Fine Dining

I had the luxury of eating at two of Cincinnati's finer restaurants this weekend.

Friday night I at landed at Boca with the most random people I could ever image myself with.

I'd never been to Boca for dinner before and honestly didn't want the hassle. Eating some noodles out of a bowl at some Thai joint sounded fine to me. But the guys I was with insisted we go to Boca, as it their "spot," and sure enough, they knew practically everyone there so getting a nice table and quick service was easy. (I guess it's nice to know people who know people.)

They told our waiter, a friend of theirs, just to start bringing us whatever was good. It turns out, everything at Boca is good. (I'm clearly the last to know this first hand.)

Instead of entrees we all passed around plates and shared. Roasted lemons (roasted lemons, weird right?), grilled caesar salad, Boca sliders, roasted almonds, bruschetta-something-or-other and some sort of pasta that was so damn good I wanted to bathe in it. We got two orders of that.

For dessert we shared creme brulee, several kinds of sorbet, a custard-cookie-rasberry thing that made my knees weak and then... fried dough. Oh yeah, like deep fried biscuits coated in cinnamon and sugar. I'm Indiana girl, so it was just like being at the Grant County Fair eating an elephant ear.

I selfishly ate three of them, but backed off the other desserts to make up for my greediness.

In the end I was it was fantastic though I doubted their initial claims of how "fun" it would be. Sometimes you just got to let it ride.

Then last night we celebrated my friend Missy's birthday and went to Vito's Cafe in Ft. Thomas, "home of the singing servers." All of the servers/singers are CCM or NKU theater students, and of course they are incredibly talented and creatively incidental, one minute singing their hearts out to patrons and then the next second delivering a martini.

My favorite moment was when one waiter, mid-baritone, interrupted his part in a song to direct a woman to the restroom. All part of the job, I reckon.

Anyway, I had the rigatone and mushrooms with sun dried tomatoes and goat cream cheese sauce. It was very good, but I think my more daring friends - who ate scallops, salmon and veal - enjoyed theirs much more judging by the way they raved about their meals.

But about 2 a.m. the fine dining was over. I finished off the night with a large fry and a 10-piece McNugget. Because what you really want after drinking and dancing is some fast-food. Yum.