On Monday night, I met up with my friend Jessica for a much-needed Mom’s Night Out (and the public debut of the glitter booties). We had dinner at Chinato, which was the perfect spot for lots of eating, drinking, talking, and laughing.

We started with the steamed asparagus appetizer, served with truffled fonduta and preserved lemon.

This light, fresh dish had lots of crisp flavors and was a great start to the meal.

A nice feature to the menu at Chinato is the half portions of pasta. I was having a tough time deciding which pasta dish I wanted to order, so I instead picked two half portions.

One of my choices was the linguine with seared bay scallops, fennel, and lobster broth.

Much like the asparagus appetizer, this dish had a lot of delicate flavors that all shone through. This dish was almost more like ramen than pasta  and I seriously wanted to drink the broth!

My other choice was the ravioli with duck confit, speck, goat cheese, potato crema, and parsley salad. You know me…never one to pass up duck confit…

The ravioli were stuffed full of smoky duck and the crispy speck and rich goat cheese were perfect compliments. As much as I love duck, I think a half portion of this dish was plenty, so I’m glad I mixed it up with two choices!

Jessica chose the col buco with pulled pork, which looked like a perfect winter comfort food, topped with a dollop of ricotta.

We decided to make our evening a bit of a progressive dinner by popping over to The Greenhouse Tavern for dessert. I love how knowledgeable and friendly the staff is there. Our server recommended the perfect sparkling wine to cap off a fun evening.

Jessica couldn’t pass up the classic buttered popcorn pot de creme, while I had the espresso cake, served with an adorable shot glass of milk.

Full, happy, and relaxed, we made our way home, even more convinced that East 4th Street is the perfect place to spend an evening!