wilmington, redux

X thinks that the return to Wilmington was for the sole purpose of righting the dining wrong from our last visit. Sure, we did have reservations at La Fia this time - and yes, it was very good - but there was an interlude for music (Brett Dennen), and a return to the overly comfortable Hotel du Pont.

La Fia turned out to be exactly what I'd hoped: great atmosphere, excellent food, hip views of Market St. We opened with an order of scallops and the tart/quiche special, mains were gnocchi for both, desserts were the caramel pudding and the pumpkin creme brulee. Here's a great tip for restaurants out there that serve gnocchi - don't overdo it, especially with butter. I know that it's easy to think you'll get some taste with butter, but it simply drowns out whatever fresh tastes you're hoping to blend. Across our entire meal there was a welcome lack of butter, oversalting, and trickery used to hid mediocre cooking. After all, sauces were invented way back when to cover up bad product - stay away from it. Everything was excellent and they hit the killer in/out points perfectly: good bread, good coffee. Hey, it's the first and last impression you'll give me so why give me crappy dohack on the way out the door. I will never understand crap coffee. If you are even in Wilmington, I can hook you with where to say, where to eat (dinner and breakfast), and cool places to hang out.

The show was an acoustic shindig by Brett Dennen at Wilmington's World Cafe Live. We've been the WCL in Phlly, and the Wilmington venue is quite similar - at both places we had front row balcony seats, and at both shows the digs were good. I've gotten to the point where nice seats are more important that the great rock n' roll lifestyle. Well, unless Slobberbone is playing a bar near me. The show was great once Brett coyly put the 'talking' crowd in shape via some humorous ju-jitsu. Anyway, he's a much better guitar player than I expected, and as great a singer as I knew: