Brunch at Secco

Start with a glass of Pederzano Lambrusco Secco, a dry sparkling red wine from Italy. Enjoy this festive bubbly while waiting for your brunch order.

Rave over the Biscuit Sandwich - a substantial biscuit with grilled pork belly and scrambled egg (make mine without the cheddar cheese).

A wonderful brunch option. Not enormous, but so satisfying. The biscuit held up to the meat and egg and did not crumble apart. I loved the pork belly. Fairly lean and very tasty.

Rave even more about the crispy potatoes. I really like potatoes and have had lots of good ones in RVA. These were outstanding. Truly crispy on the outside; soft and potato-ey on the inside. Served with a mustard/mayo sauce that sealed the deal on the spuds. If your brunch choice does not include these potatoes, order them as a side.

Choose an Armandiere Malbec from Cahors to imbibe with the biscuit.

Thank you Secco for a lovely and delicious brunch outing.

Secco and the End of the Summer of Riesling

As Summer came to an end, Secco rejoiced with $5 glasses of Riesling.

  If that wasn't enough, they also featured a $10 prix fixe lunch. Your choice of panino with a mixed green salad and dessert.

We delighted in a rosemary pork sandwich with spicy plum chutney and chevre served with the salad and fried chickpeas. The panino was a bit sticky due to the chutney oozing out of the bread, but still delicious. Neither hubby nor I are a big fan of chickpeas. The fried variety surprised us by its tastiness.

For dessert we had a lovely ice cream sandwich: two vanilla pizzelli encasing chocolate hazelnut gelato.  Yummy!

A nice ending to Summer. Bring on the Fall!

Lunch at Secco

I had a very satisfying lunch at Secco.

A panini filled with pork confit, spicy plum chutney, and St. Agur blue

and a glass of 2006 Benotto Monferatto Rosso Nebieul from Piedmont, Italy

The blue cheese imparted a hint of earthiness which balanced out the chutney and complemented the wine. Very pleasant.

Oktoberfest?

St. Benedict hosted Oktoberfest this weekend and we attended for the first time.

The Omm-pah band was in fine form.

Of course, there was the obligatory "Chicken Dance" which is aways fun to watch/ogle...

I liked the beer steins which were a combination of the traditional and the psychadelic.

We thoroughly enjoyed the potato pancakes.

However, the rest of the food/beer was disappointing. The food menu consisted of bratwurst, knockwurst, sauerkraut, German potato salad, potato pancakes, pretzels, and Barvarian sandwiches (corned beef and Swiss with kraut).

That's it! I thought I was at Busch Gardens. We went with the brat, but really would have liked schnitzel or sauerbraten or something native to Germany that we had not tried in the past...

And while the festival did offer numerous microbrews (good from a locavore stance), they only had one German beer and it had sold out on Friday!

I could let the lack of German beer go. I'm not a beer fan, although I have occasionally been able to tolerate a hefeweizen. But the lack of a better offering of German food really depressed us. We will probably not be back. The "Chicken Dance" is not that big of an enticement.

We did drown our sorrows at Secco with a delicious glass of Schleret Pinot Blanc from Alsace. It's not German either, but closer to Germany than the Oktoberfest.

Sippin' and Savorin' at Secco

We finally made it to Secco! And as touted, it was a casual, laid back joint where everyone knows you and the wine is plentiful, not too expensive, and downright kick-ass.

Julia, the fabulous owner greeted us. Sara, one of our all-time favorite waiters and ultimate queen of cheese, served us. And Farouk, who we have run across in various restaurant settings, tended bar. Okay, we were already in wine bar heaven.

I tried a white wine from the Basque region and hubby had a glass of rose. We then plotted, planned, argued, and strategized over what to order.

We began with roasted spicy almonds.

Next, a bottle of Loire Valley Cabernet Franc - Soif de Jour Bourgeuil. What's really super about Secco is that you can look at the wine labels in the wine rack when deciding what to imbibe. Kudos!

We ordered the Tuscan flatbread of the day which was topped with caramelized onions. Yummy! We liked it so much, we ordered it twice.

And then we had a meat and cheese plate (or slate). Since you can mix and match from a list, each plate is customized. Love it! Since my man literally throws up at the mere idea of blue cheese, we can avoid the awkward questions about what's on the cheese plate and if substitutions are allowed. We ordered Caramont Goat, Zamorano, Piave Vecchio, and Petit Agour We also ordered Serrano and Proscuitto. The plates were accompanied by kumquat confiture, a Virginia made chutney (a wee bit on the spicy/hot side), and crostini.

Both of us raved about the Zamorano. And I have always enjoyed the Caramont Goat. The Piave made my hubby's neck hair stand on end. The Petit Agour pleased our palates as well. We liked both meat selections, but the Proscuitto really hit the mark.

Simple, yet extremely satisfying.