In El Paso, there’s a place called Ardovinos, fine dining in a trailer park. By a trailer park. Anyway, it was dinner with Grace and all.
The appetizer was amazing. “Looks like bait, not touching that. I don’t even want to know what ‘fish row’ is.”
It was scallops and mussels, in a Jalapeño sauce. The starter was garnished with – I’m guessing – flying fish roe, liberally sprinkled across the top.
The waiter (Libra) asked how the sauce was. Just enough bite to be interesting without being overpowering or having to be listed as potentially hazardous. Just enough zing to be engaging, even to me. I liked it.
The meal was outstanding, in an of itself, as I expected, but that’s not the big deal, no, the bomb – “Da Bomb” – was dessert. I opted for the coffee and finger things, but the Leo couple, they split the evening’s special, “Irish Car Bombe.” That was its title, and that caught my attention from the beginning of the meal.
Irish Car Bombe
“Irish Car Bombe” was Guinness ice cream, swaddled in a chocolate cake and then soaked with Jamison’s Irish Whiskey. On top of a mint-liquor soaked cookie.
I can’t make this stuff up. I didn’t dare sample, but the results were, predictably, quite good. In an odd way.
Ardovinos: where the live entertainment is dodging bullets and watching the Border Patrol snag illegals.