Sola

Contemporary American
Lakeview - 3868 North Lincoln

It's our first Valentine's Day, and we're spending it at another Á la Card establishment! Sola was ready for the big day, with gorgeous table tops and a printed specials menu. We opted for a mix of the aphrodisiacs on the list and some items from their everyday menu.

We started with two wines, the Duval-Leroy Brut Champagne (France) and the Brooks Amycas (Oregon). With the wine came our first special, the oysters two ways - kumamotos on the half shell with Meyer lemon emulsion, and Thai basil... and malpecs tempura with avocado wasabi puree, basil cucumber salad, and American sturgeon caviar.

The kumamotos were extremely fresh for the Midwest. We both commented that they "tasted like the sea." We had never had fried oysters before, but they were surprisingly light, and the avocado wasabi puree was delicious. A very successful aphrodisiac, from what we could tell.

We then shared the crispy mushroom salad, which was baby arugula, Asian pear, shallots, pleasant ridge, cider truffle vinaigrette, and of course, crispy mushrooms!

This salad could do no wrong. The mushrooms were like nothing we'd ever tasted, the pears added a delightful sweetness, and how on earth could cider truffle vinaigrette not be amazing?! It was a great salad, and it was unique enough to be memorable.

For her entree, Brittney had the scallops with green apple crab risotto, green beans, and apple curry butter.

The description made this dish sound perfect for me, but it turned out to be pretty disappointing. Though the scallops were cooked well and the apple curry flavor was nice when I could taste it, the risotto was extremely fishy and didn't taste at all like apples or crab. I ate most of the scallops and the green beans, but I left the risotto, which I thought would be the highlight of the dish, mostly untouched.

For his entree, Jim ordered a special, Carol's Colorado lamb chops with cambozola cheese, cauliflower puree, wilted spinach, shallots, and shaved fennel.

This dish was good but not amazing. I think I had high expectations based on the previous dishes and the fact that this was the special for the night, but it ended up being a bit mediocre. The lamb was slightly underdone and there was a TON of cheese in the lamb so it kind of masked the flavor of the meat. Cambozola is like a gorgonzola cheese so it has a very distinct and strong taste. The puree was a nice contrast to the rest of the dish but the fennel sort of got lost. Like I said, I think I was expecting something really great and it ended up being tasty but disappointing.

For our final course, we ordered a sweet dish and a savory one. To satisfy Brittney's ever-growing desire for sugar, we got caramel apple bread pudding with Roxbury russet, Szechwan peppercorn-cider sauce, and sweet soy vanilla ice cream.

Yes, it was definitely as good as it looks and sounds. This was quite possibly the best bread pudding we've had, and that's saying a lot. We always gravitate towards it on any menu, mostly because it tends to come with interesting pairings. This was no exception, and it was a perfect Valentine's Day treat. However, next year they should find a way to make it pink.

To satisfy our (constant) cravings for cheese, we got a really nice cheese plate, which included housemade fruit preserves, nuts humboldt fog (California, goats milk), gouda aged 4 yr. (Holland, cows milk), and manchego (Spain, sheeps milk).

Each new cheese was better than the last, and we literally scraped the plate clean. A perfect ending to an almost perfect Valentine's Day meal (company was perfect, risotto was troubling).

The ambiance of the place was pretty lively and friendly, and we even struck up a conversation about whisky with a nearby table. However, we told them ahead of time that we wanted a slow meal, and we instead got the feeling that they wanted to turn over our table three times before V-Day was over. Overall, the food only missed the mark once, but frankly, we're not likely to go back any time soon. If you're in the area and want to stop in for salads and dessert, then we say, "Bon appétit!"