Restaurant: Lavo

I know I’m not a foodie blog, per se, but as I mentioned yesterday, we sort of had our own mini restaurant week last week. How could I not share?

We swung into Lavomatic on Friday night on our way to the Opera. It was sort of an impulse on our part, but I certainly don’t regret it. It’s the first time we’ve made it to Lavomatic, so we’re a bit behind a lot of our friends.

Lavomatic, in a refurbished laundromat, has a skinny but bright and lovely downstairs and a patio on the roof. Being in our Opera finest, we chose to eat in the downstairs area. We got lucky – our hostess put us right next to Tim from CheapWineRatings.com, which was a pleasant surprise. Us wine bloggers – we think alike. Lavomatic is a fun and casual restaurant, where you could certainly show up in jeans, but we didn’t feel out of place in our pre-Opera attire either.

I ordered the summer pasta, which was chock full of lemony goodness. Kevin swears there were a lot of vegetables in there too, but I’m choosing blissful ignorance on this. I paired it, on the recommendation of our server, with a glass of Noël St Laurent Côtes-du-Rhone white.

Kevin enjoyed the evening’s special, which was the buffalo meatloaf. It paired well with the Weinert Malbec, another excellent recommendation from our server.

I was actually so taken by Kevin’s Malbec that I ordered a glass to
pair with my dessert, a chocolate truffle mousse made with a stout.
This was an amazingly rich and thick mousse, and I ended up taking half
of it home with me. I was defeated by the chocolate. Kevin ordered the
ginger float with blueberry sorbet, accompanied by a coconut maccaroon.
It was like all his favorite sweets rolled into one. Caitlyn, our
server, handled my nut allergy with aplomb, double-checking on
everything, although she was correct the first time.

Most restaurant wine lists have a sweet spot – the place where you
are actually getting a really good deal. On the wine list at a
Jean-Robert establishment, the sweet spot is usually on a bottle (this
isn’t uncommon). For instance, at Twist, you can order a $12 glass of
sparkling wine, or just order a $40 bottle of Gruet (excellent
sparkling wine from New Mexico), which, if you’re having more than one glass, is the better deal. This theory holds true at Lavomatic as
well, but our meals were so different, we couldn’t decide on a bottle.

With two entrees, two desserts, and 3 glasses of wine, our dinner came
to around $100. This was double what we’d intended to spend before we
followed our whim and went to Lavomatic. But it was wonderful and 100%
worth it. It was a perfect meal for a summer evening.

Our review:

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2 Responses to “Restaurant: Lavo”

1. 5chw4r7z says:

   July 30, 2008 at 8:46 am

   It looks like you ate the exact same meal we did Saturday night.
   The pasta was awesome and I’ve never had tomatoes that flavorfull before. I think that was the best meal I’ve had at Lavo.
2. Ferrite Magnet says:

   June 16, 2009 at 3:11 am

   I think that was the best meal .