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Toscana Green, Courthouse - Closed


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I had the adventuresome pleasure of attending tonight’s grand opening of Toscana Green in Courthouse Plaza in Arlington. Invited via a friend in the raw food business (Natural Zing), we sat outside to optimize the perfect weather and sounds of the adjacent fountain. A live guitar-and-trombone duet played outside, while raw food and other vendors sold their wares in the courtyard as part of the celebration.

One of many important distinctions between the Toscana Grill of past and the Toscana Green of the present is the current emphasis on organically certified ingredients along with greener business practices. Nagi from Java Green is at the helm here, and the focus is on fresh. The menu included a wide diversity of pizzas, pastas, salads, and "traditional" Italian-American entrees (i.e, Chicken Parmigiana) with a variety of vegan and vegetarian options.

Opening night for a restaurant offers a high potential for Error Theater. Several acts of that play come out in full view, nearly all related to shocking service errors. I am sparing the details, that’s not my punchline for this posting.

The headline here is that with carefully sourced ingredients, a low-frills and fresh-focused menu, and a management team that seems eager to please, this venue could evolve into a highly promising option for the Courthouse area. A few more visits are in order to validate that this is indeed the significant turnaround for this venue, but tonight’s visit boded well for the possibilities.

The Course-by-Course Play-by-Play

A spinach mushroom soup arrived at a perfect temperature. The broth featured remarkable depth of garlicky flavor. Long-strand noodles in the soup were annoyingly unwieldy. A souper-friendlier version would have chopped pasta rather than long strands. However, the flavor and bright green of the spinach along with the texture of the mushroom reflected careful ingredient preparation and selective quality ingredients.

On the entrée front, the "Lucy Salad" featured baby spinach, avocado, cherry tomatoes, onion, and a mango vinaigrette. All components were perfectly ripe (the best avocado of the year!), and the dressing reflected a smart balance between fruit and bright acidity. This was a crave-able salad, just one of many vegetable options available for a healthy meal.

The show-stopping dessert, a raw chocolate brownie with cashew cocoa cream sauce, brought all table conversation to stunned silence. A special option not yet appearing on the regular menu, this treat reached our table from our friend, the raw food vendor. She noted that she was working with Nagi to bring that and perhaps other desserts to somewhat of a regular rotation. Featuring a two-day preparation process of raw cocoa nibs, coconut oil, cashew, blue and dark agave, and other top-notch ingredients, this was one for the Book of the Decadent.

All in all, and absent the opening night service jitters, a promising glimpse into an evolving, eco-friendly concept of a restaurant. Stay tuned for more news from future visits.

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Toscana Green is a lovely place. (It is at 2300 Clarendon - if you're looking at Velocity Five, go around to the left.)

Very welcoming people, in a colorful and modern but peaceful environment. Since it's been open just a few days there are still some pacing issues (i.e., slow), but the food that we had was very good. The menu is vegan- and veg-focused, much more than the average restaurant, but also has meat and seafood dishes.

We had some little spicy crostini and fried zucchini appetizers, then some fake-meat pasta dishes and a pizza. The food is somewhat simple in its conception and preparation, in the sense that there is nothing mind-blowing about the sauces or the execution or whatnot. But it is very tasty, and the place and the staff are great.

In a way it's sort of the anti-2 Amys (this being on my mind since we ate there for the millionth time a couple of days ago). 2 Amys continues to do great business, despite the uncomfortable chairs and ridiculous noise and staff who act like they don't care and tables too small to fit all your little plates when they all come out at once, because in the right moment the food ingredients and preparation can be sublime, and then you go home and wonder how you possibly ate so much olive oil. Toscana Green is a place where they welcome you and feed you nice food that does you good, even if it does not blow your mind. I hope it does good business too. We will go back. Try it.

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Thanks for the reports. I'm looking forward to trying it, and I'm glad there's a new veggie friendly restaurant in the neighborhood.

Nagi from Java Green is at the helm here, and the focus is on fresh.

I'm not clear what you mean by at the helm (chef? gm? owner?)? I'm curious as to what the relationship is between this restaurant and Java Green, if there is any?

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Thanks for the reports. I'm looking forward to trying it, and I'm glad there's a new veggie friendly restaurant in the neighborhood.

I'm not clear what you mean by at the helm (chef? gm? owner?)? I'm curious as to what the relationship is between this restaurant and Java Green, if there is any?

Per my friend's insight, Nagi is a co-owner of Toscana Green, but the ownership is different for Java Green.

I'll stop there 'cuz I'd be speculating.

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I'm afraid that as much as I wanted to like this place, my review is not favorable. We had dinner here last night because Mom, who's visitng from out of town was craving Chicken Picatta. She has a thing for capers, so she is careful to order only from places that include capers in their picatta dishes (why some places don't, I won't debate). We picked Toscana Green because after an online search we determined that they had her dish (with capers) on the menu.

The interior of the restaurant is very fun. Nice bright colors that reminded me of my childhood bedroom (which was orange, for some strange reason). The place is really cute and cozy.

Appetizers for our party of four were the stuffed mushroom and a salad. The mushrooms weren't what was expected, but were really good. Nice meaty Portobello caps topped with a tomato-based meat sauce and mozzarella. What's not to like? The salad was fine. The bread (they gave us 3 slices for 4 people) was bland sliced white bread and was unremarkable.

Half way through the appetizers, our entrees arrived. We did the plate shuffle/rearrangement. Mom's chicken picatta arrived sans capers. After eating half her meal, my sister had a bit of a discussion with the waiter (who initially denied that capers were on the menu), he finally arrived with a small serving for her.

My custom pasta dish was gnocchi with pesto sauce, asparagus, artichokes and shrimp. The gnocchi themselves were quite good. The texture was really light and tender. The 3 large shrimp were nicely done as well. The artichokes and asparagus were terrible. Stringy and hard artichokes that were obviously from a can. I don't know what I expected. The asparagus were overcooked. All of this was bathed in a most odd 'pesto' sauce that was a thick, creamy, dark green sauce. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, and it is certainly unlike any pesto I've ever had.

I got to try the Linguine Bolognese and that was by far the best dish at the table. I only got to steal a couple of bites, but if I had ordered that dish I would have been really happy with my visit. Unfortunately, I didn't, and I walked away really unsatisfied. I'd like to say I would try it again, but memories of my plate of green goo might prevent that.

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I've quite enjoyed the lasagna there. That being said, I get a bit of a weird vibe from the inside ... perhaps 'cause I'm a single guy and not with a group or family. It's not *bad* (and don't get me started on Velocity 5 again) but they've always been friendly to me.

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