I happened into Mateo Restaurant last week because of an invitation extended to me through a conversation on Twitter. I raved about Mateo’s use of social media in outstanding customer outreach and service on boulder.me, and thought I’d talk about the food and dining experience here.
Wine
House Red, Chateau de daugelas vaugelas (le prieure), Corbieres. I have no idea what that means, and I won’t even pretend to, but I know it was beautiful. It was a perfect cocktail wine, but held up against the light apps and cheese we had as well.
Dessert wine: Tawny Port. INCREDIBLE. And Alex the Bartender educated us on the glasses this was served in. A local company, Movia, supplies a lot of the glassware for Mateo, and the beautiful thing is that each vessel is handmade with one piece of glass. We learned that typically, wine glasses can be made in as many as three pieces: the base, the stem, the glass. These are made with the same piece throughout, and because of this – each of their pieces are completely unique.
Food (prices reflect weeknight happy hour pricing: 5:00-6:30PM)
assortment de noix roasted mixed nuts, curry spice $2
pomme frites herbs de provençe $3
artisian cheese tasting daily selection of cheese, fruit, wine jelly, nuts & grilled bread $7
pot de chocolat, warm dark chocolate truffle cake, crème fraîche, berries $7
Mateo can correct me if I’m wrong here, but I thought I heard or read something about the pomme frites being done in some kind of champagne gastrique (gastrique is my new favorite word – thank you Food Network! – and it’ll be the next culinary adventure I embark on). I remember being able to taste the sweetness, and of course Europeans would bathe their fries vinegar – gastrique just made sense. And it was YUMMY.
The nuts were a nice little start to munch on while I waited for Ashley to join me, and we chomped on the fries before and after the arrival of the cheese plate. I need to do something to better educate myself on cheese plates and tastings. I know I like sheep’s milk. And goat’s milk. And cow’s milk. Ok, so that didn’t help much. And I know I like anything asiago-like, anything unique, and anything gruyere-like. And fresh mozzarella will always have a place on my palate. Anyone know where to start with something like a cheese tasting class? That was just officially added to my life list.
Finally, the chocolate. It just felt right to get dessert, and with that dessert to get a beautiful dessert wine. I’m almost as much of a sucker for dessert wines (mmm tawny port… mmm Alexis Baily Ratafia… mmm) as I am for champagne. And we all know how much I LOVE me some bubbles.
So, the chocolate. Yeah, we pretty much licked the ramekin clean it was so good. Dark chocolate truffle anything is one of my favorites, and this just melted in my mouth. The crème fraîche was nice, even though I’m not totally sure what crème fraîche is… (hold please, whilst I consult The Google. Ah! Lovely… moving on), but it was smooth and creamy and… fraîche-y.
All in all? Wonderful experience. There’s a risotto on that menu I want to get back and try before they change it up again (we learned they rotate menu items based on seasonality, which makes me love them even more), and of course – I’ll always have another cheese plate.
Thanks, Mateo for a wonderful, delicious, and fun random weeknight.
{ 3 trackbacks }