The Milkyway, downtown Boise

Rating:
I spent my last Dinner-with-the-consultants at the fantastic Milkyway (the Empire building along 10th street) at downtown Boise. They were Boiseweekly's Best of Boise in 2004 and 2005 and I found the reason why.

This place has it all-- great food, great ambience and great service. Their website describes its best features such as "Baltic birch cabinets", zinc wrapped tabletops and stained concrete floors." I didn't notice these individual elements but I guess they all came together into a cozy restaurant where you could get on your knees and propose! They even have an artsy chandelier made of different pieces of paper with the words i love you written in different languages. I thought it looked a bit out of place but it added to the overall charm.

We each had their "pre-fix" set menu (entree and choice of two courses for $27) so we got to try a lot of their food. This lets me confidently declare that Milkyway has the best appetizers in Boise: I specially liked the seared salmon, onion rings and jalapeno and the two-way duck.

Since I was feeling particularly carniverous that night, I had their meat trifecta which was a steak, salmon and sausage served on a salad bed. This really hit the spot and went well with my Grey Goose vodka martini. My only qualm with the martini was that the olive wasn't pitted!

For dessert, I tried the traditional creme brulee (which I preferred over the uber sweet creme brulee of the Flipside Cafe) and a lemon curd tartlet which was pretty ordinary. We should've tried the Chocolate infused Bread Puddin', judged by Boise Weekly as "food we would propose to" but we were pretty stuffed and we already had Bread pudding last Monday at Cottonwood Grille! I ended the night and my last fine dining experience in Boise with a sweet lemon drop martini.

Five pawikan points for the Milkyway. We spent about $150 dollars, a bit on the pricey side but every penny was worth it.