Review: Restaurant Alba

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Today is our seventh wedding anniversary.  We used the occasion to try one of several restaurants out our way [the Delco burbs] that focus on locally grown ingredients.  Restaurant Alba won out, and we had our anniversary dinner there last night.

Being slightly snobby about suburban restaurants, we didn’t count on how hard it would be to get a reservation!  It’s in Malvern, for pete’s sake!  Who flocks to Malvern on a Saturday night?  Well...people do, apparently.  We couldn’t get a reservation until 9pm.  So let this be a lesson: call early.  I think I made the reservation last Tuesday and that was still late to get in at an earlier hour.

Restaurant Alba is a BYOB, so we arrived with a bottle of Chenin Blanc (not local, alas) in hand at the appointed hour and were graciously shown to our table.  The place was absolutely packed solid.  I won’t bore you with details about the decor or whatever, because we both know what’s important: the food.  But I will say that the waitstaff was absolutely lovely, and attentive without being annoying.

My husband, Craig, and I decided to order the antipasto (which changes daily) and the wood grilled octopus to start with.  The wood grilled octopus was a plate of large chunks of slightly blackened meat in a very light lemon vinaigrette, along with a few bits of potato that were supposed to be ‘pesto dressed’.  The octopus was delicious.  It really was - perfectly cooked.  It reminded Craig and I of octopus we had last year on Mykonos.  It was so good that I could overlook the very plain potato with it. 

There wasn’t a single bad thing about the antipasto.  The star of the plate was large marinated shrimp in lemon-infused chickpea sauce.  Also on the plate: seared tuna with a pine nut salsa, bruschetta with Shellbark Hollow goat cheese and fig, crostini with baccala, and a slice of sopprasetta.  Everything was fabulous.  We practically inhaled it.

A word here about the bread.  The staff keeps the bread basket filled, and bring a little dish of olive oil for dipping.  The bread was...OK.  It was bread.  It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t excellent.  The overall quality of their food makes me wish the bread was better.

Anyway, moving on.  Dinner for me was North Carolina fresh water trout, spinach crema, crab risotto cake, tomato jam, and spinach salad.  Craig ordered prosciutto wrapped Chatham cod, pistachio butter, spaghetti squash, and braised endive.  Both the trout and cod were perfectly done and absolutely delicious!  The tomato jam topped the risotto cake, and the spinach salad topped the jam.  The spinach crema was beneath the trout.  A bite of trout with the spinach crema was a great combination.  The spinach salad was very nice - little bits of goat cheese accompanied it.  The tomato jam was good and so was the risotto cake - but I couldn’t taste any crab in it.  Craig’s cod was good and salty because of the prosciutto wrap.  I was thrilled to see spaghetti squash on the menu, and it was very tasty with the pistachio butter.  Craig liked the endive (I didn’t have the chance to try it). 

By this time I was absolutely stuffed.  For a restaurant that is supposed to focus on locally grown food, I felt like I hadn’t really had very many in my meal.  Just about the only thing I knew for sure was local was the goat cheese on the antipasto plate.  Would the menu have indicated if the spinach or the squash or tomatoes for the tomato jam were locally grown?  I don’t know.  I mean, the menu clearly stated if the cheese was local, and on the dessert menu there were desserts with local apples and local honey.  My point is that aside from a few things clarified on the menu, you really don’t know if the restaurant is sourcing a lot of their produce locally.  Do we trust them, or don’t we?  I don’t know.

Anyway, because I felt like I should go out of my way to order the locally grown thing, Craig and I decided to split the apple betty made from locally grown apples.  It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  It was absolutely delicious!  The apples were tangy and warm and lovely.

The food at Restaurant Alba was very, very good.  I just wish we were able to discern a little easier how much of the produce is locally sourced.  Still, being able to get locally made cheese and a dessert made with locally grown apples is more than most restaurants around these parts will do!

As a snarky aside, there was a table next to us full of people talking about how awful foie gras production was.  Restaurant Alba normally has foie gras on the menu (last night they had sweetbreads instead), so I’m shocked that people so concerned about it would eat there.  They were talking about it pretty loudly, and I was so tempted to lean over and direct them toward an article on foie gras production that appeared in City Paper this year written by Farm to Philly’s own David Snyder.  I understand why people might be concerned with how foie gras is made, but it pays to be well informed about the subject - not just content to accept one side of the story.

Restaurant Alba
7 West King Street
Malvern, PA 19355
610-644-4009