Lunch, dinner and more

Tat-soi
Originally uploaded by foodchronicles.

In the same lot as the bakery is a great little Italian bistro. They make THE best garlic 'bread'. It comes on pizza dough, drenched in roasted garlic, a little butter, and three cheeses. It is all toasted together in the pizza oven and is served with marinara sauce for dipping. We just set aside the sauce and enjoy the roasted garlic.

Now, on to lunch, dinner and more. Last Friday I called the bistro and ordered a to go dinner. Anti Pasto salad and garlice bread. The salad is mixed grean, with salami, provolone, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, grated cheese, etc, etc, etc. It is so refreshing to eat on a hot summers eve. We enjoyed the dinner very much.
Tuesday rolled around and a friend came to help out at the bakery. She was wondering about what to serve for dinner that night. I mentioned our meal for dinner Friday and she made a note and thought maybe she would do that.

Wednesday she stopped by to say hi. I asked her if she had ordered dinner from the bistro. She replied to the affirmative, but was very disappointed. Surprised at her response I inquired further. The salad had spinach on it. Ugh.

Well, last night s'mee and her daughter in law me me at the bakery. We decided after a long day working we would grabb a bite at the bistro. Of course, I ordered the salad. I even made a point of inquiring about the spinach in the salad. The reply came that they didn't have spinach in the salad at all. Certainly they wouldn't be making that error. Too much at stake and all.

My salad came, it was wonderful. I did notice some greens I could not identify, yet looked quite a bit like spinach. A lot like spinach. I placed some on a napkin and took a pic. That pic is above.

Then I came home and googled salad greens. I knew it could not be spinach. No restaurant in their right mind would still be serving spinach. So what was this mystery green?

Simply looking at the green closely will tell you it's not spinach.The stem in spinach is green, not white(see pic in earlier post). Hmmmm. What has a white stem? Well, Bok Choi, Pak Choi, and all those asian greens. Which one was it? Tat-soi. Little ol,d Tat-soi. It can grow into a large green and be used like Bok Choi, or can be harvested early and used as a salad green. Voila!

Next time you turn down a perfectly good salad because it contains spinach, look closer. It could just be that pesky tat-soi!