This year’s Restaurant Week in Boston helped us uncover another hidden gem right in the heart of Brookline itself. Among the places we tried including 209 Boston and Cafe Fleuri, one place clearly stood out above the others. Opened just 2 years ago along Route 9 and serving traditional Northern Italian cuisine, La Morra not only offers a rustic and comfortable dining atmosphere, but features their own homemade pasta cooked to a perfect consistency. Their clambake-themed Restaurant Week menu included a hearty Tuscan fish chowder, a richly-flavored lobster risotto, semolina-dusted haddock, wood-grilled skirt steak, and some good old traditional tiramisu. Perhaps most memorable for me was a linguine dish with fresh herbs and tomatoes which sounded simple at first, but offered subtly tantalizing flavors and textures that words can barely describe. This week also happened to include Sammy and Howie’s one-year old birthdays. For those of you who have been wondering, both of our rats are doing extremely well. In celebration, I’ve created a new page with their pictures to share our moments together over the past 12 months.