Five-Star
Marc found a recipe that called for chayote just so we could taste what it’s all about. It turns out that it tastes fine – sort of like a cucumber – but the Shrimp and Sweet Potato Cakes with Chayote Slaw and Chipotle Sauce was one A+, 5-star, put-a-fork-in-me-I’m-done kind of appetizer. The sweet potato – baked, and then mashed – was a terrific medium for holding together the shrimp and panko, etc. But what really added the “+” to the “A” was the chiptole tartar sauce. Little bit of caper, mayo, chiptole, wow. It kind of oozes over the warm shrimp cake and onto the slaw; it is worth the thousand calories per bite. We were absolutely melting over this and Sam, living better than half the free world as he does, got up from his late afternoon nap in order to eat some shrimp cake. He said it was a flavour-storm.
We went out for pizza this week and found, quite possibly, one of the top contenders for best pizza in the world. (The best – in my book – still stands at Alegretto in Valparaiso, Chile. Their goat-cheese pizza was so good we went back twice in 3 days.) I suspect that Gioia’s puts grams and grams of salt into their sauce because it was marvelous. However, I will withhold final judgement until we try the pizza from The Cheeseboard Pizza Collective, also recommended as “the best”. Tonight, perhaps, we shall see.