Devour

Twice a year my city does a special event when a bunch of the city’s big name restaurants put out sweet 2 for $30 or $30 per person (for the REALLY expensive places) menus.  When one of my classmates asked if I wanted to hit up a new place, I couldn’t resist!  So yesterday Jessica and I hit up a high end sports bar for a three course lunch.  First up: chicken lemongrass potstickers.

These little pockets of deliciousness had chicken and corn and green onion and probably lemongrass but I honestly don’t have the best palate to pick up on everything.  Regardless, they were tasty.  The soy-uzu sauce was particularly great with the potstickers.  Only complaint: there were only five, and two of us.  Obviously we split the last one but we both felt like if you were going to make a 2 for $30 menu, the least you could do is adjust the numbers of things that are being shared to reflect that they will likely be split evenly.

For entrees, Jessica and I were both gravitating toward a few of the same things so we decided that we would just split two halfsies.  Our choices included a steak taco salad with iceberg, roasted corn, tomato, avocado, black olives, jalapeños, green pepper, cheddar jack cheese, red onion, and cilantro lime skirt steak.  The other dish was a beer battered shrimp mac and cheese with tomatoes and spinach.

Jessica isn’t the biggest fan of raw veggies so we got the salad with everything on the side so we could make it at our table.  How sweet of the chef to be so accommodating.  With the extra plates, we split the salad and the steak up and then added our own toppings.  I took all the tomatoes and avocado and we split most of the other stuff.  No black olives for either of us though.

We had the dressing on the side too, an ancho chile dressing, was thick and added a subtle hint of flavor to the dish.  In all, we both agreed the salad was the best part.  The mac and cheese was kind of disappointing.  The spinach and tomatoes were nice in the sauce but in all I thought it could have used a lot of salt.  It really just didn’t jive with either of us.  I admit I kept taking bites, hoping it would get better, but I only ate my half.  Still more than I should have eaten because it wasn’t all that great but oh well.  I’ll take the victory of not eating the whole thing just because it was at the table.

Dessert was up next.  We had the choice of a chocolate lava cake or a key lime pie.  I’m a fan of both but I usually only order key lime pie in one place: Key West.  So, even with that in mind, we asked the waiter what his favorite was and he told us, hands down, the chocolate lava because it came with ice cream.  Haha.  We went with it.

When the cake arrived at our table it was obvious the ice cream had slide around a bit, as evidenced by the strewn powdered sugar, but nevertheless the taste was great.  The dessert was the perfect blend of moist cake, gooey chocolatey sauce, and a cold vanilla bean ice cream.  Nomnom.  All in all, it was a wonderful late lunch.  We even stayed a while after paying the bill just talking and carrying on.  I’m sure the waiter was really happy when we left.  The place was really starting to fill up when we headed out.  The place was popular and, for the most part, delicious.

In other news, this Friday concluded my third week of my first prenatal rotation, my second full week of counseling.  Feels good to be flying through.  I even have a full patient list for next week with a variety of indications, not just the typical ones.  It should be interesting and informative.  As far as eats go, Friday’s breakfast was probably one of the best I’ve had in a while in the smoothie world.  I made a peanut butter and honey green monster.  I threw together some chia seeds, vanilla protein powder, vanilla almond milk, spinach, peanut butter, and honey; Vera whirled away.

It was stellar.  The honey taste was perfection.  Made me want to make another one right away!  Another yummy addition to the kitchen, crock pot chana masala.  I love me some Indian food, and now that I had garam masala in my spice cabinet, I figured it was time to go for it.

There were more spices than I knew what to do with but every time I put another one into the pot the aromas grew.  I was in love.  There were a few spices I didn’t have but that’s where my substitution book came in.  It worked like a charm.

The rest of the day the chana masala cooked down, the flavors bloomed, and the smells permeated my entire apartment.  It was awesome.  When I finally got a chance to sample it, I was pleased.  Tomato-y, spicy, chickpea-y deliciousness.

I paired it with a piece of toast smeared with goat blue cheese (yum!) and a very simple salad made of only spinach, lemon pepper seasoning, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Greatness, every bite.  I swear, all this good food has been a driving factor in keeping me happy, full, focused, and in control.  I’ve done a much better job of menu planning, making leftovers, and keeping on track.  I hope I can keep this up throughout the rest of these prenatal rotations.  Here’s to it!  Hope your weekend is going well.  I’m off to go and bake for the cutest little boy in the world.

Questions: How do you feel about simple salads?
What have you been doing this last weekend in January?