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Flavorful Features at Brio Tuscan Grille

February 28, 2017 By takeabiteoutofboca Leave a Comment

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Disclosure: I was invited to dine as a guest of the restaurant. No monetary compensation has been received for this post. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.

In addition to its already delicious menu of Northern Italian cuisine, Brio Tuscan Grille now offers guests a featured menu that changes regularly.

I’ve been to Brio quite a few times, but this most recent experience was extra special. It just so happened that both Jill’s mom and mine were in town at the same time, so we thought it’d be fun to give them a taste of life as a Food Blogger. In between all of their oohing and aahing over the food, they commented on how they couldn’t believe we get to do this on a regular basis. We had so much fun treating them to a special night out with an absolutely delicious Italian dinner.

We started with two appetizers, the spicy shrimp and eggplant and the brûléed parmesan créme with balsamic roasted grapes and grilled ciabatta. While the shrimp dish was a bit too spicy for the moms, Jill and I were happy to take care of their portions. Pan-seared shrimp and romano-crusted eggplant are swimming in a thick and creamy black pepper sauce. Yes, it’s got a kick — a pretty big one — but if you can handle the heat, you definitely want to try this. And it’s on the current featured menu too! Now through April 15th, the “A Variety of Flavor” lunch and dinner menus include this shrimp and eggplant dish, as well as a calamari fritto misto with pepperoncini, aioli and pomodoro sauce.

Jill and I had our eyes on the brûléed parmesan créme during our last dinner here, but opted for other dishes instead. This time, we had to have it. It’s basically a creamy parmesan dip with a caramelized topping, just like créme brûlée. Spread it onto a piece of the grilled ciabatta and top with a spoonful of balsamic roasted grapes and you’ve got an appetizer that could almost double as dessert. Roasting grapes is a genius idea — one that I fully intend to bring into my own kitchen. And paired with that sweet, velvety smooth parmesan créme, it’s just incredible. Our moms might not have had the palate for the shrimp and eggplant, but they were big fans of this.

Before moving onto the entrees, we were craving some greens. The grilled salmon salad is a beautiful combination of mixed greens, tomatoes, grilled asparagus, Feta cheese, crispy shoestring potatoes and balsamic vinaigrette. The salmon was cooked perfectly and the shoestring potatoes added a great textural element that really brought it home. Much to my liking, the dressing was very light. There’s nothing worse than an overdressed salad. It was a wonderfully balanced salad, but the highlight was for sure the cook on that fish.

Our entrees came from the night’s featured menu — crab-stuffed shrimp and broiled Maile lobster tail with orzo, farro, roasted vegetables and lemon-butter sauce; and the chicken saltimbocca with provolone, crispy pancetta, fried sage and butternut squash risotto. Obviously I did not participate in the chicken-eating, but I was all over that shrimp and lobster. I’ll be honest — I was worried that the lobster might be overcooked since this is not primarily a seafood restaurant, but I was pleasantly surprised. It had good flavor and was cooked well. I enjoyed the shrimp stuffed with a yummy crab mixture as well. Jill and our moms really loved the chicken. They all said it was their favorite dish of the night.

My favorite? The side dish. Yep! Sicilian cauliflower with pepperoncini, lemon-garlic-caper sauce, breadcrumbs and parmesan. I couldn’t put my fork down. And since I wasn’t having the chicken, I used that as my excuse to finish off the rest of the cauliflower with no regret.

Now, the entrees mentioned above are no longer available, but you’ve got some pretty great choices on the featured menu out now: Peroni beer-battered fish & chips with french fries and Brussels sprout slaw, lobster & black pepper shrimp ravioli with spinach and grape tomatoes, and braised beef pappardelle with rosemary, crimini mushrooms, roasted carrots, red onion and tomato-porcini sauce.

The featured dessert is butterscotch budino, (Italian for pudding.) It comes with marcona almonds, caramel and vanilla whipped cream. As amazing as that sounds, we were pretty smitten with the idea of a New York-style cheesecake. Brio’s cheesecake sits on a bed of anglaise sauce and it topped with caramelized sugar and fresh strawberries. Thank God I’ve learned from my nutritionist that I can have small amounts of sugar, so long as I make sure to take the enzyme solution along with it. I savored those few spoonfuls like it was the first and last time I’d ever have the dessert. It was so good. Although it was a little on the dense side, the texture was smooth and luxurious and the flavor was spot on. The anglaise sauce complemented it beautifully. I would have liked more berries to give more color to the plate, but all in all — Brio’s cheesecake is a winner!

