Married or single, if you’re unaccustomed to date night, charcuterie may be the right dinner choice for you.
It’s a board spread with meat, cheese and other tasty tidbits — shareable and a good conversation starter if topics start to lag or stray into “what the kids did today.”
On a warm spring afternoon, my husband, Sean, and I started our date night with Finch & Fifth’s a la carte charcuterie, along with a wedge salad for him and the Caesar for me. Sean adored the wedge, but I found it a bit heavy that day with the bacon jam and blue cheese. But we clearly made the right choices because I loved the snappy Caesar salad, perfectly light and refreshing.
The beautiful board of charcuterie was furnished with fancy thin crackers, a tangle of bresaola, which is beef tenderloin cured in red wine, pink curls of the everything smoked salmon, a rosy slice of quince jelly, fresh sliced strawberries, honey-soaked nuts and almonds and two cheeses — the Le Fromager D’Affinois, a creamy brie and the Sartori’s Tennessee Whiskey Bellavitano, which our server suggested as a popular choice.
While both of us agreed we’d prefer a spicier cured meat over the bresaola, the salmon was everything I wanted it to be, packed with delicate flavor. I tried quince jelly and the strawberries with the Bellavitano, and it was a happy pairing, softening the spirited cheese. But our favorite of all was the buttery brie with a dab of the sweet honeyed nut cluster. I could have eaten that alone as a dessert.
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We were still hungry — and ready for some live music. We decided to do dinner, take two, at Edgar’s Above Broad to listen to Bodega Cat’s riffs on old favorites. Once again, the charcuterie appealed. Edgar’s serves a local cheese and meat board with weekly selections, so we took a chance.
Edgar’s board came with salty curls of ham and a lovely mild salami, slightly sweet, along with a buttery white cheese and a fierce blue. The quince jelly once again paired well with everything, sweetening down the ham and taming the blue.
Edgar’s Above Broad’s dessert menu features a bourbon-peach trifle. Photo by Danielle Wong Moores. Edgar’s Above Broad’s dessert menu features churros with chocolate. Photo by Danielle Wong Moores.
Instead of salads, we added dessert to our second dinner. The churro donuts were coated with crunchy sugar and cinnamon and in my mind were better alone. While I love dark chocolate, the dipping sauce the churros came with was just a tad too bitter for my taste. Meanwhile, the bourbon-peach trifle was the perfect summer dessert with its light sweet peaches, creamy vanilla pudding and sponge cake dotted with tart raspberry jam, plump with whole raspberries.
Worthy of conversation? Indeed.
MORE: Charcuterie Boards Are Hot Food Trend
Finch & Fifth, located in Surrey Center, 379 Highland Ave., is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. with brunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit finchandfifth.com. Edgar’s Above Broad is located on the third floor of 699 Broad St. For more information, visit edgarsabovebroad.com.
Danielle Wong Moores is a local freelance writer who’ll never turn down a shrimp cocktail, sushi or cheese dip. Her greatest food influences are her mom and writers MFK Fisher and Amanda Hesser. Her Dine & Dish column will run the second and fourth Friday of each month.
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