We continued our evening over at Les Zygomates – for part 1 of our progressive dinner, click here. Les Zygomates is open for lunch and dinner and has $1 oysters, Mondays 4pm-9:45pm, Tuesday-Friday 4pm-7pm. On Tuesday – Saturday nights they have live jazz during the evening.

Les Zygomates’ wine list is impressive and at any given time they have 40-50 wines available by the glass.

For our main course of the progressive dinner we had the choice between a pistachio crusted striped bass, served with roasted potato, sautéed kale, caramelized onions in a lemon brown butter sauce or what I chose, the beef flat iron rossini. The steak was cooked a perfect medium rare and was served with pomme puree, wild mushrooms, foie gras, truffle and madeira. The wine pairing for the striped bass was a 2013 Chateau La Dame Blanche from Bordeaux and the pairing for the steak was a 2010 Chateau Trill, a Grenache/Syrah blend, from France.The steak was impressive in size, by this point in the meal I was already full and ended up taking most of it home. To me, there is nothing better than a steak and mushroom flavor combination.

For dessert there was a choice of a vanilla creme brûlée, a chilled chocolate cake and what I chose, the poached apple Napoleon. The dessert was delicious, light as air with a taste of honey – such a perfect fall choice.

The art in both Les Zygomates and Bel Ari is by Janice Eve Dale. The art is from Dale’s “In the Garden Series” and is in sync with the re-design of the interior.

Disclaimer: I was invited to be a guest at Bel Ari and Les Zygomates. My meal was provided complimentary. All opinions are my own.

Les Zygomates

129 South Street, Boston, MA

http://winebar129.com

The post Bel Ari and Les Zygomates: A Progressive Dinner – Part 2 appeared first on A Little Bit About a Lot of Things.

Last week I attended Blog and Tweet Boston’s first progressive dinner. We started off at Bel Ari and moved over to Les Zygomates next door later in the evening. Bel Ari used to be Sorriso, but the restaurant went through a major renovation just about a year ago. The new space is amazing, with a private room in the back,. Their attention to detail with the design work is just lovely. The used the artwork of Janice Eve Dale in both the Bel Ari and Les Zygomates space, but more on that in part 2.

Owner Mark Tosi was at the dinner, walking us through both restaurants. We started off the evening with a whipped ricotta, made with honey and pistachios which was served with a crispy sunflower and cranberry bread. The ricotta was light as air and I love the honey and pistachio flavor combination – it’s one of those things I could have eaten all night!

Next on the menu was the Arancini Di Riso, a goat cheese stuffed risotto ball with basin and served with an onion marmalade. The onion marmalade made this dish for me. I usually don’t love goat cheese, as it can be too “goaty”, but this had a very subtle flavor that I really enjoyed.

For the pasta course, we had our choice of penne a la vodka or shrimp and lobster gnocchi. Of course I went with the gnocchi. The dumplings were light as air and it was served in a lobster cream sauce that was comforting without being heavy. The dish paired nicely with the 2013 Terre di Tufi, Toscano Bianco.

Check back tomorrow for part 2 on the progressive dinner!

Disclaimer: I was invited to be a guest at Bel Ari and Les Zygomates. My meal was provided complimentary. All opinions are my own.

Bel Ari

107 South Street, Boston, MA

http://belariboston.com

The post Bel Ari and Les Zygomates: A Progressive Dinner – Part 1 appeared first on A Little Bit About a Lot of Things.