Chalkboard

Spent Saturday with two other couples in the Healdsburg area, starting with wine tasting at Chalk Hill Estates.  We ended our day a Chalkboard.  What a treat, indeed.

The tapas style allows you to try many different types of foods prepared in very inventive ways.  Crab tater tots (yummy), pork belly biscuits (REALLY yummy), eggplant caponata, just to start.

The shot of chilled English pea soup is exquisite and perfect on a warm summer day, along with the beet salad.  The pasta dishes are unreal.  Freshly made pasta with exceptional sauces.  My favorite had to be the wild nettle & ricotta gnudi.  SUPERB!

Gulf shrimp was tasty and the seared scallops were exceptional on top of a risotto cake that was one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life.  And the beef sliders?  Cooked to perfection.

Although we couldn't possibly eat anymore, we ended up with 4 desserts.  The ice cream is quite flavorful, the candy bar was awesome, and the "healthy breakfast" looked just like a breakfast plate but was SO yummy.

The service?  A+++.

Will we be back?  Of course!

O.K., so, for our party of 4, the check came to $142, food only. Sorry, the plates were
just too small. It was if there were "little people" preparing the food. The food, deliciously inventive. The only disappointment was the shrimp, it tasted like the ocean.
(and I wouldn't recommend) The spartan amount divided by 4 was almost laughable, no, wait, it was laughable....they should have served easy bake utensils.
And now for the "stellar" service. We were greeted by 3 prepubescent hostesses, and
it was a little embarrassing, as, after actually finding they had not booked my first
reservation, they somehow managed to lose my second. Everyone within earshot
was staring at our party, hoping that we were "scammers", so they could get seated.
I found the water service to be just short of crazy....every 5 minutes there was a
GIANT water pitcher shoved through our conversation. And speaking of...this place
needs some serious acoustical work....it is just too noisy. So, I don't know...I think
I would pass on this one, there are just too many great restaraunts in Healdsburg.

Great new small plate restaurant in downtown Healdsburg in what used to be Cyrus (my favorite! still so sorry that it closed). The decor is changed, but the beautiful architecture of the space still remains, most notably the gorgeous arched ceilings. Chalkboard just opened for lunch on Fridays and Saturdays, so it was a perfect time to try them out for a belated birthday lunch with a good friend. We started with the dungeness crab tater tots (deliciious, I could have eaten 20!), then moved on to the chilled English pea soup shooters with dungeness crab (again I could have had two or three of these shots). Then I had the seared strip loin rare and my friend had the heirloom tomato panzanella salad. Everything was delicious and I will definitely be back!