desserts at Miru

So, Sara had a great idea. 

She's a fan of a cooking show on Netflix, and the winning chef is in charge of desserts at a hotel in Chicago, so why don't we go and treat ourselves.  Why, Sara, that sounds good to me!

We were staying almost next door to the St Regis Hotel, home to Miru, the restaurant we were hoping to enjoy.  Sara arranged a late (8:45) table for four of us - we gathered together Kathy and Amy, our cohort at the meetings.  Friday night after the official meal, we got changed

and wandered over together.  In short order we were seated, and then the evening really began.  And how!  There were six items on the dessert menu and four of us, so we decided to be ambitious and ordered one of each.  Plus a bottle of sauternes! 

Decadent, I know.

My favourite?  The black sesame mochi dessert. 

I also liked the coconut-mango dessert

and the triple chocolate gateau. 

The calamansi creme brulee was fine, truly.  The chocolate silk tart was also fine,

but it (and the gateau) were the two that we didn't finish completely.  And there was no going wrong with the ginger cookies.

What was really good, though, was the service.  Honestly?  I've had more interesting desserts elsewhere (but the black sesame mochi was quite something), but I've seldom had service that so nicely balanced polish and warmth. 

Kudos to them for that.

Best of all, though?  Hanging out with Sara, Kathy, and Amy and just having a terrific time with them.  Some business talk, mostly not.  May we do something like this again!

first in over a month

The cleanse is dead.  Long live the cleanse?

Well, maybe some good habits live on, or so I hope.  But on the heels of the cleanse, it's time off in Vancouver, and while I have been out on foot a lot,

and while I have been trying to maintain the intermittent fasting, I've also enjoyed some adult beverages for the first time in over a month.

Friday I savoured a trio of karaage chicken tacos at Miso Taco,

a new place that has replaced The Union in our old neighbourhood here.  Tasty, filling.  No cocktail or other drink than water to wash it down.  Dinner time?  A vesper for me. 

First of the trip (as of last night, I've had two).  First drink in over a month.  It was nicely done.  We had dinner with my sister on the patio of the club, sharing some samosas to start

and a chocolate dessert to finish

while I kept the black cod to myself. 

So, yes, some beverages being enjoyed this weekend (and I'll post more, for sure), but once we're back home, it will be rather more disciplined, I promise.

an anniversary

This past Saturday, Conrad, Van, and I celebrated a small anniversary.  Four years previously, Van had come to dinner for the first time.  He and I had met online, and on that date, we were meeting in person.  I made short ribs for the three of us, and we sat outside.  It was a lovely evening.

And now look at us.

So happy anniversary to us, and hooray for a Saturday to celebrate properly.  We started the day with breakfast at Amara, and then Conrad and I got things done at the condo.  Later that afternoon, we hopped onto the A line and headed down to the Broad Museum to take in the Keith Haring show

as well as some of the regular collections. 

The show was excellent, and I liked the Kara Walker gallery, but the museum was a bit of a zoo of tourists taking selfies with some well-known pieces of pop and modern art.  I didn't mind leaving at closing time.  A short walk through among some skyscrapers and public art

then past the library, and we were at Drago Centro for dinner.

I didn't take photos at dinner until Conrad demanded that I photograph the dessert.  A chocolate dessert, with an extra scoop of salted caramel ice cream, which was a great idea. 

We had a very nice time in a shockingly almost empty restaurant.  It's not a place that we go to often at all, but it is a place we keep in mind for special occasions, such as this.  We splurged on a nicely aged (1995) Chianti, and stretched our meal out over 2.5 hours.

It was a lovely, leisurely afternoon and evening for the three of us.  At the end of it, we took an Uber home to Olive, contented, glad that we celebrated something worth celebrating.

halibut/rice

Welcome back, Peter!

I've been away for a nice relaxing weekend, and yes, I will blog about it in times ahead.  But as part of that weekend, I did not bring a laptop or iPad.  What?  Madness!  Ah yes, I actually went and enjoyed myself.  Now to catch up.

The night before Van and I headed out of town, I made dinner for Conrad, Van, Natasha, and me.  Unlike the pathetic pizza and mango tart effort of a weekend earlier, this time things turned out.

