Spinster Sisters Restaurant

Ate at a local restaurant last weekend with Steve and had a great time and a very good meal.  The Spinster Sisters has been around for a short time but just moved into a new spot and it's a good place for a restaurant.  Street parking, sort of a residential neighborhood on the edge of some commercial businesses as well.  Good reviews. We got there early, a bit before 6:00, place was pretty empty.

The menu is mostly small plates with a couple of "big" plates as well.  We split four small plates and had a good bottle of wine from Chile (under $30) and everything was good.  Our four choices were a country duck terrine, lamb sausages (merguez), grilled calamari and pork belly. Each came with a salad or some kind of accouterments.

Duck terrine:  country style, so it was chunky, not smooth like a pate.  With cornichons and a seeded mustard and grilled bread.  Very good, nice duck taste, the bread and the pickles and mustard were perfect.

Lamb sausages:  they were good and there was a little curry yogurt sauce that was fine but they were served on a bed of red quinoa. To be clear, I like quinoa, I eat it often but I don't want it when I go out to eat.  It's a health food, in my mind, not something to eat when you want yummy-ness.

Calamari:  delicious. Tender and juicy, served with a Thai-styled slaw, some peanuts on top. Sometimes grilled calamari is tough or tasteless.  This was neither, and the crispy salad was the perfect foil for the softness of the calamari.

Pork belly:  what can I say about pork belly?  It is pretty much wrong on all levels except those that count:  Taste!  Lusciousness! Texture!  There were four generous strips of belly, served on top of something that was good but I can't remember what it was. The pork belly was so good it erased my memory of anything else on the plate. It had been roasted or baked until tender and succulent and then somehow fried or sauteed until the outside was crispy, like cracklins, with the inside still soft. I am drooling just thinking about it right now.  Perfect.  If the restaurant was within walking distance of where I live, I would be putting on my shoes right now to get some of that pork belly. It is the stuff dreams are made of.  Well, if you like to dream about pork, that is. 

So, to recap:  the only thing we didn't finish was the red quinoa. Every other dish was licked clean. An order of four plates was the perfect amount.  The wine was delicious, the service was stellar the the entire bill, including the wine, was under $75 with tax.  We tipped generously.  A very good meal for under $75, including a bottle of wine?  How crazy is that?

Their website directs you to Facebook, which I think is a detriment.  Also, when we left the restaurant around 7:00, it was packed and it was noisy.  They have a bar which would be great for me (!) to sit at when I go by myself later this coming week and indulge in my pork belly fixation.


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