Company, RIP

That pig Jeff called yesterday afternoon and suggested we celebrate Halloween by having dinner at our favorite restaurant, Company.  Of course i dropped everything, especially since trick-or-treaters have pretty much stopped coming to this block, my being apparently the last house to have candy for them.  So screw the little bastards, i thought, having bought only one bag of Snickers this year, demand having dwindled so, and realizing that i could just ration the bars out to myself with my new-found self control.

So at the appointed hour i rolled up to Company, and as i was chaining up the Segway realized that Something Was Wrong.  Omigod.  Events had conspired and i’d not been there in a month, by far my longest absence since i discovered the place, and apparently everyone else had also taken the month off and it had shut down, already replaced by another restaurant named Hoffmann’s Grill.

I stood there in shock, seriously bummed out, and then looked inside and saw one of the old waiters and thought, well at least the new owners hired some of the old employees, so that’s a plus.

And then got inside and recognized all the employees, an even bigger plus.

And then Karen walked out of the kitchen to greet me, and i was enormously relieved to discover that she was still the chef/owner and had just changed the name of the place and slightly refocused the menu, keeping the majority of the old dishes but adding a large rotisserie with a row of chickens twirling on it….the new focal item.

So Jeff arrived and we both had Karen’s fabulous spin on the classic moules meuniere in which she brightens up the broth with a bit of red pepper and drizzles a barely adequate amount of a delicious aioli on top of the shells.  Such a wonderful dish.  For the main course I had the marinated pork loin on a bed of polenta, deliciously sauced and accompanied by absolutely divine roasted Brussels sprouts, while Jeff had to try the new item, the rotisserie chicken with potato chunks that had cooked in the bottom of the rotisserie in a gentle rain of chicken drippings.

We were both being good, so we passed on dessert although i did recommend to the adjacent table that sublime warm chocolate brownie with vanilla bean ice cream.

Tonight i went back and just had the rotisserie chicken and potatoes.  They were delicious.

And yes, since i wasn’t having dessert i got to eat every last potato.  They were boneless, so no evidence remained.