Sometimes a meal comes together in my head when I'm shopping, and that was the case last Friday.  I knew some of what I had in the fridge and pantry at home, and I knew I didn't want to have to buy too many things.  I got to Whole Foods and headed to the seafood counter.  There I found some nice looking halibut.  The meal came together from there.  I knew I had wanted to do a risotto, and I had a recipe for a pumpkin risotto that I thought I could adapt with carrots I had on hand.  Carrot risotto and a good piece of fish.  And?  Something green, not too bulky - red chard!  Then some dill and capers for a garnish.  Some chocolate and eggs to make an easy dessert, and I was headed home.

The risotto came together nicely.  The carrots didn't break down as squash would, but the chunks were tender.  I was pleased.  I seasoned the fish, including some saffron to play off the carrot in colour and flavour, then put it in a pan.  The chard received a coarse chiffonade (there is probably a better term for that).  I fried the capers to crispness.  And that made for a filling, tasty dinner. 

A rare time that I was happy with what I cooked.

Dessert was simply chocolate budini.  I've had them puff more than that in the past, but ah well.  Still tasty!

 All in all, a very nice evening together.  Enjoyable, indeed!

dinner at The Arbour

We have favourites.  Oh yes, we do.  There is our trinity:  Maestro, Mama M, and Amara.  But we're happy to wander over to Union, Perle, or Agnes.  And that's just the Pasadena places.

Dinner tonight was at another: 

The Arbour.  I am embarrassed to say it's been a while, and I can't remember offhand the last time we wandered over there, likely with Natasha.  Van had never gone there, though, and with his sister Cathy in town, we thought it was prime time.

It's a great location - not close to us exactly - not too far to walk, but we don't always want to walk that far.  I like the bar and the cozy interior.  We find the food reliable and the cocktails good.  I was happy that we could finally get Van there.

It was, in fact, tasty food.  I enjoyed my cocktail - The Impressionist, a martini flavoured with a chamomile tea and lavender - a goodly bit, though I had wine with dinner.  The salads were fine.  My sea bass?  Lovely!  Nicely seasoned, well cooked.  I did steal some crispy rice cake from Conrad, though, and I preferred it to the polenta cake on my plate.  Deserts were fine - I went with a dark chocolate mousse as a concession to sharing with Conrad.  The savoury courses were the highlights, though.

Service lagged.  I won't lie.  It felt like ages just to get water then to get drinks ordered (it was ages - about a half hour).  The place was busy, and I was happy to see that.  And it's not like we weren't enjoying each other's company.  We all noticed the lag, but I think we would all be happy to be back again before too long nonetheless.

tonight's dessert

Conrad heads off to LA on Sunday for a week of work, thereby missing Valentine's Day. Oh, it's not a big day for us. I worked too many years in restaurants to have an appreciation of such the day. I don't mind missing out on February 14, especially since we might have date nights otherwise.

Anyway, as I might have mentioned on the blog before, there are four key foods to woo Conrad: chocolate, raspberries, salmon, Pinot Noir. I managed three of the four tonight. Up first: some Whole Foods sushi and sashimi. Salmon? Check. With that we had a bottle of a New Zealand Pinot I'd found on sale the other day. A Central Otago Pinot. We were excited. Alas, it was... meh. Thin, weak. Fine for a few sips with dinner, but we ended up chucking most of the bottle and turning to a Hahn blend that was far more delicious. Oh, and I cooked up a bit of asparagus, too. So, two out of four magical ingredients.

We sipped a bit of wine, made some social plans for the next several weeks, then I got into the kitchen and whipped up dessert. Item #3: chocolate. Mexican chocolate this time, in fact, some souffles. Guilty admission: we had one each and then, because the half-batch I made resulted in more than 2 souffles. Don't judge me.

No raspberries tonight, sorry Conrad. Perhaps I can work some in to some baking before you leave on Sunday.

halibut, lightly curry-flavoured

At the end of a very good day where I got a nice bit of work done at home, had a tasty lunch of leftovers, and celebrated my best friend's birthday, dinner capped things nicely. A piece of halibut (gosh it's been a while since I cooked some halibut up) coated with rice flour I'd mixed with curry powder, salt, and pepper and then sauteed so that the coating crisped up. Red chard on the side (though I should have had kale in honour of the day) and a pea puree. Conrad was fresh from swimming and cute as ever. We sipped the rest of a nice Chardonnay and watched some Big Bang Theory on DVD. And capped it all off with the very last chocolates from the wedding reception.

