178 Ninth Avenue
(between 20th and 21st
Streets)
rafaellacafe.com
On a cold, rainy Halloween night, my dining companion was in
the mood for a dinner that would be suitable for the fall season. A menu that
might include pumpkin . . .
Rafaella’s is a small, comfortable café that reminds you of
an old armchair, in which you could settle into for the entire evening.
And most important for that evening, it offered a dinner special—a
complete pumpkin meal. For the appetizer, you started with a pumpkin soup,
which I thought to be a bit heavy on the cream:
For the entrée, pumpkin ravioli. Really good, but one piece
was filling enough for me. Again, thought it was a bit too creamy.
And for dessert, pumpkin cheesecake—which was excellent!
They did show us their entire dessert offering, but, hey, we
were committed to sticking with the pumpkin theme.
For my starter, I went with their sangria $5 happy hour
special. It was okay, but I’ve tasted better. Plus, perhaps not the best choice to pair with my dinner.
My dining companion went for a glass of the chenin blanc
(Simonsig, from Stellenbosh, South Africa). She had initially requested a glass
of the gruner veltliner (Count Karolyi, from Tolna, Hungary), but sadly they
were out.
For my entrée, I ordered the steak au poivre—cooked medium
rare—served with mashed potatoes and sautéed broccoli. Delicious! And it was
perfect for a cold, rainy autumn night.
Helpful Hint: In
this instance, instead of following the saying of “You can never have too much
of a good thing,” we probably should have heeded the warning of “Too much of a
good thing, is a bad thing.”
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