cheese, cheese and more cheese

When warm weather starts to grace Cleveland, I get particularly excited about flip flops, cookouts and dresses. I also love all the patios we get to enjoy at restaurants. I LIVE for eating outside after being cooped up all winter. The BF and I eat out quite a bit, which is mostly on the weekends with friends or just the two of us. If we get home late for work on Friday, I normally don't feel like cooking (yes, I do the majority of the cooking because if I didn't, we'd be eating pasta every night). There are a slew of restaurants I want to visit based on the patio alone, and I was finally able to get myself to L'Albatros after being invited to their wine and cheese tasting with my friends Michelle and Alexa.

I love cheese. I love all kinds of cheese. I could eat cheese, drink wine and sit on a patio for hours. Ask the BF - he personally gets annoyed, I'm sure.

Our cheese samplings (Starting at the top, the first three were my favorite (La Tur, Casatica di Bufala, Salva Cremasco) plus the orange-ish color (Monte Veronese Malga) one on the left.)


The menu with maps of the areas in Italy where we were eating from


Brandon sharing his knowledge with the group


Although we weren't on the patio, it was a great time and I learned about the age of some of the cheese, regions and some new wines. I loved the Kerner tasting so much that Alexa and I both picked up a bottle of it while Michelle bought the port. (It was a close tie but I went with the Kerner.) Nothing says summer to me than a crisp glass of white wine and cheese of course.

We didn't order anything off the menu but we will be back to try the pork two ways, chicken confit and maybe even the escargot, which were all recommended from Twitter.