Tria

Today's lunch (7/1) was a place I have not been to in several years.  I don't know why other than to say that I don't eat out at lunch time as much as I once did and also there are so many good places to choose from.

Tria (located at 18th and Sansom Street in Phila) is known as a wine and cheese bar; however, they serve very nice lunches as well.

My companion and I ordered 2 different bruschettas to start our meal.  One was the Apple goat chees with basil and pesto ($4.50) and the other was the truffled mushrooms with fontina cheese ($5).  Both of these were sensational and got the meal off to a rousing start.  The bread on both was crispy as one would hope and the toppings were fresh and flavorful.

I then had the salad which had smoked chicken, romaine, lancaster bacon, egg, crispy shallots and homemade blue cheese dressing ($11).  This salad was really good and exceeded my expectations.  All of the ingredients were extremely fresh and the chicken was a nice thickness and easy to cut.  The blue cheese dressing was very good and definitely homemade.

This is a salad worth coming back for which is not typically true for most salads.

My dining companion chose the oak roasted salmon salad ($12) with baby spinach, fregola sarda, feta, fennel and lemon dill vinaigrette.  This was tasty as well and seemed to come together nicely, but I believe my salad was the better one here.

Since we both had salads, we decided to splurge on dessert.  Good decision for both of us!

I ordered the Brioche bread pudding with banana, caramel and honey marscapone ($6).  This bread pudding was extraordinary-- the taste of the bread putting itself was good, but when dipped in the caramel sauce that surrounded the plate along with the honey marscapone, it went to an entirely new level.  Just outstanding!

My companion's dessert was excellent also-- this was the flourless chocolate espresso torte with hazelnuts and honey marscapone.  this torte is very close to the one I have perfected in my own kitchen (courtesy of the recipe from Mary Donahue).  this torte was extremely rich  flavor with the addition of the espresso.  The consistency of the torte was nice and the hazelnuts on top (these could be taken off if you are not a nut lover) were a nice addition providing a good crunch.  The honey marscapone is nice to dip into, but almost unnecessary.

Lunch for 2 before tip was $48.  Like I indicated above, we splurged here so the price could easily be less for lunch.  also, the bartender (Andy) was great and happy to accommodate us.  This is something we are seeing less and less in restaurants so I will go out of my way to recognize stellar service when we see it.

Overall 4.5 Brownies