Brio Tuscan Grille is located inside The Shops of Boca Raton at 5050 Town Center Circle. Other South Florida locations include City Place in West Palm Beach, the Palm Beach Gardens Mall, Plantation, The Village at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, The Shops at Pembroke Gardens in Pembroke Pines, Dolphin Mall in Sweetwater and The Falls in Miami.

Boca Restaurant Review: Brio Tuscan Grille

December 29, 2014 By takeabiteoutofboca Leave a Comment

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Classic Italian food is up there as one of my favorite cuisines. There really is nothing better than a bowlful of homemade linguine tossed with clams, creamy dreamy risotto dusted in parmesan, or a hearty lasagna filled with lots of yummy cheese and veggies (or meat for you carnivores out there!) Although Brio is not your traditional mom and pop Italian restaurant, this chain restaurant with locations all over the country still does a decent job of cranking out the favorites and even reinventing the wheel at times.

My roommate is not one to pass up a good meal, so she was elated when I invited her to Brio with me to review their menu. We were starving, especially after having finished our Monday night Get Ripped class at the gym, so our bellies were ready for some love. We were seated at a table directly in front of the open kitchen, but it did take a little bit before anyone came over to greet us. Our waitress did finally make her way over and ended up being the sweetest girl ever — her giddiness was contagious and I loved that she offered up her own commentary about every dish we ordered.

The chef surprised us with two tasty appetizers — the Spicy Shrimp and Eggplant with a black pepper cream sauce and the Roasted Tomato and Herb Pesto Bruschetta with beautifully blistered grape tomatoes, creamy ricotta, sharp Parmigiano-Reggiano, fresh thyme and a pistachio mint pesto. The shrimp and eggplant dish just so happens to be my favorite appetizer at Brio — that cream sauce is incredible! The eggplant slices are crusted in Romano cheese to give a little extra crunch and lots of delicious flavor. Like I mentioned, Brio reinvents the wheel with some of their dishes — I’ve never seen an appetizer like this at any typical Italian restaurant, but that doesn’t matter to me. I love it!

We also wanted to try the Roasted Garlic, Spinach and Artichoke Dip. It came with crispy parmesan flatbread that was almost too addicting! The dip was good — it had a nice balance of creaminess without being too heavy. We liked it even better as it got a little cold later on during our meal.

The bruschetta was classic — tomatoes and cheese sitting atop a perfect crusty baguette. I didn’t eat any of the basket bread on the table because I was saving my bread-intake for this bruschetta. I probably ate 3 or 4 pieces — it was too good to stop! The burst of sweet tomatoes coupled with the varying textures and flavors of ricotta and parm, it was just the perfect bite.

For our entrees, we ordered one salad and one pasta dish to share. First up was the Quinoa Salad with Asparagus and Grilled Chicken (we had the chicken on the side for Trish). We both were eyeing this salad from the moment we looked at the menus. Filled with roasted red peppers, quinoa, farro, cucumber, tomato, Feta cheese, arugula and a creamy herb dressing — this is the salad of champions! There was so much happening on this plate that I was afraid some of the flavors may get lost, but nope — everything was front and center. Nothing went unnoticed.

Deciding on a pasta dish was hard. There were so many we wanted to try, but in the end we stuck to the Classic Pomodoro with tomatoes, pine nuts, basil, parmesan and a cilantro pesto. As a true Italian, Trish said it was a little bland. After being wowed by the shrimp and eggplant, bruschetta, spinach and artichoke dip and the quinoa salad, she was expecting something that would blow her mind. Alas, her mind was not blown. However, I didn’t grow up eating traditional Italian dinners with food so good you’d think it was flown in straight from Italy, so I was pleased with the dish. I liked the simplicity of it and how each ingredient had enough room to shine bright without any worry of being pushed to the side. I would have liked more of the cilantro pesto, though. That was the only thing I felt I didn’t get enough of, no matter how hard I tried to get more and more of it on my fork.

