Hot Plate and a Challenge

When we heard last week that Bella Cosa was serving dinner on Saturday night, we wondered how they were going to pull it off. Last we knew, their full, professional kitchen lay on the far side of a daunting permitting process. So what’s their secret? Read on!

Hello from Bella Cosa,

Last week’s dinner was a such a success, we’ve decided to make this a regular thing, Saturday, June 27th we’ll be offering a four-course dinner from 6 – 9pm (reservations only please) featuring fresh, seasonal ingredients from the pacific northwest, the menu is $30, with wine pairing $35

• First course: Smoked Salmon and Dungeness Crab Strudel, Green Garlic, Smoked Hominy
• Second Course: Organic Lettuces from our garden, green goddess dressing, Wooden Hoof Salami, brioche crouton
• Entrée: Strawberry Farms Beef Tenderloin, baby turnips, spring onions, porcini mushrooms, prune and armagnac jus.
• Dessert: Mascarpone and Hazelnut Mille Fuille, huckleberry coulis

We were joking around that cooking dinner for twenty off of a panini grill and a mini-oven felt like the recent Top Chef dorm-room challenge, so we’re taking it and running with it:

Announcing the first weekly Farmers’ Market Challenge: bring an ingredient (or ingredients) from the Wallingford Farmers’ market and we’ll use them as the inspiration for your dinner—cooked “off-the-cuff” -three courses for $20 . We’ll also have wine available for pairing by the glass at $5. Come see us sweat and feel free to throw us some curveballs! Weekly from 6-8:30pm Wednesday nights starting July 1st. Walk-ins welcome!

Reports are that last week’s meal was “very good” and “an unbelievable value” at $35 w/ wine, so it’s great to see this become a regular Saturday night option for Wallingford.

And the Farmer’s Market Challenge, that’s got us scheming.