Lavomatic

At the last minute, I went to CityBeat's party at Twist last night, and Fred agreed to come along. We ran into a few friends, including our favorite blogger at BuyCincy.com. One vanilla heat martini for me and a Sam Adams for Fred made work become a distant memory. I'm such a lightweight that martinis are dangerous, especially on an empty stomach! The place was packed, and the crowd was pretty diverse. Lots of good people watching to be had! And when you could get it, there was free food, too.
Our friend and his girlfriend were heading to Lavomatic, so Fred and I tagged along.
At 8 p.m., most of the tables downstairs were filled. (Not sure whether they were seating upstairs.)
We had a

• pot of roasted cauliflower soup ($8, but it served four!)
• butter lettuce salad with shaved fennel and citrus pickled red onion ($6.50)
• vegetarian ravioli, with rhubarb, root vegetables, bitter greens and brie, and rhubarb cream sauce ($14)
• roasted salmon with preserved lemon, Israeli couscous and star anise beurre blanc ($18)
• crème brûlée with lemon madeleine with candied rhubarb ($7)

We loved the entrées, really liked the soup and salad, and liked the dessert.
We loved our dessert until we tasted theirs -- chocolate compote with cherries and bay laurel cream, and baba au rhum with hazelnuts and hazelnut gelato.
The compote was fabulous in an "I-dare-you-to-finish-me" way, but the baba au rhum -- wow! It was "I'm-so-confident-in-my-fabulousness-that-I-don't-need-to-flaunt-it" good. The crème brûlée was a little too demure after those two.
The folks at Lavo, which is what all the cool kids are already calling it, rightly said two entrees and two glasses of wine would run about $50. Have you been there yet?