Dessert came straight from our waitress. She suggested the most decadent thing on the menu and we were so happy she did. The Torte di Cioccolata with a warm chocolate center topped with vanilla bean gelato, anglaise sauce and chocolate fudge drizzle. It was like a molten chocolate lava cake — but in brownie form. Ah! There could not have been a more perfect way to end the night. Each bite of rich, gooey fudgy brownie put a smile on our faces. We were stuffed, but definitely satisfied.

Brio is located in The Shops at Boca Center at 5050 Town Center Circle.

Disclaimer: I was invited to dine as a guest of the restaurant. No compensation was received for this review. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.

Culinary Judging at Flavors of Boca (Part 2)

February 12, 2013 By takeabiteoutofboca Leave a Comment

We made our way into the general admission area to continue the tasting… We had to pace ourselves to keep from getting overly full, so there was a lot of stopping to talk to people along the way. The first table was Cafe 5150, who was serving their chocolate covered strawberries and bananas. Next to them was Juicetaria, a juice bar and cafe with a focus on all natural and healthy clean eating. They had samples of their various juices and smoothies, along with two raw, vegan dishes — a flatbread pizza and chocolate brownie. Abe and Louie’s was up next. I didn’t really eat what they had; it was a sirloin steak sandwich. I couldn’t get around that one. They did have a chocolate brownie, so I tasted that instead.

We walked over to Rocco’s Taco’s next for some of their crab guacamole and shrimp and scallop ceviche. The chips, with their housemade spices, are always the best part about Rocco’s. I could eat their guacamole everyday for the rest of my life and be content. They added crab to it for the event. I don’t think this is on their menu… If it isn’t, it really needs to be.

Our next stop was City Fish Market. Surprisingly, they did not have a seafood dish to share with us. Instead, the chef wanted to show off a different aspect of their restaurant — dessert. We got to try their apple crumb cake, which was extremely tasty. I really enjoyed that. City Fish is easily my favorite seafood place in Boca. Dorsia is a new Italian restaurant that hasn’t been open for too long, so this was a great event for them to participate in to get recognition. Their 4-cheese pasta dish was so good! I love a good, cheesy penne in a light tomato sauce. This one was made with parmigiano reggiano, muenster, swiss and fontina cheeses.

Corner Bakery Cafe had a selection of their signature sandwiches, chicken pesto on ciabatta, turkey or ham on pretzel bread, and tomato mozzarella on ciabatta. There was a variety of baked goods too — chocolate chip cookies, raspberry bars, maple pecan bars and chocolate bundt cake, to name a few.

Cupcake Couture had the cutest display, with all of their mini cupcakes on multi-tiered holders and lots of bright, fun colors. All of their cupcakes are named after high-end designers, like the Cocoa Chanel (chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and white chocolate curls), Red Valentino (red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting), Donna Karrot (carrot cake with walnuts and cream cheese frosting) and Jimmy Chooo-colate (chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate chips). I may or may not have one one of each flavor they had…

We tasted specialty flavored sparkling waters from Onli next. I tried the lemon, mango, passion fruit & mint, which tasted a little like a mojito. Kari Hari is a company that sources ingredients fresh from Italy — chocolates, condiments and gourmet olive oils and balsamic vinegars. They also have a lot of gluten-free products that can’t be found in your basic grocery store. They had samples of their dark-chocolate-dusted almonds and cherry cordials, as well as a fig-almond jam and sun-dried tomato spread that were delicious.

Publix Apron Cooking School was next. I spent a long time talking to Chef Rey de la Osa at the beginning of the event. He’s an awesome guy and I really look forward to attending some of his cooking classes. He was serving a corn chowder topped with a little corn salsa. I didn’t try the chowder because there was bacon in it, but I liked the salsa a lot!

Brio Tuscan Grille served up their signature Pasta Brio, rigatoni in a roasted red pepper sauce with grilled chicken and seared mushrooms. They outdid themselves a little by giving us not one, but two delicious desserts — tiramasu made with coffee liqueur, mascarpone cheese and cocoa, and a chocolate caramel cake with layers of milk chocolate ganache, caramel, chocolate frosting and vanilla whipped cream.

The Melting Pot had both a cheese and chocolate fondue for us to try. The English Tap and Beer Garden gave us a taste of their ceviche made with white fish, shrimp and scallops served with wonton chips.

