After we lunched at Clementine and visited with family my Mom and I made our way to Old Pasadena for some light shopping and dinner. After unsuccessfully trying to convince my Mom to buy me things in Sur la Table we went to Green Street Tavern for dinner.

Green Street Tavern is super chic and modern looking. The walls are shaped to look like a cocoon and the space is warm and inviting. There were two separated dining rooms. The front room, which we sat in, was small and inviting and the back one was larger and had a really cool design on the walls. The menu has several items that I wanted to try but I started with pinot noir.

Normally I love pinot noir but the Solaire was not my favorite. It was still pretty good as far as wine goes!

Choosing what to order was hard because there were so many tasty sounding dishes on the menu. Mom and I decided to split two appetizers. First we ordered grilled organic tomatoes with burrata cheese, basil pesto and a balsamic reduction.

So good! I love burata cheese and balsamic reduction and the tomatoes were very fresh and flavorful. I would like to order balsamic reduction on everything!

We also sampled roasted beet salad with watercress, toasted hazelnuts, goat cheese and aged balsamic. The goat cheese was like little delicious cheese mountains. I have no complaints with the roasted beets. I love how fresh and seasonal this salad felt.

Then it was time for entrees. There were several options that looked appealing but I settled on braised short ribs with goat cheese orzo (mac + cheese) and garlic green beans.

Holy goat cheese orzo! I MUST figure out a way to make this at home. I already picked up the ingredients and I am working on it soon. It was so good. My mom and I ate and guessed at the “mac and cheese” recipe. The green beans were still a little crunchy (just how I like it) and the garlic flavor was very subtle. The short rib basically fell apart with my fork. Delicious.

Mom ordered the salmon.

The salmon came with polenta pancake and roasted mushrooms and peppers. It looked mighty good.

Because none of the servings were overwhelming we saved plenty of room for dessert. But who am I kidding, we always save room for dessert! We choose a special seasonal offering.

Pumpkin doughnuts with cranberry and honey ice cream. We all know how I feel about everything pumpkin. Covering it in sugar and adding ice cream ONLY improves the situation. We ate this in a matter of moments. It never stood a chance.

Overall, I loved Green Street Tavern and its definitely my Pasadena go to place. It would be a good location for a date or a special meal. Its a bit out of my average price range but the meal was fantastic and the space was cozy. I highly recommend Green Street Tavern.