Description
At this Eastlake outpost of Serafina, flavor and fancy come together with mixed results. A carrot puree with feta and flat bread ($6) was whipped smooth and interspersed with salty white asteroids of feta. Puddled in the middle was a miniscule well of bright green olive oil, like a birdbath for an elf. Accompanying the puree was a flat pile of pita wedges with which to scoop it, but there were too few wedges so an order of super absorbent sage and sea salt focaccia ($3) was able to soak up the remaining puree. The focaccia were damn tasty—lightly salted, with a glowing blonde crust, and so spongy inside they should've just floated a couple of these focaccia into the Gulf of Mexico to clean up the oil spill instead of using pelicans. Homemade beef jerky seemed, at $9, too expensive for what amounted to maybe two ounces of jerky: two shriveled meat ribbons which lay contorted like driftwood across a green beach of romaine drizzled in a lemon-cumin vinaigrette. Sadly, the vinaigrette was harsh and tasted mostly like an envelope of stale taco mix. And the jerky had a brawny beefy flavor and was delicately herbed, but maybe was a little dry. Still, the romaine hearts were very fresh, and the jerky was lighter and far more ephemeral than its commonly found cousin, convenience store jerky. Cichetti is very tasty when it wants to be, though the dishes are inconsistent.
