Once we were seated, we started with cocktails. Leo ordered a very summery "cucumber Collins," a Tom Collins with cucumber puree and garnished with a sprig of lemongrass and a slice of cucumber and I sipped a Sapphire martini.
The menu had a lot of interesting and unusual items, making it hard to decide on dinner. Leo started his meal with a duck rillette, which I think wasn't quite what he was expecting. Rillettes are sort of like a preserved potted meat and used as a spread on bread. Firefly's version was close to the tradition; the duck spread was flavorfully seasoned and sealed with a layer of duck fat and served with toasted bread slices and little cornichon pickles. For his main course he chose the grilled Icelandic salmon that came with lyonnaise potatoes and a leek puree. Dessert was the citrus-scented cheesecake with strawberry sauce which struck me as a sort of strawberry upside down cake; a large amount of fresh strawberries in sauce filled the bottom of the plate topped with a square of soft cheesecake with the bottom graham crust up on the top.
I started with a chilled asparagus soup with crème frâiche that was very flavorful and tasty. Next I had a mixed green salad with crumbles of Maytag blue cheese and toasted walnuts with a sherry vinaigrette. My main course was a very unusual portobello mushroom schnitzel served atop a dish of lentils; I'm not quite sure what I think of this dish, but it was certainly interesting. If one has had a German wiener schnitzel before, the mushroom cap was similarly breaded and fried. In lieu of dessert I did a cheese plate with three American cheeses: Fog Light, O'Banon, and Rogue River Blue.
With our meal, we drank a bottle of wine from Virginia, a Barboursville Cabernet Franc. It was drinkable, though nothing spectacular. After desserts, I had coffee and Leo had a snifter of Di Sarrono amaretto on the rocks.
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