The menu that night began with a salad of vine-ripened tomatoes with fresh Burrata cheese with crispy pancetta.
We began with a salad of seasonal greens, sliced mushrooms and julienned sweet red peppers in a lemon and olive oil dressing.
Still, it makes sense to begin with a light salad if substantial choices are to follow, and one of the courses La Catena does best is homemade pasta.
Would you like to begin with a wild mushroom salad, a shellfish salad or a regular green salad?
(All meals begin with a regrettable green salad).
All dinners begin with a mundane green salad or a topnotch chicken noodle soup; with the entrees come family-style platters and bowls of potatoes (four kinds, but the mashed potatoes are essential), rich, peppery cream gravy, long-cooked Southern-style green beans and sticky-sweet cinnamon rolls.
Most formal meals begin with a selection of fresh salads, often including carrots sweetened with honey and sesame, and zaalouk, a smoked aubergine dip.
The meal that followed began with a mâche salad with roasted acorn squash and goat cheese crostini, followed by black bass with chanterelles.
Like all Malaysian meals, it began with a Mango Salad, this one with jicama, red cabbage slaw dressed with Lingham's Chili Sauce and a splash of lime.
But if you find yourself in a stateside "formal" dining scenario (like a banquet or a wedding), your meal likely begins with a dressed salad.
