Surprise dinner

Sorry it's been awhile since my last entry - it seems like it's been a pretty hectic week, but I'm hard-pressed to say why exactly, now. Fellowship of the Rings viewing at a friends house last night, running with friends Sunday morning, did a little bit of baking (more on that later...) Anyway, Mich and I had a couple of gift certificates to spend at the Eldorado casino, and arranged last-minute babysitting (thanks again, Nathan and Sarah) to go out the Bistro Roxy. Casino restaurants are so weird. They usually have a high level of food with a mediocre level of waitstaff, and a really bizarre mix of clientele. At any rate, Mich and I shared a calimari appetizer with some kind of picorino (or something) peppers. Mich had her standard blue cheese salad (pretty good cheese in that. I had pancetta-wrapped swordfish on a bed of... uh... rice and stuff, didn't pay a lot of attention to that. Mich went for the lobster tail, which came with asparagus and a mushroom risotto. We shared a bottle of 2006 "J" Pinot Gris, which was a pretty good choice. We had pre-ordered the two dessert souffles they had, which were blood orange and vanilla with chocolate chunks and Grand Marnier. They were both EXCELLENT, the blood orange one being perhaps slightly our favorite. Not sure if I'm up to trying that one at home.

Dinner

Made a blowout dinner last night, for Dianne and Sarah's birthdays. I meant to take a picture of each course as it was presented, but I got all wrapped up in the plating and serving and forgot the photos. You'll have to make do with one of the table setting, pre-party. Here's the menu:




Appetizers
Salmon Tartare with red onion crème fraiche on
cucumber rounds and rice crackers
Parmesan Crisps with chevre and sun-dried tomatoes
Prosciutto-wrapped melon
Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut Champagne
Gloria Ferrar Sonoma Brut Champagne

Soup
Cream of Asparagus with red pepper coulis
and savory walnut meringues
Ironstone “Obsession” 2005 Symphony

Salad
Sesame-crusted Seared Ahi on cabbage
with spicy asian dressing
Bonny Doon Pacific Rim Dry Riesling

Intermezzo
Raspberry sorbet with mint and limoncello
Villa Massa Limoncello

Entree
Filet Mignon with bearnaise sauce and mashed potato
Spicy maple roasted quail on polenta
Chipotle Lime Shrimp
Green beans with tomato confit and chive oil
Hahn Estates 2005 Meritage
Erath 2005 Oregon Pinot Noir
Ray's Station 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon
6th Sense Syrah

Cheese
Danish and French Blue Cheese with crystallized ginger
Iniskillin Ice Wine

Dessert
Flourless oatmeal-almond chocolate cake
with white chocolate ganache
Dalmore Single Highland Malt Scotch Whiskey, aged 12 years

4th Street

Got to go out to a surprise dinner with Mich at one of our favorite restaurants, 4th St. Bistro tonight. (Mich's mom is spending the night and babysitting.) Had a wonderful meal - Mich had a great potato-leek soup with bacon crumbles and green onion drizzle - it was like a baked potato in a bowl. I started with a baby green salad with pears, pistachios and cocoa nibs. We both had spanish-influenced or flavored main courses - I had the chicken breast on potato puree and peppers with pepper mustard, and Mich had seared ahi with picorillo tapenade. Shared a 2003 Jaffurs Syrah that was very pleasant. I had a tiny, light round chocolate cake with coconut ice cream for dessert, and Mich had their classic Scharfen Berger chocolate tart (most of which she brought home for her mom.) Lovely evening, lovely dinner.

