Z and I agree on this one. The best meal that we have ever eaten in a restaurant together is definitely at Zengo in Denver. We ate there the February 27, 2008. It was the night before our rehearsal and subsequent wedding on the 29th. Yes, we know we got married on leap day and no, we have no idea what day to celebrate our anniversary but that is beside the point. We ate there during 5280 restaurant week. Most cities have a restaurant week where everyone advertises a prix fixe menu of 3 courses at a set price, a starter, main and dessert. There are limited options to choose from but the choices are almost always something your average foodie would like to eat. We both had the chile encrusted steak, a tenderloin of beef so succulent my mouth waters just thinking about it. The stage set for this beef was ‘Oaxacan’ mashed potatoes (we are unable to unearth the meaning behind Oaxacan, is it cheese?) and grilled asparagus. I had an amazing tuna hand roll that was flash fried in tempura and a molten chocolate type desert with a back note of chile.
September is Magical Dining Month (!yes, a whole month) in Orlando, with many restaurants participating in three course prix fixe menus at $20 and $30 per person. Our dilemma is that we are going to Denver this month for a vacation and looking forward to meals in some of our favorite restaurants, both dives and maybe, a fine meal or two that would give Zengo a run for it’s money.
arthur avenue burger
Last night we made the Arthur Avenue Burger. It is a burger made in homage of an italian neighborhood of NYC. We made it with our usual turkey and publix bakery bun, this sounds dull but isn’t. The toppings were arugula, a fontina frico and this fra diavolo ketchup. Arugula is nice on the mild turkey and the fra diavolo ketchup was supposed to be spicy and herby but honestly, it wasn’t. I don’t think this was my fault as I doubled the red pepper flakes and all I could taste was oregano. The stand out was the fontina frico. Basically you dry fry grated fontina cheese into a crisp lacy cheese doily. This is something like the best cheez-it you ever ate. Overall the burger was more high rent than usual. It seemed more elegant and refined. I paired it with an icy cold gimlet which is a gloriously citrine colored gem.
the days of wine and flip-flops
How far would you go to have a glass of wine? Would you stomp and smush grapes with your feet in order to produce juice? Would you have second thoughts with every drop that passed your lips? I have heard what can be cultured from flip flops and my first thought is, ‘heck no!’
We went to the LakeRidge Winery grape stomp and harvest festival yesterday. It wasn’t really anything to write home about. In fact I enjoyed the trip I took through the winery back in July when my girlfriends came for a visit and we did the wine tasting tour quite a bit more. The stomp is just a gimmick to get people out in greater spending exuberant numbers. They give you a few tastes among the vats and herd you through the tour in a sort of half masted way. We wandered for about five minutes through the ‘festival’ where crowds bumped and spilled wine on my flip flops for a glimpse of a few people with their pants rolled up and feet in piles of grapes before we decided to go home and have lunch.
It is a free tour and tasting worth taking most days but a regular old weekday or a Saturday would be just fine, even I might add, more enjoyable. You might even find you like the muscadine, native and locally grown grapes. They have a peculiar musky smell and a taste I find reminiscent of grape Kool-aid.
buffalo sliders
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This afternoon we went and saw Julie & Julia, a comedy-drama about the blog written by Julie Powell as she cooked through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is in that great tradition that we are blogging about our adventure cooking through Bobby Flay’s Burgers, Fries & Shakes. I haven’t had a crying on the floor moment yet and my level of cooking is nowhere near the level of MTAOFC but the food, ah the food. We enjoyed the movie too. It didn’t lead us to a butter filled french supper but rather to french cheese…kind of.
Buffalo Sliders. Not made of buffalo, but buffalo sauce on turkey sliders. They came sauced with a really nice house-made bleu cheese sauce and a sprinkling of bleu cheese and finely sliced green onion. We had some nice Alexia onion rings on the side stacked in a nice neat Pisa like pile. Bon Appetit!
the sweet life
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Well, last night we went to date night at a local chocolate factory called Farris and Foster’s. For a small sum they will sit you at a big table with 15 or so others and give a short lesson on how to hand pour and dip chocolates. They have a huge array of items that you can mix in, sprinkle on and fill your chocolates with, including coconut dough (think Mounds), truffle dough, various creams that include chile, tabasco along with the standards. You can enrobe items such as Oreos, pretzels & marshmallows on the (remember that I love Lucy episode?) conveyor belt. They outfit you in plastic gloves, apron and a really sassy paper hat and turn you loose like a kid in a candy store.
The bigger story here is the idea of date night. I know they need a moniker to bring in free spending couples and their bottles of wine and freshly made up faces and their air of anticipation but the idea that date night has to be preplanned and reserved for and is an interesting one. I was recently talking to Vicky and told her that everything that I do with Brian feels like a date. Granted, our actual dating experience together was fairly short and over the phone but since we got married I feel like every dinner, walk, movie and grocery store trip is a great date with someone I want to spend my time with. I try to make a habit of letting Brian pay (yes, I know it’s the same $) and saying thank you for taking or coming along with me. A date doesn’t have to be just the two of us either, we are happy to take along a niece, nephew or friend. It is the time spent together sharing adventures that makes it time well spent.
My Urban Pantry 