Tre Piani

Date
1/4/2012

Location
In Forrestal Village
120 Rockingham Row, Princeton, NJ

What I ate
Mushroom pizza
Tortellini in bolognese (half-portion)
Spicy grilled tuna steak with avocado risotto
Affogato


Who went
Mom, Dad, Dan, and Julie

Website
Tre Piani

Thoughts
Another birthday(ish) dinner!  Again, there's a decent gap between the eating and writing dates, so don't expect the best details.

It amazes me to come home on breaks and find local places I've never visited.  I lived 15 minutes from Tre Piani for the first 18+ years of my life but never ate there until recently.  I don't think I've been to Forrestal Village since middle school.  I was definitely missing out.  We had a great dinner and I'll have to seriously consider going back next time I'm up at home.  The space is very open with particularly tall ceilings and it's really well-lit without being garish.  Our waiter was a little too doting, but had some great suggestions and was very knowledgeable about the food.  This is the first place in a while where the maitre d' really made an impression on me.  He made easy conversation, checked up on us during the meal, and even gave me a little background on my dessert.

The menu feels a little scattered, but it give you a ton of options.  We took advantage of that flexibility and turned a pizza and a pasta into family-style appetizers.  The pizza was great and the pasta was much tastier than anything I've tried to make myself.  I'm not sure how they made that sauce, but I'm going to have to keep trying to figure it out.  I got a taste of Dan's tuna tartare, which was excellent.  It's probably for the best that I can't find good-quality tuna around here or I'd waste a lot of money trying to recreate that.  Redundancy was certainly not a risk when it came time for the entree.  My tuna steak was quite tasty and the spiciness actually came through.  I'm not sure how, but the creamy avocado risotto was delicious by itself and an excellent complement to the tuna.  As good as rest of the meal was, the dessert may have been the best part.  I'm a sucker for anything interactive and dynamic, so pouring the hot espresso over the creamy, rich gelato satisfied both of those criteria.  Plus, the whole thing looked quite elegant in the balloon glass.  I just checked a thesaurus for synonyms for "delicious" and I still can't find a word good enough to describe the affogato.  It seems like such a malleable dish and I'm going to try to recreate that as well as make some new iterations.


Recap
Pros - awesome food, great ambiance
Cons - probably too expensive to go regularly, but great for special occasions (note: that's what Tre Bar is for)
Overall - This was just a really good meal, one of the best I've had in a while.  I thoroughly recommend a visit for fancy dinner.  Take a look at the specials (most are at the bar) if you're looking for a great-but-not-that-expensive night out.