Nick’s New Haven Style Pizzeria showed off their pasta making skills. The linguine in clam sauce was delicious and really nicely plated in a clam shell. But they really won us over with their out of this world dessert. A fried ravioli stuffed with Nutella. Yeah. You heard right. That dessert was the perfect way to end the night.

Then it came time to sit down and go back over everything we had tasted over the past 2 hours. We had 5 categories to award. Stephanie, Ken and I must have similar palettes because we all had very similar opinions about most of the dishes. While there was a little back and forth trying to decide some of the winners, some were no-questions-asked. We made our choices and were able to present the winners their plaques on stage in front of the whole crowd.

Best Savory: Boca Resort, Seafood Paella

Best Dessert: Nick’s New Haven Style Pizzeria, Nutella Ravioli

Best Beverage: Boca Resort, Orange-infused White Sangria

Best Presentation: Cupcake Couture

Best Flavor of Boca: Boca Resort

Eh, we may have been a little heavy-handed when it came to awarding the Boca Resort; but hey, they totally deserved it! They gave us a solid savory dish and a really light, refreshing drink. They served dessert too. It may not have been the winning dessert, but it was a very close contender and was the last component of what was a well-rounded three course meal.

Nick’s Nutella ravioli was the most amazing dessert I have ever tasted. It was just…phenomenal. Nutella is such a trendy and unique ingredient nowadays, too, so it shows good judgement that they played on that instead of using something like peanut butter or plain chocolate.

I left that night feeling extremely full — but with more than just lots of food. I was so happy and motivated to do so many things with the blog. My tummy was stuffed with food and my head was filled with ideas. It was a successful night for me in so many ways. Special thanks to co-chair of the event, Melissa Roberts, for bringing me in as a judge. Thank you to our “tasting guide,” Barbara for taking us from table to table to introduce us to the chefs. And of course, thank you to my fellow judges, Stephanie and Ken!

Mom’s Visit to Boca: Brio, Two George’s. DaDa’s

October 8, 2012 By takeabiteoutofboca 2 Comments

Mother-daughter relationships are interesting. When you’re in middle and high school, you don’t want anything to do with your mom. Then you go to college and you start to tolerate her more, mostly because you aren’t living with her anymore. Then you graduate college and move out on your own, in my case many states away, and your relationship starts to flourish more. You become more like friends. I’m sure this isn’t the case for everyone, but it seems to fit a lot of people I know. What’s your take on it?

The point of this rambling is that my mom came to visit this week. She came by herself, leaving my dad and Bec to fend for themselves at home. I’ve always been a daddy’s girl — my relationship with my father is extremely important to me (hi Dad!), but Mom? Sometimes it’s rocky. But her visit was great. No fighting. She even visited the Centre with me and got to hang out with some of my friends out in Delray. She had a great time and was happy she got to see everyone she wanted to see and do all of the things she wanted to do. Despite the spurts of rain here and there throughout the week, she still got in some pool time and even got to go out on my uncle’s boat. She bowled with my aunt’s team, visited her best friend who also lives in Boca, got to spend time with the whole family, and enjoyed some delicious meals at places she’s never been to before.

I didn’t get to hang with her during the day while she was here — my time came after work, when it was time for dinner. Bubby chose where we’d go out to eat on Mom’s first night here: Brio Tuscan Grille. It was pouring so we couldn’t sit outside, which sucked, because that’s what I like about Brio. The outdoor seating area is really nice, but the weather was definitely not alfresco-dining-friendly.

We got a bottle of Moscato and split a bowl of the lobster bisque as our appetizer. The waiter was nice enough to have them split the bowl in the kitchen so we didn’t look like idiots spooning our soup out of the same dish. This worked out perfectly, since bisque is such a rich and creamy type of soup, eating a whole bowl would be entirely too filling. It was very good — although there will never be a better bowl than the crab bisque at The Crab Trap back home.