Gentle readers, I am content.

a few recent cooking observations

1. Blood orange souffles, by the time you get to the bottom of the dish, start to become a bit of a marmalade-y chore. I'll stick to other souffles in the future.
2. Why would anyone go for microwaved nachos or nachos with "cheese" sauce when oven baked are so much better. That's a rhetorical question, no responses need, you know I'm right.
3. I may no longer eat baby back ribs, but apparently I haven't lost my ability to cook them.
4. Chocolate cake good.

Yoshi's with Luke

Ah Luke. I did warn you quite openly: I blog. And yet, here you are again, guest-starring in a blog entry, sharing dinner with me and Conrad at Yoshi's. You are becoming well known to the 4 people who read this, I fear.

Silliness aside, it's been an odd past couple of months what with Conrad traveling so much for work. Luke stepped in a few weeks ago and played the role of Conrad one night at the bar at Yoshi's. Last night was a rare instance (this spring) when Conrad and I had a Sunday night at Yoshi's together. So, of course, we brought a friend along.

A nice evening - the bar was quite active, quite crowded. We anchored one far end of it, and that left me a little out of the loop with some of our friends who are also regulars there. No matter. Luke was more than enjoyable conversation for the two of us, and the food was good, too.

Oysters for me (and for Luke as well) to start. I had a hankering for seafood last night (and I write this on Monday night with a belly full of sushi that Conrad picked up for us after swim practice). All three of us had the same entree, funnily enough, a new combo dish with salmon (cooked very well - moist, tender, flavourful) and duck confit with an artichoke filled with a tomato sauce. We then ordered a dessert to share, the cassis mousse in green tea genoise with chocolate ganache. A dish of berries and chocolate sauce made its way out as well (not pictured), and Luke and I were more than happy to assist Conrad with that.

I think Conrad and I will be back in to Yoshi's on Friday or Saturday, I'm not sure. I have no doubt we'll get Luke there again even if he is, essentially, moving to Iowa in a couple of weeks.

even though it was a vegetarian (non-garlic, too!) dinner...

... there was plenty of ham in the kitchen last night!



Martin and Carrie came to dinner last night.
Martin, you may recall, is the super-awesome conference roomie and friend about whom it's impossible for me to say the least thing bad. Rather the opposite. He may blush when he reads that, but ah well. Carrie is NOT his wife, nor mine. She is, however, not only a lovely person but also a real heavy-hitter in the world of libraries and intellectual freedom.

If only Gail and Bowie had made it over. We would then have had a full Moonbats contingent!

I didn't take a lot of photos last night beyond ones of us when Martin and Carrie arrived. In truth, it was an unusual evening in that Conrad was barely part of it. He's been not 100% since Wednesday night, and though he rallied enough yesterday morning to want to have our friends over for a casual meal, just before they arrived he was in bed, shivering, feeling horrid. Poor guy. He did make it out to sit and have dinner (he has his appetite) though no dessert. For the most part, it was the three of us, and with that slightly odd circumstance and all the ALA gossip to catch up on, photos weren't in the cards.

Martin is a recent convert to vegetarianism, and I thought it very sweet and considerate that he gave me a lot of warnings and escape possibilities. But really, I may eat meat (though a little less red meat these days), but I am capable with a vegetable or two in hand. There had been another guest coming, one allergic to garlic. She had to back out, but by that point I had most of dinner made. Ah well. No garlic is a little trickier if you stop and think of all the dishes we season somehow with it. Still, I'm always up for a challenge!

The two arrived a little after seven, and I whisked a plate of tortilla chips out of the oven and dolloped a generous amount of homemade guacamole in the center. We all shoveled it up and sipped cocktails or wine. Chat continued, and I got the empanadas in the oil. Two kinds: one had a cream cheese, toasted pecan, charred scallion, and chipotle powder mixture for a filling; the others were filled with yellow summer squash, zucchini, red pepper, and red chard. I passed re-fried beans around at the table along with more guacamole, a pico de gallo, and a simple romaine salad with a toasted pumpkinseed and cilantro dressing.

Not a bad dinner. We sipped more wine and water. Conrad went back to bed and was asleep when Carrie and Martin, stuffed from dinner and the cake that followed, headed out.

But friends, that ham was mighty good!