This past Friday night Hubby and I had a lovely pre-friend’s-birthday date at Sonoma.  At first I thought perhaps the name Sonoma was a bit off considering that it served Italian food on Capitol Hill.  But when you go in you understand.  It has high ceilings and the wood accents are warm, but the decor is very cool.  It is casual, but nice.  Very Sonoma actually.  Downstairs they have a front bar, tables that are nicely spaced then they have a lounge upstairs with couches and comfy chairs.

And they have some very nice wines, many from Sonoma or nearby regions in California.

Opentable said they didn’t have an open reservation, but when we arrived they graciously sat us within moments at a communal table.  Now don’t let the word communal table fool you.  This was a large large table and we had one end and another couple had the other you could have probably sat a table of four in the center, but they didn’t thank goodness.

We started with a bottle of 2006 Hook and Ladder “The Tillerman”.  It was a nice well rounded full bodied red, but still very easy to sip because of the smoothness.  They brought out an assortment of warm olives which I enjoyed very much, Hubby isn’t an olive lover.

We then ordered a board of two cheeses a marisa cave aged sheep’s milk cheese which came with a red wine and rasin puree and a cow’s milk cheese that was soft and creamy from Virginia, it was a sub in for the night and I can’t remember the name, it came with sherried apricots.  We also ordered the pork rillette which came with spicy mustard and sopresetta which also had a small accompaniment which I can’t remember.  The board was generous, the cheeses not huge but I nice portion for two.  The meats were a larger portion.  I liked that the sopresetta came sliced paper thin.  It was all served with grilled foccacio which was excellent and a thin toast that was almost cracker like, which while not as good as the foccacio was nice with the creamy cheese and rillette.  The rillette was soft with excellent pork flavor.  For those who have never had it, it’s very similar to minced pulled pork mixed crossed with pate.  I loved the sopressetta with the spicy mustard provided.

This is the full board, ours was not this big, but quite enough for the two of us.

For our next courses I ordered the black risotto with squid.  Hubby had the macheroni with tomato, basil and parmesean.  My risotto was fantastic.  Risotto cooked in ink is briney, in a good way.  Still rich, and slightly creamy, but not in a normal risotto way, it is more like eating orzo with a delightful rich, salty sauce.  But the salt is quickly cut and balanced by lemon juice and fresh grilled squid.  Not chewy, but very flavorful from being grilled.  It has a really nice testure, flavor and balance.  It reminds you how good fresh seafood can be.  For me it reminds of the fresh seafood I ate in Barcelona at Commerc 24, one of my all time favorite restaurants.

Hubby’s macheroni was clearly over salted, but when we told this to the waiter the plate was politely wisked away and a new portion was brought out in a few moments that was much better.  All restaurants make mistakes, I was happy with how graciously they handled this one, no fuss just quick action that corrected the problem.

Our friends then arrived, and as the upstairs was hosting a private event they let us take over a communal table.  Hubby and I both got the ice cream sampler with three housemade icecreams.  They had vanilla with pineapple, cherry that to me were the standouts.  Although home made ice cream is made everywhere I liked that the texture wasn’t as soft and goopy as you find it in so many restaurants.  I then had a couple glasses of j 2007 from the Russian River Valley.  All in all it was a lovely evening.  Very comfortable and casual, not too loud, just nice.

A perk I didn’t notice until I was exploring their website: a very detailed private events PDF that lays out their menus, minimums and spaces.  I applaud them for this.  It is so hard to get this type of information from most restaurants and so helpful for people who want to plan a private event, so major bonus points Sonoma.

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