A meal... and then some

There's dinner, and then there's DINNER. Bill and I took his folks out to dinner for their joint birthdays last night at Cavallos in Easton, PA. What can tell you about this place? It is truly a one-of-a-kind dining experience. It is open by reservation only, once Bill and I were the only people there - someone came up and knocked on the door, but they couldn't come in because they hadn't made a reservation. We got there at 6 and didn't leave until close to 11. Slow service, you say? Nah, not at all. Cavallos is all about the relaxing experience of fine dining with 5 courses and plenty of time to digest between courses. The chairs range from upholstered dining room chairs to fancy thrones with high backs that stretch above your head about a foot. The tables are generously sized - no pushing silverware and glasses aside to make room for another dish. I wish I'd had a camera with me last night. Shirley Cavallo and her son Brondo really have created an oasis of a restaurant. We walked through the restaurant at one point and admired all the paintings done by Antonio and Martha Salemme. We stopped by the kitchen at one point and talked with Shirley who was putting together the next course. She is such a warm and friendly lady with so many stories of various people. Last night she came and sat with us as we were finishing up dessert to write down her recipe for the cake and she talked about when Charles Nelson Reilly came through town (I know, that was like a century ago, but I remember him on those game shows). She said she was told that they used to tape 5 of those shows in one day. After they taped the Mon-Wed shows, they would go out for lunch and get plastered. Then they would come back and tape the Thurs and Friday shows completely hammered - those must be the ones I remember because I thought they were hilarious. Anyway, I ate so much that I think I'll have to not eat for the next week to make up for it. Strawberries dipped in chocolate to start, then a vegetable napoleon thing with sausage and baked pear, followed by french onion soup, then a lobster ravioli (yeah, about this time I was about ready to keel over - these were full size plates, not those little ones), my MIL and I had the same entree, a filet mignon with sweet potato and green beans, Bill and his dad had duck with I don't know what else was on the plate(the plate was the size of a serving tray and it was heaped up and overflowing with other things on it as well as the side of duck), last, but not least was dessert - a really moist orange cake with lemon curd on one side of the plate and some kind of a whipped strawberry sauce and whipped cream on the other. Holy moly! All they needed was to put sofas along the walls and we would have all stumbled onto one and slept for hours!