darryl: let's go to cambridge one

me: what! you guys were the ones wanted to stay home for bread and cheese yesterday! why can't we still do that and buy food from formaggio's kitchen?

von: anything lah, i very chinchai one.

with much wheedling and some compromise from all parties we went to iruna for dinner. i like it even better on this second visit (our first visit was in may and that was just after von got his job) i love how, like craigie street bistro, it is devoid of decor and makes no pretense at achieving some kind of themed atmosphere but still has its own charm. in some ways too, it resembles martha's cafe in charlottesville.

we had a rather full-flavoured gazpacho and a salad with an unusally good dressing (you'd have to ask von to tell you what it is) and shared a tortilla with asparagus (not as good as the potato and onion, but very comforting, like chai po neng) and slices of fried chorizo and tomatoes on small pieces of toast. von had the seafood paella (he let me have one of his mussels), darryl pork medallions cooked with potatoes in a soupy gravy that von described as black chicken herbal soup, and i had rice with scrod (von: that's just a new england word for baby cod) in a savoury tomato gravy. the fish was steamed and the morsels were moist and tending to the teochew.

and then it was to toscanini's for cantaloupe and raspberry-lime sorbets.

and we still found ourselves able to come back to garden street for cheese and a pistachio chocolate layer cake i bought from formaggio's earlier that day.