Foodgasms

Tonight, I must say, I cannot supply you with a recipe. It would be an insult to the place where I had dinner to pretend to be a chef and give out culinary advice, because I have just had the absolute best food that I have ever eaten in my life. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about Si' Tapas. If you have the pleasure of living in Richmond, drop whatever dinner plans you have RIGHT NOW and go to this beautiful little hole in the wall off of Lombardy in the Fan. My best friend, Carrie, and I treated ourselves to a trip to culinary divinity this evening, and oh MAN was it worth it. Reasonably portioned (and priced) tapas, beautiful and quiet atmosphere and an exceptional and eclectic wine list make this my new favorite place in Richmond. Not to mention that the food was absolutely divine. 

We started out with the vegetable selection: she had pequillo peppers stuffed with chevre and fennel; I had belgian endive with chevre, almonds and orange with some kind of sweet lemon dressing. OH MY HOLY GOD. The texture of the peppers and cheese just melted into my mouth like the most decadent dark chocolate. The slightly bitter endive basically did a Viennese waltz with the sweet orange, the creamy chevre, and the rich toasted almonds. I could have died then, and we weren't even getting started. 

Next, we moved on to seafood. Carrie tried the scallops, served with some kind of paprika sauce, bacon and watercress. I had yellowfin tuna tartare served with a spicy garlic aioli and a rice cracker. The scallops were perfect. They were fresh, just barely seasoned, and played beautifully with with the other flavors. The tuna was just a bit spicy for my tastes, but was so perfectly rich and decadent that it made my head spin in the best kind of way. 

Our final dinner selection was the roasted duck served with jellied kumquats and cocoa nibs. This, my friends, was a foodgasm that will leave you spent for weeks. The duck was so tender that it, like everything else, melted off the fork, and the sweet and savory interplay of the cocoa and the kumquats was a hurricane of sensory delight. 

We finished off the night with the roasted red d'Anjou pears. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we are presented with a perfectly spiced warm pear alongside a citrus-ginger sorbet. This place is appropriately named (it'll make you scream YES!), because seriously this capped the single best meal that I have ever had. 

If you don't live in Richmond, mourn the loss of this place. If you do, you are doing yourself the greatest of imaginable disservices by depriving your senses of the foodgasm that is dinner at Si. 

Enjoy! And have a great weekend.