date: 2/21/10
location: minneapolis
grade: a

a lot has been written in the short life of piccolo regarding portion size and cost (mostly heated discussions on food blogs). my view is this- i am not so sure why people who don't like the concept go to the restaurant. if you read anything about the place before they opened (or before you went), you knew that there'd be small plates. you knew this was local/organic stuff. if you've eaten at any kind of small plate/tapas restaurant plates usually come in at around $10 give or take a few bucks. and you knew that flicker completely rocks a kitchen.

and even if you didn't know any of that, i would assume when you went in and talked to the server and saw the menu, you'd know. and you could leave then if you didn't like it. so if you don't like small plates.... leave. don't stay and be miserable and think the food is tiny and blah blah blah. see how that works?

so my mini-rant over, i'm going to say that i was pretty charmed by piccolo. eschewing the front room (a bit more modern, with more seats, blond wood, and a bit louder music) for the quieter and more homey back room that you have to walk through the kitchen to get through (sorry about the loud shoes) was a good idea. and i appreciate we had a say in the matter. the back room felt more like eating in someone's kitchen, in a good way. there's a more relaxed, mellow vibe back there.

oh, i should mention we came on a sunday as they're closed tuesdays, our usual date for such trips. so we went to black sheep then and moved this to sunday.

it's decorated with cookbooks, preserved items (i spotted a mostarda and some dill pollen asparagus), and some furniture that i kind of coveted (the large one has extra glassware and candles in it), older farm-house style tables and chairs, and some appropriate butchery-based art.

though i am pretty sure that the people in the kitchen can hear you if it's quiet enough... we had mentioned something about really quite wanting to see a menu online for the place.... and the next morning, voila, it's there on their facebook feed. coincidence? perhaps.

after getting a bottle of "j" sparkling wine ($27, which looks to be a very small markup indeed. nice.) for the three of us, we looked over the menus. the wine menu is a lot more extensive than auriga's (though lacks the nice beer selection they had) with very reasonable bottle and glass prices.

the first food menu they did here was a bit light on vegetarian options, i've heard. the one we saw debuted on 2/15 and had a few more veg items, plus a few more that could easily be made veg. when we ordered, we kept my can't/won't eat list in mind. and while starting to put back our usual quantity (mass) of bread (from rustica! i so heart the multigrain) with lovely butter cut into flower shapes and at spreadable temperature we picked two groupings of the savory. they were nice about letting us have a menu to write on and keep track of what we wanted and didn't and what we had ordered already, so i was able to be very specific in the food descriptions.

first course:

• "swiss chard raviolis with au bon canard duck, medjool dates and pickled walnuts" ($9). it was nice and all, but didn't really stand out and was probably our least favorite dish of the evening. maybe moving the date and walnut in with the chard would've perked it up more. this is one of the dishes that could easily be made veg if you order without the duck. and this was the most difficult to split in an uneven number, with two ravioli.
• "roasted chicken with caramelized pears, pearl onions and honey pain perdu ($13). yes, it's $13 and it's worth every freaking penny of that. and more. this was one of the dishes tied for our collective favorite, and the one i would order by myself and inhale every last morsel and mop up the molecules left on the plate. i am not sure what exactly went down to cook this chicken or where it's from, but this is the. best. chicken. ever. the most chicken-y chicken. and the accompaniments were perfect.
• "spanish mackerel with artichokes, hen of the woods mushrooms and tomato jam" ($11). like the ravioli, it was a very nice dish but didn't really have star power. the fish was cooked right, i liked the texture the mushrooms gave the dish and it was more interesting than the ravioli because of that.
  

second course:

