Katie's Pizza and Pasta Passport Dinner: Piedmont

After taking a month off, Katie's Pizza and Pasta resumed their Passport Dinner series with Piedmont. Luckily, I stopped by the week before for "Dining Out For Life" and got a chance to order the Eggplant Parmigiana, which was first featured at the dinner back in March!

Menu

We started off the evening with a fried squash blossom and a wine similar to a Chardonnay. Both this wine, and the Gavi up next, with its crispness, made for my favorite wines of the night.

Riori Di Zucca Ripieni

I was relieved that the first two dishes were smaller and very light, but thrilled there was so much cheese involved!

Artichoke Alla Bagna Cauda

The courses got a lot heavier very quickly as the pasta of the night was served in a cream sauce with mushrooms. Katie's pastas are just so amazing and I wish I could have had a heaping plate, but instead, I stopped myself halfway because I knew more was coming. The first red, a Barbera, was paired with this course.

Tajarin All'albese

Sure enough, Katie outdid herself again with the short ribs over a bed of polenta with carrots. Of course this was paired with a Barolo, another popular wine from Piedmont. All the big red wine drinkers loved this one. Again, I knew to only eat half of this dish and save it for later.

Brasato Al Barolo

After waiting months, finally a chocolate mousse-like dessert was served! Let's just say I informed my rather-full tablemates that I would be happy to help them out on this course and I ended up with four servings. Yes, it was incredible! I think if I ever visit Italy, I need to visit this northern area that's close to Switzerland!

Chocolate Panna Cotta

Resources:

Katie's Pizza and Pasta = http://www.katiespizzaandpasta.com/