Dinner at Chef Ben's House


An old friend of mine has moved back to town and invited us to dinner at his place. Did I mention that he worked for Mario Batali?....You know the fat pony tailed guy in the orange crocs?

He made us an Italian feast! Please forgive us for using of foam plates... :-(

We started out with some tasty pork meatballs & Foccacia bread, a bit salty but very nice.

Then came my favourite dish of the night, handmade Cavatelli pasta with a chicken and homemade (!!!) Guanciale (Pork cheek bacon) cream sauce. This pasta was amazing!

Next came the Oxtail ragu with handmade Garganelli! I love oxtail! Oxtail is so under appreciated! This is Batali's own recipe!

After this we took a break from the food, and we all went back to arguing about sports...

After an hour or so later he went back into the kitchen and made us some (again) homemade Gnocchi with the chicken & guanciale cream sauce from above, very good Gnocchi, but I loved the Cavatelli so much more!

For dessert he made us freshly baked chocolate lava cake. Yum!

 

Look at all the chocolate flowing out!

 

I'm kinda kicking myself as I missed taking photo's of his Blue Curacao skinless ravioli (What Ferran Adria invented!), and for lack of a better description a whipped ice cream from a dispenser, which was a great finisher.

Overall a great meal and evening, thanks Ben!