[food/drink] Rustic Kitchen (Porter Square)

This exceeded my expectations by so much that I now can't remember why I wanted to go in the first place. It's in an unpromising location (the "scared of sushi? eat here!" spot in Porter Exchange, which a few other restaurants have cycled through in the time I've lived here), and what's up with the name?

But I think I'd had a look at the menu once and decided to try it, back when it first opened. It turns out to be a fancy Italian restaurant with unusual (to me) recipes. The fried calamari, for example, came with rings of jalapeno pepper tiny enough to eat on their own without requiring masochism. I ordered a spaghetti dish with bits of grated frozen caviar (this turned out to be a good idea) that, uncharacteristically for a nice restaurant, had far more flavors in it than the menu advertised. It also managed to taste like habaneros without being excessively spicy, which confused us; we kept thinking the peppers must have been lurking in big chunks somewhere, which they weren't. Out of our four entrees, the only disappointing one was M's macaroni and cheese, which didn't have much cheese; she theorized this was supposed to emphasize the mushrooms but it was just bland.

Anyway, the really amazing part was our dessert: a strawberry-balsamic sorbet with a spice cake and a strawberry cannoli. Every time one of us took a bite we would sort of tune out in bliss for a minute, and then upon returning take a few seconds to realize that there was MORE of it. (Repeat until dessert is gone.) We also got a chocolate creme brulee that I had no complaints about-- actually, I liked it better than I usually like creme brulee, though that may just be because creme brulee is growing on me-- but it could not compare to the devastating strawberry object. It may have been the best restaurant dessert I've ever had; at any rate, it was the first time I've ever asked the staff how long a dessert was going to stay on the menu. Their answer: until September. September! That was a very excellent answer for them to give. If the idea of balsamic vinegar and strawberry ice sounds at all appealling to you, come get dessert with me at this place sometime.