We had the opportunity to take part in a dinner tonight at the Black Dog Cafe, this restaurant is in downtown St. Paul right across from the farmers market. Normally they are a cafe and wine bar with a limited food selection but on one Sunday a month they focus on doing a dinner with local, organic ingredients picked up that morning at the market.
Tonight’s dinner started with a sparking wine from the Loire region of France, an am amuse bouche of smoked trout, mascarpone and capers on a cucumber slice. This was amazing, light and fresh and just the right amount of smoke flavor on the trout. A large bread basket with tapenade and herb butter was brought out with the amuse bouche.
A mixed greens salad with huge radishes and vinaigrette was next, followed by grilled eggplant and sunburst/patty pan squash. Both of these were amazing, such fresh flavor. To accompany the veggies we had a nice light white from France and a region I can not remember 
The main entree was a roast pork with fingerling potatoes and baby carrots, the wine pairing was a nice Cote De Rhone, that I really enjoyed. This pork was amazing, there was still some fat remaining for really good flavor and the veggies were roasted to utter perfection.
The fait de complete was the dessert, strawberries and rhubarb grunt with locally made vanilla ice cream. This was amazing, for anyone who says they don’t like rhubarb it is because they have not had it prepared well! This was rich, tart and creamy. I loved it!
In addition to the great food we meet some really interesting people, we will definitely do one of these dinners again.
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