Painted Parrot perfect for pasta - and dessert

The walls are painted in four different bright colors, each piece of the dishware is fashioned with a unique design. But at the Painted Parrot Cafe, the real art work is the food. The cozy downtown restaurant, while best known for its extravagant yet reasonably priced desserts, is also home to a diverse prix fixe menu of dishes that are just as delicately prepared. Located just blocks away from three movie theaters, Painted Parrot is the perfect location for an after-movie stop or a full-out dinner. To start the meal, my guest and I chose a cheese skillet -- aged Italian provolone and fresh mozzarella served piping hot in an iron skillet and presented with assorted flatbreads. All of the appetizers on the menu cost approximately $7. At the same time, my guest also ordered a salmon salad ($6), one of about eight salads on the menu. The Lemon Pepper Poached Salmon served on a bed of mixed greens and red onions looked just as good as it tasted, with small slices of lemon rind completing the dish. When it came to selecting our entrees, we had a wide variety of choices -- including several pasta and seafood dishes -- which either cost $13 or $15. Each entree comes with a side of potatoes or rice. I chose the Center Cut Pork Chops ($15), stuffed with spinach, red onions and mozzarella cheese. The steaming hot pork chops, which were topped with sauteed apples and an applejack brandy bordelaise, were so tender that they almost seemed to melt in my mouth. The Shrimp Creole, ($15) that my guest ordered was topped with a rich and spicy tomato sauce, complete with onions and peppers, which was surprisingly sweet. And while the entrees alone left us content, no meal at Painted Parrot could be complete without one of the restaurant's famous desserts. The Painted Parrot's dessert list -- which is comprised of about 20 different selections, including both low and high fat dishes -- specializes in chocolate. All of the desserts are $6 and every Wednesday the restaurant offers an all-you-can-eat dessert cafe for $7.95 a person. The steaming hot Chocolate Raspberry Bread Pudding that I ordered melted in my mouth. The dessert's fresh raspberries mixed with rich chocolate cake chunks were complemented perfectly by the scoop of vanilla ice cream that accompanied them. And my guest's Royal Chocolate Banana Loaf smelled as good as it tasted, with the flavors of banana, caramel and double dark chocolate cake blending together in a heavenly mix. The slightly sour caramel sauce went well with the sweet cake.

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