Dinner at La Morra

Thursday night was my second Restaurant Week meal and I had Andrew, Jen and Phu as my dinner companions. As La Morra is located right on Route 9 in Brookline and reviews noted that parking was tough, Andrew and I ended up parking at Amy and Phu's apartment and walking 0.4 miles with Phu to meet up with Jen at the restaurant.

La Morra was packed and I suspect that it's really popular, even when they're not offering an awesome four course restaurant week deal that consists of antipasti, primi, secondi and a dolce.

First, the meal started with a slice of bread with an interesting butter/what we thought was cottage cheese combination:

Note: I'm going to warn you that the lighting was very low in the restaurant - each table came equipped with a tiny candle whose light blew out - I did take most of the pictures with a flash, but as this was extremely conspicuous, there were times I took a picture without a flash.

Jen opted for the Zucca fritta con fonduta fried local squash with parmigiano reggiano fonduta (this came with an extra $2 surcharge on top of the restaurant week:

Andrew, Phu and I opted for the Panzanella, a traditional bread salad that I had read about and never had the opportunity to try. It included cucumber, tomato, black olive, spring olive, spring onion and bruschetta and was DELICIOUS - it had the right combination of flavors and textures:

For the primi (pasta) dishes, Jen and I opted for orechiette with cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs - again, a great dish with a nice, slightly chewy texture to the pasta:

Andrew and Phu went with the tomato risotto:

Then it was time for our entrees - That's Phu's pork rib dish on top (it must've been a special, since I can't find it listed on their menu) and my Pollo al mattone, which is wood grilled cornish hen “under a brick” with vegetable tortino and shaved radish and carrot - I liked the cornish hen and the vegetable tortino but not the shaved radish and carrot - to me, it didn't have much flavor. Phu liked the pork but felt it was slightly too salty and there was too much of it:

Jen went with the Bistecca alla griglia (top dish) - wood grilled hanger steak with fava beans, creamy polenta, toasted garlic, and chili sugo, which I heard the waiter recommending to people and Andrew gobbled up the wood grilled bluefish (bottom dish) with corn ragu (which he really liked) and crispy polenta:

Did we have room for dessert? Definitely. We didn't plan it, but the four of us ended up getting four different desserts (strangely enough, the cheese plate didn't get picked) which gave us the opportunity to try everything. Jen had the hazelnut semifreddo with chocolate sauce (which was close to ice cream in consistency) and Andrew had the zucchini bread with sweetened ricotta:

Phu had buttermilk panna cotta with farm berries (definitely the best panna cotta I've ever tasted) and I went with the very colorful and flavorful sorbet trio - all three were delicious although I could only identify the plum and raspberry flavors:

Yet again, Restaurant week allowed me to enjoy a meal at an expensive restaurant. I still haven't eaten somewhere that I would return to on a regular day and pay regular prices, but it's definitely been worth trying each place and enjoying a meal out of the ordinary.