Sunday: That time of year again

However, this year I didn't feel like spending $300 on dinner, nor did I really feel like cooking.  Since it's been a while since I had Italian, that seemed like the way to go.  So, I went with the Cafe Sistina idea from yesterday.  I'm not going to claim that the ability to make online reservations was an important part of that, but it is always nice to not have to talk to people.  As it turns out, it wasn't super busy anyway, so reservations weren't really needed.

Appetizer:

Funghi con Polenta. 

Italian cremini and wild porcini mushrooms

 in a Gorgonzola cheese sauce over polenta.

The mushroom sauce was very good.  I think a bit more Gorgonzola would have been a good idea, but that's probably just me.  The polenta cakes basically prove that I should just not ever make polenta again, and just let the professionals do it.  Tasty with the sauce, although they lost their good texture as they soaked it up.

Main:

Venison Ragu Pappardelle. 

Fresh wide ribbon pasta sauteed in butter and

 sage topped with a venison ragu.

My main complaint on this one was that it was also full of mushrooms, and if I'd known that was going to be the case, I probably would have gone a different direction to try more not-mushroom things.  I also would have liked more sage flavor.  Sage is one of my favorites, but it seemed to be mostly on vacation in this dish.  In any case, this was good, and had a nice hearty "you should be eating this in the dead of winter as snow falls outside, not in the tropics" flavor.

Dessert:

The tiramisu doesn't get an entry in the online menu.

There's not much to say on this.  Tiramisu is pretty much always pretty good, although this did suffer from the standard tiramisu problem: the bototm layer(s) get overly soaked with liquid, and become soggy.  That's generally just how it goes, and there's not much that can be done to stop it except to make it fresh for each serving (which is crazy, of course).

Reading back over that, I think I come off a bit harsher than I really mean to.  It wasn't the best meal I've ever had.  However, it was also like 1/6 the price.  It's an optimization problem of a kind, and this is a decent solution.  I'll probably have to go back a few more times and try some other dishes.  This easily beats Auntie Pasto's, likely due to the fact that there's a chef presenting a single vision.

Unrelated side note: I still love that tiger.

This would be the place I'd put the giant mosaic of the art at Sistina, but I'm having trouble with the stitching code understanding how to map the 360-degree output.  I'll futz with it tomorrow, and if it still doesn't work, break it up into two or three chunks.

I also have the start of a detailed economics rant that will probably require at least a day to work through the math on.  Woo.  It's like I'm doing blog previews now.

• I like how if you read the first page caption, it basically just says, "We told Frank, one of our art guys, we were doing a story about algae production for future food, and he took that to mean, 'boom-zippo! Space Rocket Farms!'  He started scribbling so fast with those crayons, we just let him finish his idea."
• I regret not having made this pun myself.
• Seriously.  Burning people with my mind.  I promise I'd only use it for good.  I'm coming to the conclusion that setting up a massive mind-burning based empire would be difficult to administer.  Basically, you'd spend all day iterating over lists of people to mind-burn.  However, doing it kind of as a freelance mind-burner, you could just let things pile up, and then pick people out of the newspaper.
• I should have made a cookie pie.
• Flash forward thirty or so years to see the contractor inspecting the first house, and noting that he's going to have to tear up that entire living room to get all the roots of that dead tree out.  Only then is he going to be able to fix the foundation cracks.
• Pandemic.  The board game, played by Wil Wheaton and friends.
• This looks like a fun game, too.