Dino

On Friday, I shared a list of restaurants I was considering for a date with Daniel. At first, 'Fatty Cue was winning. Then I saw my friend Dria at Chelsea Market that afternoon and she changed my mind. I saw Kiefer Sutherland there, too. I saw him at Five Leaves just a few weeks ago. I think he's following me.

But back to Dria. She told me she had a reaction to MSG when she went to 'Fatty Cue. I thought almost all places, even the ones that put weird pictures of food in their windows, had stopped using MSG, but apparently, it's having some sort of revival. Dria mentioned David Chang of Momofoku fame and said that he claims to use it, too. Daniel and I managed to score a coveted spot at Momofoku Ko for our anniversary in October and while we loved our meal, I felt like ass after. It's true. Back then, I thought it was from the heavy food—snail sausage and frozen foie gras, for example—but now I'm wondering if a certain controversial flavor enhancer was responsible.

I didn't want to feel like crap on my first night out in a while, so 'Fatty Cue was crossed off the list. I still want to go. Some day. That left Del Posto, El Almacen and Dino. We didn't feel like going into Manhattan and weren't in the mood for Argentinian food. We decided on Dino.

We shared an excellent caesar salad made with organic black and green kale and anchovy croutons, pork milanese with a refreshing apple and fennel slaw, and a slow-cooked ragu of meatballs and sausage with ricotta and rigatoni. For dessert, we split a warm chocolate cake with a cranberry compote, half a slice of tiramisu (a dessert that's never been my favorite), followed by chocolate cake round two.

Dino was small and cozy and it felt wonderful to be out on a Friday night. I hadn't realized just how much I missed being in a restaurant. It didn't take long to feel like the old days when we had regular dates, before we became the tired parents of two little boys. Even the wine was really good. We both loved the 2008 Kuyen from Valle del Maipo in Chile. It's one of a few bottles that you can pay for based on the amount that you drink. We had half and a glass each of another wine before that. It was a BIG night out. (We were home by 10:30.)

We tried to take a photo as we were leaving, but it was too dark. I went back yesterday and snapped one from my car. I hadn't noticed that greenish building above the restaurant the night I was there. Reminds me of a turtle's shell or maybe fish scales. Whoever lives there is lucky to have such a beautiful facade and a great neighborhood restaurant right downstairs. Oh and don't you just love the font they used to write Dino? I have a soft spot for that swirly D. The owners named the place after their 2-year old son and I hear it's really kid-friendly. Probably best to go back with the boys during the day because they serve breakfast and it looks divine.

Dino
222 Dekalb Avenue
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
718-222-1999

Brooklyn Girls Night: Ici

Food, good conversation and Brooklyn. These are without a doubt three of my favorite things. And now, thanks to Brooklyn Girls Night, a culinary club of sorts my friend Judith and I created with some fellow food-obsessed friends, I can enjoy them all at the same time.

For our first outing this past spring, we celebrated our common love for Italian food at Tempo in Park Slope, followed a month later by a gluttonous meal (where we ordered the entire menu) at Superfine in Dumbo. Yesterday, at our third gathering, we ventured to Fort Greene, a charming neighborhood with brownstone-lined blocks and a bustling restaurant row. It was there that we discovered Ici, a cozy spot whose menu boasted fresh, local and seasonal foods (three more of my favorite things).

Unfortunately, our group which usually includes five Brooklyn regulars, and a few Manhattanites, was only three strong for this particular outing. Rather than try to find a different time that would work for the bunch of overbooked twentysomethings that we are, Judith, Lucy and I shared a mellower, yet just as lovely Brooklyn Girls Night together.

I'd heard great things about Ici over the years, so I wasn't worried when I walked into the restaurant and saw just one diner finishing up his dessert in a corner nook. I quickly learned that all the action was in the serene backyard garden, and luckily there was one table left.

We promptly put in an order for some glasses of white wine, then studied the menu before selecting two appetizers -- Montauk squid and an arugula salad with grana padano, fennel and button mushrooms -- to start. Both were big hits, but the Montauk squid won me over. I loved its combination of spicy paprika oil and chopped cilantro. Each bite delivered a nice burst of heat, quickly cooled off by one of my all-time favorite herbs.

For entrees, instinct told me to go with the sauteed wild bass with a samba salsa, but since Lucy and Judith had both ordered that, I chose the bluefish instead. When I saw the wild bass, swathed in a sunny sauce of softly cooked summer fruits, I knew I should have gone with my gut. Light yet meaty and sweetened by the salsa's slices of peach and mango, it was the perfect dish for this particularly sticky evening.

My pan fried bluefish came buried under a messy mound of watercress. Once I ate my way through some of the tangled greens, I was happy to discover a crispy filet, livened up by a tangy pico de gallo. While it was almost as good as the wild bass, it would have been much easier to eat (not to mention more pleasing to the eye) had it come nestled on top of the watercress, not hidden underneath. A bigger scoop of pico de gallo would have been good too.

Despite being fairly full from our first two courses, we still managed to save some room for dessert. We easily agreed on the pound cake, something I've been craving ever since sampling one with a rhubarb compote at last month's outing to Superfine, and after hearing the table next to us rejoice over a slice of date cake (I was surprised too), we ordered one of those as well.

This time, I'm glad I didn't listen to my instinct since the date cake, moist with a light crumb and decorated with a delicious drizzle of sticky toffee sauce, was scrumptious. As for the pound cake, it's hard to go wrong with anything that consists mainly of butter, sugar, flour and eggs, so it hit the spot as well. I enjoyed taking back and forth bites of each, and found that the pound cake's nice sprinkling of summer berries tasted especially good when paired with a swipe of sweet toffee sauce.

Lingering over another successful Brooklyn Girls Night in Ici's dimly lit garden, we talked about Judith's upcoming nuptials, what we each believed makes a marriage work, the ever growing price of real estate in our beloved borough, my obsession with all things sweet and why sherry (served at Ici with a hunk of high-quality chocolate) reminded us of our grandmothers. I felt proud of Brooklyn and its fabulous taste in food, but more importantly, I felt lucky. To live in a place full of good food is one thing. To have incredible people to share it with is even better.

Ici
246 Dekalkb Avenue
718-789-2778