Dining Out

Well did you spring your clocks forward today?  A lot easier than the other season's falling back. Raise your hand if you don’t like daylight savings time!  Day will be over before you know it..

 

With MFO continuing her odyssey through the South and Midwest (arriving Cape Girardeau today) and not wanting to cook for one, I have some food time on my hands. 

 

Last week I went to Café Des Artistes for dinner with a friend .  People often ask me what is my favorite restaurant, to which I always (mostly, anyway) reply “it depends”.  Are you talking lunch?  Quick sandwich?  Dinner?  Fun time? Special occasion?  Many different answers.   Anyway I think CDA has to rank in the top few for almost anything.  One thing I always enjoy there is their “special” menu, for some reason routinely printed on pink paper.  Quite often there is an interesting wine by the glass available, and lately I find there are some unusual and creative dishes offered.  Things you don’t normally run across.  On the recent visit (kind of in Mardi Gras season) there was a seafood Minestrone offered as a soup/starter, and how many times have you seen Snapping Turtle Gumbo on a menu?  Being the owner a somewhat delicate constitution, I am always leery of anything that potentially is spiced to the nines. And there is that (misguided IMHO) school that thinks Cajun/Creole isn’t real unless it blows your head off.  So I asked our server who replied that she had not tasted it, but didn’t think it fell into that category.  She thought more smoke than spice.  So we continued to ponder the menu, and pretty soon a small dish of the gumbo appeared at my elbow.  How nice is that?   A taste confirmed that it was not at all spicy, just nicely seasoned with a little smoky thought.   So, I had both the Minestrone and the Gumbo and was rewarded with both dishes.  The soup had a rich tomato based broth with plenty of seafood bites.   Kind of in the same vein was the Gumbo which had shrimp and (should go without saying) Okra as well as the turtle meat.  I would suspect this is the first time that I have (knowingly) had snapping turtle.  No, it doesn’t taste like chicken, and I didn’t catch much distinctive flavor, but here were competing tastes in the dish.  It was a little on the chewy side, but hey those snapping turtles are rough customers.  Quite an enjoyable meal, and service was competent.  There are other options in Leonardtown and as I said, different occasions might direct you to one or the other, but think you can always count on a nice experience at the Café.

 

Grander Scale

From a party of two to a party of over one hundred.  Last night, I went solo to the River Concert Series Gala, their annual fund raiser for the summer events.  I/we have been going for a long time, a pretty standard affair with silent auction items, drinks and apps, a sit down dinner and a musical program from the always interesting Jeff Silberschlag.  This year, like most non profity things it was kind of scaled back.  Less people, no oyster shucker, and (thank goodness) no live auction.  With MFO on the road, I didn’t feel like donning the “black tie optional” duds but did DFD in my nice suit.   These days you find a dwindling number of gentlemen in tuxes it seems.  If the lady has a swishy cocktail dress fine, but going alone didn’t seem worth the effort (besides with no “valet”, the tie, studs, cufflinks, etc., could be a bit challenging.  

As with most events like this you tend to see the same folks, and with the reduced numbers it was quite pleasant.  Passed apps were limited to bacon wrapped water chestnuts, some little empanadas, and some phyllo wrapped brie with raspberry sauce (hard to eat).  A salad preceded the entrees, billed as romaine hearts with oven roasted tomatoes, parmesan curls and a toasted herbed focaccia spear.  A pretty apt description of what appeared on the plate.  And, bless them, for once the salads went out just prior to seating so they were quite a bit fresher than in the past where they were there when guests arrived.  Entrees consisted of your (pre chosen) choice of beef, fish, or vegetarian.  While the salad conformed to its description I am not sure the main courses did.  On the menu card (and in the response form) the beef was: Stuffed Tenderloin with Mushrooms and Cognac”; the fish was “Fish en Papillote Sustainable fish filet with Fume Blanc and Shrimp”.  A bit odd descriptions, think the word “sauce” or “reduction” might have crept in there.  Our table of nine (no MFO, but a former colleague whom I greatly enjoyed talking with) had (as I remember) all beef except for my fish as did one other lady.  The beef was nicely cooked, more to the rare side than I expected, but was fresh and juicy.  To be honest I didn’t get a close look, but didn’t really see the alleged mushroom and cognac (assume not in a glass).  Here is my fish dish as served:

 

I would hope the readers would immediately say: “Hey! That’s planked! No papillote there!”  I would agree, and the Fume Blanc (also definitely not in a glass) was scant.  The stuff under my (not favorite) vegetable is a risotto type offering (a bit dry).  However if there were any gaffes between description and dish, the quality of the food kind of overcame that.  I have been pretty critical of Bon Appetit’s efforts in the past, but both these dishes were quite good.  I was pleased to see that.

The music featured the Chesapeake Orchestra Big Band, and they were quite accomplished as was the vocalist, Sarah Gray.  Big sound, small space.  Even if MFO were accompanying me I wouldn’t have danced so after a few numbers I exited.  I did write my bidder number on one item, but as of this writing I am not sure if I was “successful”.  Money for a good cause however.  Speaking of good causes, the Chesapeake Charter School Alliance folk had their annual raiser same night.  Had already committed to the Gala, but hope they did well.  You just can’t go to everything even though

DFD