Some very fun and food-oriented colleagues who live in other parts of the country were in town last night and we went to Bambara. We were in a sort of oval high-backed booth in a corner which was just perfect as it cocooned us away from the rest of the room and was very comfortable – there were 5 of us but it would have fit 6 no problem. We started with well-made cocktails and an order of the decadent thick-cut fries. Then 3 folks had the wild mushroom soup which they all loved, another had the burrata with peppers and tapenade which was very tasty and I had the little gem salad with tahini Caesar dressing which was excellent as always. While we were eating these I was telling everyone how killer the dry-aged burger is there and the senior guy there (who would pick up the check, gotta love those expense accounts!) flagged our waiter down and said “we just heard how great your burger is and we all want to try it. Can you ask the kitchen to make us one and cut it up so we can all have some?” So after a bit out comes a burger, nicely cut up into 6 wedges, each wedge beautifully skewered with one of those long bamboo picks so it’s possible to pick it up and eat it – really nice job by the kitchen and everyone swooned over their bites of burger. And of course with it came more of those amazing fries. Luckily we’d all gone small with our mains: 2 of us had the small portion of cavatelli with spicy lamb ragu, feta and mint, 2 had the small portion of spinach and cheese ravioli with squash, sage and toasted hazelnuts and one had the warm hummus with fall vegetables. Both pastas were divine, didn’t taste the hummus. We had a nice bottle of Montepulciano. The online menu is not up to date and I have no sweet tooth so hazy on the desserts everyone else shared – there was a roasted apple tart, pumpkin crème brulee and beignets of some sort – and then I was a bad influence (again!) and we all ended up with glasses of nonino. Such a thoroughly pleasant evening!