Trinidad to Clam Beach Run

So Saturday morning we got up, found some breakfast, and hooked up with our friends Karl and Brandi at the race registration location. Went with them to our other friend Ashley's mom's house, which seems to serve as home base for this whole crew each year. From there we all trooped back to Trinidad, where we took a bus to the start line - about 45 minutes early. Waited around in the cold, and eventually started the race. I did the 8 3/4 mile run, Mich, Brandi and Karl (who recently had surgery) did the 3 mile walk. Karl looked like he wanted to do the run, but it wasn't a good idea... I had a good run - it's always kind of weird when you don't know the course at all, but I gave myself a goal of 1:10 and finished in 1:08. Fun course, winding up and down through big trees for the first 5 or so miles, then a river crossing and a couple miles on the beach to finish. Really, a river crossing - about 50 feet across, and just above my knees. Some people took shoes off and ran barefoot, some put them back on, some just slogged on with wet shoes. On the advice of Karl, I put mine back on, and it seemed to work for me. I got to the finish line about 10 minutes before Karl, Brandi and Mich, came to see the rest of us finish. Big bonfire there, and some crazy marching band from Humboldt State that decided to march out into the ocean. Crazy. Spent the afternoon in and out of the hot tub at Ashley's mom's house, eating thousands of calories of wonderful lasagna and goodies and emptying numerous bottles of champagne. Then Karl and Brandi led us to Karl's parents house, where we had some excellent crab the had just purchased from the boats that afternoon. Yum. I think I ate about 10,000 calories. Fell asleep about 9:15, probably needed to digest. VERY nice day.

United States of Arugula

OK, finished another one: The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation. This one was pretty interesting - it traces how we got to the current state of fine dining in America. Didn't get really good until the second half - the first parts dealt with history of restaurants in Europe, the French chefs who came over to the US in the forties, Julia child's influence - I've read a bunch of that already. I started enjoying it when we got to the more modern sections - the rise of local ingredients, California cuisine, Chez Panisse and Alice Waters.

(Book 5)

Sezmu

Had dinner last night at a fairly new restaurant in town, Sezmu. Very nice place, fine dining. We shared a "beet study" - beet tartare, a goat-cheese beet sandwich, and roasted beets. I had an awesome salad with Port Salut cheese, pear, dates, and almonds. Mich had a spring roll with tuna that came presented like a sushi roll - really yummy. For the main course, Mich had monkfish with a wild mushroom packet wrapped in swiss chard, and I had snapper with "forbidden black rice" - apparently it was originally only served to royalty. Had a sweet tinge to it - pretty nice. For dessert we shared the fudge cake, which came kind of deconstructed - a little cylindrical cake, a small scoop in coconut ice cream, and a caramel brittle-y thing. Nice coffee, too. I was trying to be stealthy with the photo, and it came out dark - didn't use flash. You can see in the foreground the gigantic pour of cognac they gave Mich.

Dining in the dark

No, we didn't jet to Paris to visit "Dans le Noir", the restaurant where you eat in the dark served by a blind waitstaff. We were out to dinner last night at an Outback restaurant in Sparks with Ken and Gail (had a gift card to use.) The lights flickered once right before our salads came, then as we were eating our salads, they went out for good. Our dinners were ready, so they brought them out and we ate in the dark. Kinda fun. They were turning people away from the door, though, so we were pretty sure the lights weren't coming back on. Eventually our very gracious server told us they were having problems with their credit card systems as well, so we scoured our wallets and came up with enough to pay the bill. We walked back out into the VERY windy night to an almost apoctalyptic scene. There were sirens screaming by on the street, debris blowing by, and a nearby hilltop was on fire (a transformer failure, we learned later.) Pretty exciting night, though - we went home and got candles ready just in case, but we never lost power at our house.

Birthday Dinner

Had dinner last night at Lulou's to celebrate our friend Anju's birthday. She hadn't been there since their big remodel a few years ago, and was pretty impressed. We agree - for my money, they have the best food in town. I'm "wowed" every time I eat there. Other places have great atmosphere, make me feel really comfortable, but from a sheer food standpoint, Lulou's does it for me. Excellent service as well.

We started sharing three appetizers, a Hamachi Sashimi, a Carpaccio, and a Baked Lobster dish. The Hamachi was served with a really interesting fruit sauce, and the Carpaccio was wonderfully tender. The Baked Lobster was amazing, though - served in an escargot plate, we were dipping the lobster butte rout with bread until they took it away. Mich and I each had a salad - she a blue cheese and I a butter lettuce with enormous radish slices. Mich continued with the "Colorado Lamb" - very nice. And Anju had the Ono, a whitefish that was beautifully textured. I ordered the Veal, partly because I hadn't had veal for years, and partly because it was served with "Truffled Mac & Cheese", which I just had to try. Most amazing macaroni I'VE ever had. Coffee was followed with a white chocolate sundae, a warm chocolate tart with pear creme anglaise, and a caramel pots de creme. Excellent!

We tried a Willamette Valley Pinot with dinner, and I can't remember the label. I'm going to have to call them later today to get the name - it was very pleasant.