I guess I also have to say that my highlight was meeting Gwenn 
. Seriously, it was great meeting you and your husband and friends and thanks for the taste of pudding!
I’d also say that the meal was very good. I was disappointed at the start because when we arrived, the canned pudding was listed on the specials blackboard. However, by the time our table was vacated and we were seated and got to place our order, it had disappeared. I’ve run into this before, and I really should have tried to get them to hold one for me when I saw it up there, but I got lulled into a false sense of security. I was thrilled to have Gwenn bring me over a small but generous portion (after I told her that I had missed out on it) to try and it was excellent!
Anyway, I had the mozzarella appetizer and while it was good, their quality control left something to be desired. The slices of cheese seemed to be smaller than in the past (and certainly smaller than in photos I’ve seen them post) and the bread was just two corner chunks rather than slices I’ve had in the past (which work much better for eating with the cheese). I really should have complained and had them bring me actual slices. My wife had the eggplant and it was OK, tasted kind of like baba ganoush. Others at the table had the buttery salty potatoes (excellent, as always) and a special salad of watercress and other greens that was huge and very tasty. I was disappointed that they did not have the chocolate chicken liver pate appetizer that they had as a special last time (and which is now on the regular menu).
For entrees, I had the cod and it was excellent. In the past they’ve always served branzino as the market fish and I thought this was better and a larger portion. The red pepper sauce was excellent and made me wish that they served bread with the meal (and not just as an appetizer choice). My wife and daughter had the steak and it was quite large, a 12 ounce NY strip. Others at the table had the radiatore with lamb, chicken and osso bucco. I did not try any of them but they were apparently good.
For dessert, since I had missed out on the pudding chomeur, I got the chocolate polenta, which was excellent. My wife had the Stickabutta pie which was great as usual. My daughter had a special of some sort of dried fruit pie; I’m thinking the name was pastica or something like that (I can’t find anything in Google). She wasn’t particularly happy with it, said it would have been better warm. I was really disappointed that the Stickabutta shake that they listed on their website HVRW menu was not on the menu at the restaurant.
Going back to the quality control issue, one person at our table had not gotten their dessert, so we told our server that we were missing a Stickabutta pie and she went to get it for us. Before she returned, we realized that the person who had ordered the date cake had been given the pie instead, but when the server delivered the extra slice and we told her our mistake she told us we could keep it. However, it was literally half the size of the other pieces that we’d gotten. Since it was free, I did not say anything but if it had been delivered as my dessert I would not have been happy.
Anyway, it was a very good meal. The Cookery always does a great job for HVRW but I’m thinking that Saturday night is not the best night to go there if you want to get specials (although they did have a few).
