Omnivore - Best meal of the week (2)

• Cliff Bostock
• Birthday chocolate soup

Last week was Inman Park Restaurant Week and participating restaurants booked up fast, at least on Friday night. That's the evening I dine with a group of friends and I wanted them to sample the food at Sotto Sotto. The restaurant is one of my favorites and its $25 and $35 tasting menus offered far more than other participants.

I couldn't get a reservation, so I booked one for neighboring Fritti instead. When we arrived, though, we were able to get a table at Sotto Sotto for six upstairs in the loft that actually overlooks Fritti. I've never eaten upstairs before and it was quite pleasant and comparatively quiet.

My friends ordered from the $25 menu and I selected the $35 because I was in the mood for the restaurant's always-fresh-from-Italy bufala mozzarella, served with roasted yellow and red peppers, anchovies, capers and a light dousing of olive oil. It would be impossible to put together five ingredients I like more.

I also ordered the $35 menu because I wasn't in the mood for pasta, which constituted all 13 second courses of the $25 menu. I ordered the crispy-skinned wood-roasted chicken, lemony and succulent, with fingerling potatoes and garlicky sauteed spinach. Best dish I ate last week. The consistency of owner-chef Riccardo Ullio's kitchen always amazes me.

My dessert was warm, white-chocolate bread pudding with brandied cherries, almonds and amaretto cream. Most of my friends swooned over the renowned chocolate soup with croutons and hazelnut whipped cream. One of us, Jay, ordered panna cotta with 12-year-aged balsamic vinegar. He disliked it intensely, insisting that each of the rest of us taste it. Every one of us thought it was delicious.

The most popular pasta entree seemed to be the the also-renowned tortelli di Michelangelo, which Jay did like with the same intensity he disliked the panna cotta. A popular starter was the roasted beets with radishes, hazelnuts, arugula, lemon and olive oil. Bobby, who organizes these dinners, complained that he would have cooked the beets longer. Actually, they were perfect to my taste. But these dinners repeatedly instruct me in the subjectivity of taste and the timidity of the palate.