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.

The first pairing while we are getting to know our fellow classmates is a ricotta fresca, a young cow’s milk cheese from New York. It’s served on toast a few different ways,

The ricotta is paired with a NV Jaume Serra “cristalino” cava rose brut that is from Penedes in Southern Spain. It’s light and crisp – perfect for summer.

While pairing our wine and cheese, we also have focaccia bread and olives.

The wines of the evening, in order from left to right:

2012 Chateau de la Chesnaie Muscadet (Sevre en Maine, Loire Valley, northwest France) Muscadet is a white grape and the flavor of the wine is dry and strong.

2013 Berger Gruner Veltliner (Gedersdorf, eastern Austria) This wine was a bit zippy with a light body.

2012 Talbott “Kali Hart” Pinot Noir (Monterey, northern California)

2010 Destino “Cruzados” Tempranillo Syrah (La Mancha, south central Spain)

2011 Chateau Roc de Segur (Lanerrouet, Bordeaux, western France)

We tried the wines by themselves, and then with the cheese to see how the flavors changed.

(Starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise)

Bucheron Chevre a goat’s milk cheese from the Loire Valley, northern France

Three year old gouda a cow’s milk cheese, Gouda, southern Holland

Brie paturages Comtois a cow’s milk cheese from Franche Comte, central France

Manchego a cow and sheep’s milk cheese from La Mancha, south central Spain

(not pictured) Great Hill Blue, a cow’s milk blue from Marion, MA

Jonathon Alsop is the founder and executive director of Boston Wine School. I admit, I don’t know anything about wine, just what I like and what I don’t like. Jonathon makes trying wine and learning about wine very approachable. We learned as a group, sharing what flavors we tasted and what we liked and didn’t like. We learned the 7 S’s of wine tasting: see, sniff, swirl, smell, sip, swish, and spit.

The chalkboard gave students a little cheat sheet on wines.

After we tried the wines and cheeses we all sat down to dinner, provided by Bottega Fiorentina in Coolidge Corner in Brookline. We had Pollo Cristina, a chicken and sage dish baked in wine; spinaci all Fiorentina, a baked spinach dish with mushrooms and Timballo a baked pasta with eggplant. Dinner was served with a 2013 Le Piera Pinto Grigio from Veneto in northeast Italy and a 2009 Selvapaina Chianti Rufina from Rufina, Tuscany in central Italy.

Bottega Fiorentina is a small restaurant in Brookline known for thei “fast fine food”.  They have pasta dishes as well as made to order sandwiches. Part market, part restaurant, Bottega Fiorentina has been a neighborhood staple since 1994.

Boston Wine School

1354 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA

www.bostonwineschool.com

Bottega Fiorentina

313 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA

http://www.bottegabrookline.com/

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