Last night Chris and I went out to an early Mother’s Day dinner with my mom and Michelle. After some discussion this afternoon, we had decided on Zed451 in Schaumburg. It turned out to be a very good decision.
The first bit of goodness came when I reserved a table using OpenTable.com. Normally, reservations are just 100 points each; however, with the relative newness of Zed451, the reservation was 1,000 points. This reservation pushed me over the 2,000 point mark, the lowest number of points required to get a gift cheque from OpenTable.com.
Continue reading ‘Zed451 is a feast’
Published on Wednesday 23rd April 2008 .
My mother-in-law told me about this. Next week on Wednesday, April 30, 2008, Baskin-Robbins will be selling 31¢ scoops. There are a few catches to the deal. The scoops are smaller than normal at 2.5 ounces (I think normal scoops are 4 ounces), and there is a 10-scoop limit per person, per purchase. That’s more than ¾-quarts of ice cream! Baskin-Robbins will then donate $100,000 to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
Go get yourself some cheap ice cream next week. Oh, and I guess you’ll be helping out a charity.
Published on Wednesday 12th March 2008 .
After we got back from dinner at Stumbling Goat Bistro, we set ourselves up to watch the season premiere of Bravo’s Top Chef. This season takes place in Chicago. After the chefs fly in, they all meet at Pizzeria Uno and chow down on deep dish pizza and beer, a classic combo. The first quickfire challenge has the chefs making a signature deep dish pizza.
The chefs bring their pizzas to a house to be judged by Rocco Dispirito. As they bring out their slices, I am just disgusted by each creation. I can’t believe these guys served the garbage that they did. You can see for yourself just how ugly, and likely how distasteful, the slices were.
With what I saw of the last season of Top Chef, and despite what I saw tonight, I think this could be another Bravo show to suck up my time each week.
Published on Tuesday 11th March 2008 .
Today, Hersch and I went to the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery and took a tour. Chateau Ste. Michelle makes some of my favorite wines, including a Reisling and a Pinot Gris. Liana joined us for dinner at The Pink Door, in the Pike Place Market. The restaurant features Italian-American fare with a very intimate dining room.
Continue reading ‘Chateau Ste. Michelle tour and the Pink Door’
We just came back from dinner at Quinn’s. After ordering drinks, we ordered braised meatball sliders; duck and duck rillette; oxtails with potato gnocchi and crispy marrow; and a side of marinated olives. The meatball sliders were pretty good, but they were tiny. Take a look at your keyboard. The sliders were about the size of four keys on your keyboard. The duck and duck rillette also included foie gras on top of a chicken mousse. Served with pieces of toast, the dish was quite tasty.
The highlight of my dinner was the oxtails dish. It had a really rich flavor which paired with the gnocchi quite well. The crispy marrow added even more to the already great combination of flavors. If you’re not into rich foods, you may find it a bit on the salty side. For me, however, it was so delicious. In fact, it was delicious enough to order a second plate.
If you’re in Seattle, I would recommend a visit to Quinn’s. I wouldn’t say that it is a must, but it is definitely worth a visit.
Published on Wednesday 27th February 2008 .
Tonight, Grant and I made scallops served atop fettuccine with a garlic and white wine cream sauce. We modified this recipe from Allrecipes.com to make a sauce more appropriate to be served with pasta. We added more cream and white wine, subtracted some butter and added some Parmesan cheese. We’re not really sure how much more cream, wine or cheese we added, but it’s pretty safe to say that we only added a stick and a half two sticks of butter to the sauce.
The scallops were prepared almost as directed in the above recipe, except that we doubled the cooking time for each side because of the size of the scallops.
Overall, the dish was quite tasty. However, I wonder if this will be yet another dish that I would rather just go to a restaurant and order rather than make it myself.
Published on Monday 24th December 2007 .
For a while now Grant, Brad and I have been talking about going to India House in Schaumburg. I think we should go soon. According to this article from IndiaPost.com, India House is under new management and has been redone recently. I’d like to try the lunch buffet so that I can get at least a little taste of everything. That will hopefully make it easier to decide on an entree when visiting for dinner. If anyone is interested in going to the lunch buffet, name a day in the comments of give me a call.
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