Last year in March my college roommate and her husband came into town for work.  They both love going out to good restaurants and anytime they travel they come up with a list of options to try out so we went out with them one night.  We went to Cafe Juanita and got the tasting menu and it was the best meal I have ever had in my life.  Seriously so good.  I have been wanting to go back ever since and we finally decided to go for our anniversary.  You usually have to make reservations at least a few weeks in advance, which I did, but then Vu ended up not feeling well so we canceled.  I made a new reservation when I canceled, but the earliest opening they had for a Saturday was in September.

We got the tasting menu again and again it was so good.  Although I still liked the first one just a little bit better.  Even though all of it was so good, my favorite dishes were the tajarin (pasta) with white sturgeon caviar; burrata, castelvetrano olives, anchovy & pignoli (pine nuts); fois gras, nectarine, candied ginger and cocoa nibs; and chocolate truffle cake, burnt meringue, graham crisp, and smoked vanilla gelato.  They were amazing.  Really, really amazing.  It was my first time trying caviar and I was so surprised how much I loved it, it was so good.  And the olives with the cheese and pine nuts and toasted bread were so simple but so good.  And the combination of the fois gras with the cocoa nips and nectarine was so unexpected for me worked so well.  Then there was that dessert!  Chocolate perfection!  Something else I love about this restaurant is how unbelievably good all the bread is.  Especially the parmesan chips, I LOVE parmesan cheese and in the cracker form, just so good.  Towards the end of dinner, a lightning and thunder storm started and there was so much lightening, more than I have ever seen in Seattle.  We were sitting right by the window so could see every flash, I loved it.  It was a perfect anniversary dinner!