be merely mediocre, and I was so so so happy to be proven wrong.  I might even say that tonight was one of my favorite meals there.

I (being of stupid, yet sound mind and body) looked at the menu today while at work, and was so immediately taken with one of the options that it was not even a choice as to where we would be eating dinner tonight.  Around noon I made a reservation, and it was 8 long hours of waiting later that Kris and I began our delicious trip down Rue de Rivoli.  As is customary at restaurants, we were seated... duh... then our server came out to help us get started and when he asked if we had any questions our only response was "yes, we know exactly what we want to eat, but no idea how to pair that with wine!"  He responded in turn by sending out Peter, an incredible sommelier with a love of wines comparable to my love of coats and gelato combined!

Peter seemed to take a liking to us and not only offered us 8 different amazing sounding options to go with our meal, but decided that given our interests, we would be perfect to help try out a new wine that wasn't even on the wine menu yet!

We chose the mushroom fritters with house aioli, fresh gnochhi with peaches and brown butter sauce, chicken two ways, and pot roast with mushroom au jus and polenta.  Peter helped us every step of the way, pointing out different flavors and complexities of the wines while incorporating fun stories about the people who made them! From our conversations, he appears to know everyone in the wine world, down to the newborn twins of the daughter of the guy who created Gallo wines (she married a Frenchman and created Turning Leaf! Incroyable!!)

Peter not only helped us find this perfect wine for our meal, he also made sure it was the one we wanted by bringing out a different wine from Lodi, California.  An oakier, fruity wine that was delicious with the fritters!

The food as usual was amazing.  Kris' chicken two ways would have knocked my socks off if I had been wearing any, and my pot roast was one of the most divine mouthgasms of my life.  Needless to say, they took gnocchi to a whole new level and instead of the generic chewy nubbins you receive most places I enjoyed a fluffy pillow of potato-pleasure (I later learned they were ricotta gnocchi)!

We must have done something right because when the time for dessert came we ordered a gelato (strawberry and raspberry) and asked if they still served the Vin Santo with Biscotti... sadly, the answer was no, but they did us one better and gave us a double order of Madeira dessert wine with biscotti like cookies, and threw in a mini hot fudge sundae (they must have overheard us talking about the first time Kris came and tried to eat a full one by himself.)  Side note, the picture above is after we ate two and a half of the cookies, we can't be blamed though as they were delicious and had pistachios in them.

As much as I love going on our yearly New Year's romp, I think that this was truly the first time I saw Rivoli's for what it really is.  A phenomenal restaurant with a wonderful staff, not only do they go above and beyond the call of waiterdom, they make sure that every person there feels like they are the most important people in the room.  I can't wait to go back even if next time I just drop in for the fritters and a glass of wine.