Instead of each of us ordering our own meal, we ordered two entrees and split them. We decided to get one seafood and one chicken dish. Our seafood pick was the spicy jumbo shrimp with orzo, grilled asparagus, zucchini, and tomatoes tossed in a lemon vinaigrette. There were 6 pieces of shrimp, perfect to divvy up between the three of us. For the chicken dish, we got the chicken pomodoro, angel hair pasta with grilled chicken, tomatoes, pine nuts, basil, Parmesan and pesto drizzle. Freshly grated parmesan covered the pasta dish (my request — I love my parmesan!). Both dishes were really good and we all agreed this was the perfect way to order dinner; no food was wasted and none of us was uncomfortably full afterward. This is a plus — we wanted to leave room for dessert! 🙂 Mom and Bub shared a piece of the “Torta Di Cioccolata,” which is basically a chocolate lava cake. I wasn’t in a chocolate mood but I still had a tiny taste. It was okay… I liked my dessert choice a whole lot better. There are a bunch of those small shot-glass style desserts. I got the berry cheesecake with raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. I haven’t had good cheesecake in so long and this definitely hit the spot. While we were there, I signed up for the MyBrio rewards membership so now I get all these fun deals and specials. Guess I’ll be going back there again soon!

Instead of dining out opn Tuesday night, we had a home-cooked meal at Aunt Patty’s and got to spend some good family time together. Wednesday night we headed over to Deerfield Beach to Two Georges at The Cove. This is a great restaurant right on the water with an absolutely gorgeous view. It’s cool if you have a boat — you can pull right on up, dock, and eat out on the deck. It was very humid again, and eating outside would have been uncomfortable, so we sat by the window where we could at least see outside. Bubby was really happy to see they had their lobster special going on and she immediately ordered hers because there were only 2 left! It’s a really sweet deal actually; for $15.99 you get a quarter pound steamed lobster, coleslaw, potato and a drink. Bub looked so cute in her lobster bib, I had to take a picture! Mom got the baked sea bass and I got the blackened dolphin with avocado salsa (pictured below). Both came with a baked potato and a blend of julienne cut zucchini, squash and carrots. Deee-lish. That avocado salsa was really good. I put some of it on my potato (I don’t like sour cream or any of the other stuff people put on baked potatoes) and that was a pretty different, but tasty, combination.

Thursday was a fun night. First I took Mom to the Centre to a lecture called Weekly Inspiration. The topic was perfect for her first Kabbalah experience — it was all about Kabbalistic teachings and building a sense of community with others in order to really get the most out of your studies. A balance of knowledge and faith are the two most important aspects of learning and understanding Kabbalah. I was happy to see how receptive she was to everything and everyone she met.

Afterward, we went over to DaDa in Delray Beach. Tyler and Lauren met up with us and we got dinner and drinks and had a real good time. Their mojitos are so good. It took us all forever to decide on which one we wanted. I think we passed around the drink menu five times before any of us made a final decision. I got raspberry, Mom got peach, Lauren got a traditional mint, and Tyler got mango. We were all really indecisive about everything night. Deciding what we wanted to eat took even longer. The menu there is so different and unique it’s hard to make up your mind! Finally, about some serious debate and discussion, Tyler got the kale caesar, Lauren got the vegetarian flatbread, and Mom and I got two dishes to share: the vegetarian flatbread and endive salad. THEN the waiter came and told us there was only one flatbread left! So after all that trying to decide between the flatbread or the butternut squash ravioli, Lauren switched to the ravioli. Not a bad choice, since the ravioli is an awesome dish there. However, had we known how huge the flatbread is, we could have just split it 3-ways. It was soooo good, but definitely could have easily been shared between the 4 of us. It had a walnut pesto spread, stone fruit, sun dried tomatoes anddd… there was more to it, I know! Ah, oh well. The endive salad was really good too — something very different. I’m glad we got it. It had English stilton, endive, candied walnuts and a fig mustada. It was fun to hang out with my good friends and Mom at a great place on a beautiful night. We finally got to eat outside! Good thing the weather was nice because eating outside is one of the best things about Dada.

Aside from Brio, Two George’s and Dada for dinners, Mom went to a few really great places in the area for lunch. Cafe Luna Rosa, Henry’s, and Cosa Duci — somewhere I’ve never been but reeeally want to go. They make something different every day and you have to check their website to see what they’re serving! Italian, everything homemade, breakfast and lunch and a bakery. Yeah, I’ve gotta get over there sometime. It will definitely be somewhere to go when Mom comes back with Dad and Rebecca.

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