Dinner c/o Tinto

After our walk, we wended our way back to home. On the way there was a stretch of time where I was randomly figuring out how to hit Ridge or Kelly Drive, and it worked out but took a little aimless driving through Philadelphia suburbia. The pretty old house part of suburbia...actually still part of Philly I think, or not? Mt Airy? Chesnut Hill? Germantown? I feel like we saw a little of all of those places, maybe. Then, when we finally hit Kelly Drive there was a good two mile stretch during which L. and I were laughing so hard my cheeks hurt and I thought I was going to puke. The most truly of infectious laughter. It felt so good...even though my cheeks were worn out by the end of it. We talked about what we wanted for dinner and L. mentioned tapas, so I figured that Tinto might be a nice place to take her. The earliest reservation was 9:30, so we kept our hunger at bay with almonds and Laughing Cow cheese.

Now, on to Tinto. I started with a glass of sparkly wine because I wanted to.
Then we were served their complementary cheesy crispy wafer bread tube things with dipping sauce. These were good, but not as good as the complementary yucca magic of Chifa.
We ordered all sorts of things. The first of which was the mixed cheese plate. There was a boucheron, a blue, and a harder Spanish cheese. Served with apple slices, quince jam and love.
We also ordered the tuna tartare sandwich, which consisted of big eye tuna, pickled guindilla, and chorizo aioli. Served on a croissant, it was a nice mix of flavors. I liked the crispy as get out piece of meat that accompanied the dish, and I ate most of the spicy pepper provided as well...though I then had to drink a little more water to get my mouth happy. Mmmmmm.
Yeah. I liked this sandwich. Also, apologies for the fact that each photograph has a bit of its own color palette. Can someone please tell me the best way to handle low lit restaurant shots? I put it on a high ISO and then automatic without flash, but I'm sure there's a smarter way to handle it.
After our disappointing fried oysters at London Grill, and with my memory of how excellent the oyster sandwich was the last time I came to Tinto, I recommended that we try the oyster sandwich (L. had never had fried oysters before and I didn't want her thinking that they were lame when they are, in fact, awesome). And the sandwich did not prove me a fool as much as inordinately bright...at least when it comes to oysters.
The sandwich = fried oyster, choricero pepper tartar, sweet onion escabeche.
Next up were the Chicken brosheta (fancy word for skewer, I would suppose), which were, for me, miraculous and revolutionary. Each skewer had two cubes of chicken, and two grapes, and were served in these cute little shot/tube glasses with a base of garbanzo puree and truffle jus. Each cube of chicken was amazing. A little charring on the outside, succulent on the inside and chock full of marvelous flavor. And the garbanzo puree/truffle jus mixture at the bottom? I was glad they provided a small spoon with which to scrape each and every drop from the glass...because it had to be done. I would mainline this liquid if I could.
L. was very much attracted to the description of the truffled chesnut soup. I had remembered that different-L. raved about the soup, so I encouraged L. to try it, though chesnut soup has never been one of my favorites. Even with the duck & mushroom hash, fried quail egg, and pistachio components, the few spoons I had were just to sweet and rich for me. We also ordered the bomba rice with morel mushrooms, green asparagus, and lemon oil. By this time in our meal, we were feeling totally and utterly satiated and pleased, and sort of regretted ordering this dish and...well, the other thing we ordered that you can see below. Not because we questioned how tasty these things might be, but because our bellies were already overwhelmed with incredible (adjective as noun..I am fancy). We ended up taking a few bites of the rice and taking the rest of it home. Of all the dishes, it was the most 'eh.'
The roasted rack of lamb, with artichoke puree, some sort of gravy and potato chips, however, was anything but 'eh.'Though we had felt entirely incapable of putting another bite of rice into our mouths, we both got down to the lamb at hand with slightly food foggy gusto. The puree/sauces on the plate were addictive. I wanted a sauce scraping spoon knife thing, like my parents and I saw at Le Bec Fin.
Tinto surpassed my own expectations for tastiness. I knew it was going to be good, but I was surprised by how even the thing that impressed the least (bomba rice) was still a complex and interesting dish. Comparing my experience at Tinto to my earlier meal at Chifa is like comparing two different kinds of apples. They are both perfectly fresh, they both come from the same tree, and yet one is simply more awesome than the other. I left Chifa with good thoughts, but I left Tinto wanting to live there. I sort of forgot about that apple analogy at the end. Sorry.

I'll take 'An awesome time' for $1,000 Alex! What is my weekend with L! That doesn't quite make sense but whatever.