• "chioggia beet terrine with goat's milk, truffle honey and endive ($7). i don't like beets. never did like beets. but because i think that eventually i will like beets, i keep trying beet dishes when other people order them. so far i hadn't changed my mind. so this is one that we ordered for the table since other people love beets. i thought... i'll do my usual small taste, what do i have to lose? nothing. and... i love this dish. apparently making chioggia beets in a terrine with layered colors from white to light to dark pink and slathering it with truffle honey... and putting some goat's milk there and a bit of endive... that was the key. well, probably the truffle honey. so yeah, this was the other best dish. we discussed that the chicken was more main course like and would deserve the honors, but to me the whole beet breakthrough equalled the chicken wonder.
• "potato gnocchi with white beans, guanciale and robiola cheese ($11). another dish easily made veg sans the guanciale (i had mine without). it worked a bit better with the saltiness of the pork jowl bits, but still was some awesomely light gnocchi and the flavors here were so perfect for winter. the second ranked dish of the evening.
• "winter ragout of white asparagus and brussels sprouts with brioche crouton and chevre" ($8). for such straightforward ingredients, it speaks volumes how quality ingredients make for tasty food, and it was easily the third ranked dish.

technically the third course was safter this, the other two people split the "blue prawns with chamomile yogurt, english cucumbers and saffron couscous ($11)." 4 (i abstained as i enjoy breathing.) they'd place this about mid-pack in the taste stakes, after the asparagus ragout and before the mackerel. during this time, i, not surprisingly, ate yet more bread.

i was a bit disappointed when there was no cheese option for dessert, as i am in such cases. but i realize my tastes for very sweet drinks and a savoury dessert run counter to most. and not everyone has the time or space to do a really good cheese service, i realize. and it's probably not as popular an option as other desserts. i cope. so there were three desserts on the menu, and we got all of them. one person got port with dessert, one got sherry, and since i had two glasses of bubbly, got nothing else. i'm a lightweight.

desserts:

• my favorite was the "malted panna cotta with chocolate milk and figs" ($6) as it was a bit more on the savory side and creamy, aka things i enjoy about cheese. though the figs were the only unattrative bit of plating we saw all night. it's not a food that benfits visually from putting it in a mass, let's just say.
• others though the chocolate terrine with chocolate pearls, dark raisins and pinecone syrup" ($7) was as good as the panna cotta. whereas i liked the crunchy pearls and thought the bitterness of the darker chocolate was a good way to balance the dish, i'm not so much a chocolate intensive person. and it was very very rich.
• the "chamomile yogurt parfait with bananas and black walnut granola ($7) didn't really have anything wrong with it, but tasted more like breakfast. someone remarked they could eat it for breakfast every day. it tasted a bit more dessert-like after dumping some of the figs from the panna cotta in there.

service was pretty top shelf. two water bottles were left on the table for three people, so that was about the right amount for us. when we wandered back through the kitchen when we left, they thanked us for coming, which was quite nice of them. the only thing that was a bit odd was one of the staff members asking us how we enjoyed our dining experience. we thought that an weird turn of phrase. it makes me think of those renfesty medieval sort of dinner and show things. an experience.

in trying to place where piccolo falls in the minneapolis dining spectrum (and also keeping auriga in mind), the conclusion was it seems kind of like corner table-ish only different (well, corner table has entrees). but i think the food is better here (from my one visit, admittedly, but i'm familiar with flicker's work) and i also like the back room (though the front room seems not a place for people who don't like crowds, a bit too compact for my tastes) quite a lot,both in decor and that it is there at all. it's very comfortable.

and i also not so secretly hope that one day there may be a pizza like they had at auriga there. someone else very much misses their risotto and wishes for the return of that. there aren't many dishes that i actively mourn like that. the chicken would be on the list if it went away. to me that's worth return trips.

in the end, the price per person for all the food mentioned above and the bottle of bubbly was $50 per head. this isn't out of line with other top-notch restaurants- alma's three course tasting menu is $45 and isn't huge food there either. so i wonder what the people were whinging about.

(and speaking of alma, would this not be my personal best restaurant week ever? alma, a+, black sheep, a for me, piccolo, a...)