Pizza and Cidre

On Friday night, we tried Espresso Club, also in the Paquis. The place was already starting to get packed at 8pm or so when we arrived (and during our dinner, a number of folks had to wait for their tables). Most were seated around the attractive bar, with a few high tables scattered about the small Cafe and a couple of other tables outside.

Espresso Club serves a variety of pizzas and pastas. We split one pizza and one pasta, thinking we might take home some of the latter -- but by the end of dinner, both were gone! The pizza was one with lardon (yes, again!), zucchini, and eggplant. The crust was super thin and all the ingredients tasted extremely fresh. For the pasta, we had a simple arrabiata. Rather than tomato based, the sauce was olive oil based, with rivulets of concentrated tomato running through it (I would bet that the tomatoes were not fresh, but rather either sun-dried or some kind of paste). That said, it was tasty. The pasta -- rigatoni -- was well cooked, slightly al dente.

We also had two glasses of the house rose, which was unremarkable, and therefore much better than what we had had at La Bourse.

A quick aside here about cider. We have been having the grocery store's Cidre Normand -- and it's really good. Only the brut is available, and I'd be interested to try the sweeter variety, but for 6CHF and change it's one of the best deals we've seen yet. Of course, it comes equipped with one of those cider corks that's got a wider end than tip, meaning it's very hard to re-cork (at least until our vacu-vin gets here). Sadly, this means we often have to drink the whole bottle in one sitting, for fear of it going to waste. Pity us...

Next up, we'll try fondue next week, and maybe a trip back to the Bistrot du Beouf Rouge, which I enjoyed when I was here for a few weeks earlier this summer.