We were invited out by our son and his wife for dinner and we tried to settle on a restaurant that is mid-point between our two houses. We settled on Andiamo in Bloomfield Township, which fits the logistics. My Bride and I have been there often, and I have written about some of our dinners there, but our son had never been there. We can remember when it was the Machus Red Fox, and that fine establishment had to close, because of the infamous night 30 July 1975 when James R. (Jimmy) Hoffa disappeared and he has been missing ever since. I guess there is still a cachet or allure to the building ever since.

The four of us were having dinner in the bar area, near where the band was playing, in fact we were the table adjacent to the music, but for the most part, we could maintain a nice conversation going. We started off the evening with some shared plates of “Sausag e Peppers” of house-made sausage, potatoes and Hungarian hot peppers done in a demi-glace and a platter of “Salumi e Formaggi” some artisanal cheeses and cured meats along with some mixed fruits and vegetables and Marcona Almonds. I won’t mention all of the dishes, but I will list what my Bride and I had for the evening. We both had the house salad which came with a Creamy Garlic dressing, and that is hard to pass up, since so few restaurants now offer what used to be a staple dressing. I ordered the Veal Marsala with wild mushrooms with a Marsala reduction demi-glace; I do like to order veal dishes when we are out, as it is one of the few dishes that we never make at home. My Bride ordered one of the specials and it was a huge pan of Roasted Chicken with a Pomegranate Honey Sauce, citrus, toasted almonds and Tzimmis, and Tzimmis is you have never had is a sweet stew made from carrots and other root vegetables and dried fruits. Alas Tzimmis is also a Yiddish word for a bother, which kind of describes all of the work and preparation to make the stew and unfortunately, I had a bit of a Tzimmis. I think that our waitress made an error, because she had to verify my order and there was a long lag time between the salad course and our entrée orders. All four dinners were brought out and they looked delightful, except that my dish was not hot, I would say that the temperature was more tepid and by the time the waitress came back with the perfunctory question “how is everything?” the others had almost finished the dinners. The manager then came and offered to have another dish made, but I said that it would take too long, so as compensation they deducted my meal from the tab, and it was a shame, as I was looking forward to some good veal. At least my Bride and I did get a chance to cut the rug a bit, before we left and did some dancing.

Our Daughter-in-Law very seldom drinks anything stronger than a cola, and our Son prefers beer, and when he asked what beers were on draught, he was informed that they only have bottled beer, so he asked what Michigan craft beers do they carry and the waitress immediately mentioned Corona, which struck both of us as odd, I guess when no one was looking Mexico was annexed to Michigan. They finally brought him a beer list and he was happy. As for my Bride and I we went with a bottle of wine, which is what I tend to write about. I was going to go with an Italian wine, but one wine caught my attention from the list and it intrigued me, and it really intrigued my Bride when I pointed it out to her. We had a bottle of El Enemigo Cabernet Franc 2011 from Mendoza, Argentina, so we had to try something new. El Enemigo means the enemy, and the vintners Adrianna Catena and Alejandro Vigil applied this quote on the back label “At the end of the journey we remember only one battle: the one we fought against ourselves, the original enemy. The one that defined us.” The wine was basically all Cabernet Franc with only eight percent Malbec blended in. The fruit came from the Gualtallary district of Mendoza and was aged for sixteen months in French Oak, of which twenty percent was new. The wine had a beautiful color, with a terroir driven nose. It started off a bit tight, but it opened up during the course of the meal and it turned out to be an excellent and refreshing wine choice. The company, the conversation and the wine all made up for my meal, and I know that we will end up going there again in the future.