In the fall some of you recommended Nora’s Wine Bar & Osteria to us when Groupon had an offer available for a discount on the restaurant.  Since it’s located in Summerlin, which feels like an eternity away from where we live (but in reality it isn’t – we’re just used to getting to places in 15 minutes or less now), it took the pending expiration to get us to find a night to head out there for dinner.  Last Sunday was that night After a day of running errands and prepping for the work week, we headed out.  In case any of you have trouble finding it (like we did), it’s in the shopping center with Williams Sonoma and PF Chang’s, tucked away in the corner.

The restaurant itself is not large, but not tiny.  We used OpenTable.com to make a reservation and were seated toward the front when we arrived.  One of the things I was looking forward to was their Enomatic wine system, similar to the one I experienced at Terra Verde.  I’ll tell you more about it later in the post!

Throughout the evening, we were entertained by a talented violinist.  A bit blurry here, but fun to listen to during dinner

The Husband and I weren’t sure how much to order – the restaurant promotes sharing of their many small plates – and when we asked our waiter, he didn’t provide a ton of help.  However, when we ordered a salad, he helpfully suggested to make it a small order instead of individual salads.  After we ordered, we were brought a bread basket, an option of two olive oils (they poured the selection into the bowl for us), and a variety of salts and peppers. 

For our appetizers, we ordered two small plates and a Caesar salad.  The plate in the back of this picture is the Bruschette, which of course was grilled bread but then we got to choose 4 toppings.  From left to right, we ordered the (1) sausage and rapini; (2) shrimp and avocado (which also happened to have jalapenos and cilantro); (3) white anchovy and roasted red pepper puree; and (4) fresh tomato and basil.  My favorite was the anchovy and red pepper puree.  We found this to be a fun idea.

We also ordered the bacon-wrapped dates.  These were possibly the highlight of the dinner.  They melted in your mouth! Displayed next to them was our wine card, to use at that machine I showed you earlier with the individual wine pours.

So, back to that Enomatic system.  It’s a wine preservation system in which you can have precisely measured pours of 1, 3, or 6 ounces.  I don’t quite remember how many bottles Nora had in the system but it was somewhere between 30 and 40.  Each wine was labeled with a great description and they were color coded by price range.  After reading through all of the white wine descriptions and finding flavors here and there that I wasn’t interested in, the 2008 Planeta Chardonnary piqued my interest.  The sign described it as having peach mousse, black figs, rose and vanilla cream on the nose with overtones of hazelnut with a hint of orange blossom honey.  It sounded delish so I had a one ounce pour.  One sip in and I loved it, so added 3 more

The Husband tried a couple of different reds and never really found one he particularly liked.

Overall, we were somewhat disappointed in the enomatic system, at least the one here.  While I definitely enjoyed having the opportunity to have a one ounce pour, the selection of reasonably priced pours were minimal.  Between my single glass and maybe 4 or 6 ounces of pours the Husband tried, I think we spent nearly $50 in wine – a bit steep in our book for barely two glasses.

Back to food! For our main courses, the Husband and I ordered two entrees, not knowing how big they would be (one would have been enough! but as always, we had leftovers for another day).

We originally wanted to try the Oxtail Roman Gnocchi, but they were out of Oxtail Instead, our waiter highly recommended the Pappardel Luisa which was house made pappardelle, cream, sausage, and sundried tomatoes.  I thought it was a bit bland, but the Husband really enjoyed it.  It was a HUGE serving as well, so we each had full plates for dinner another night that week.

Our other entree was the Rabbit (5 ways). It was a half rabbit served ragu (in the center), saltimbocca (a Husband favorite), agro dolce, involtino, and grilled.  The ragu was my favorite, but each way was quite unique.

Even with the Groupon, we ended up spending a lot more money then we planned.  Between the expensive wine and the confusion regarding how much to order, it turned out to be a lot.  At least there was a lot of food for the price, and good food at that.  Our server was knowledgeable which was appreciated, especially about the wines.