Eating in a box

So why this picture instead of the tasting menu? Well, there was a ton of delicious food and I would need two pictures for the menu, yes it looks fuzzy, but if you click in and look at the bigger picture you'll notice that I wasn't actually focusing on the wine. I'm going to start off with an apology, I will not be able to describe all of the wonderful yummy food I had at this food blogger event. Shoreline was very generous with taste after taste of what seemed like their entire menu. I had assumed we finished our tasting during the appetizer stage. When they started making some noise about "are you ready for the entrees" and " we'll be sampling all of the desserts" I realized I was in some serious trouble. My little brain doesn't have the capacity to remember the details of every dish. So, for this post I will put up groups of pictures and post some highlights. Just a bit of a preamble for those that don't know Shoreline. Shoreline is one of...

I got a nice package from foodbuzz on this new product that I should take a look at (next time send me a coupon, it could save the earth from all that packaging). The quandary is "where does free stuff undermine the purpose of this blog". I decided that as long as I could put it into cooking for my wife then it's ok. This is one of the questions that have begun to surface amongst bloggers in general and probably worth a topical discussion one of these days with my fellow foodbloggers. For my purposes, I decided to try to make this sample offering into something new and interesting. Had I done it for my audience I probably would have needed 2 or 3 packages of the pasta (making it impractical for the cost of a bento). The goal here was quick and easy and I worked with only materials I had on hand (minus the chicken). This is simliar to a previous entree I did, but It cut out a whole lot of complexity and helped keep the focus on the agnolotti. For a filling meal I decided I...

It seems like there's just a stream of these events recently. It's a nice way to get to know some of the restaurants I don't get a chance to frequent. I've gotten to know quite a few new foodblogger friends and it's fun to see familiar faces at these events. As usual I had plenty of camera envy and my photos (and skills) are a pale shadow to them. Our hosts for the evening: Allison Gueli the Events Manager and Chef Shawn Cirkiel. We got a chance to meet Chef Cirkiel at the very end of the evening as he was nice enough to pull away from his busy kitchen to say a quick hello to everyone. It easy to forget a busy restaurant lurks beneath your feet when there's a busy staff buzzing around catering toward making an enjoyable evening for a bunch of foodbloggers. As always, I appreciate the staff and Chef for inviting us to check out their restaurant. I for one ended up at the bar after the event to order a huge bag of food to go. Fluke with lemon and almond is the fir...

Sorry for the interruption of updates last week, a few things came up and I wasn't able to put together a bento. Fear not! The bento I had planned is here for this week, well almost. The original concept for this bento was Easter around the world. After I starting work on the box last night I realized I had bitten off way more than I could chew and had to scale back. Originally there were two additional items, it's just as well as it would have made the bento not gluten-free and less healthy. The only exception today is the Amaretti cookie I provide as part of dessert but the rest is GFF (gluten free friendly). Let's get started shall we? The main course was a Greek-style leg of lamb. I've never worked with a whole leg of lamb before, this certainly was an experience. I think I could have done with some sort of sauce on the side, tzaziki, horseradish, or mint. The meat came out perfect, this happened to be one of the end pieces, but the center cuts were a perfect medium...

Another wonderful food bloggers event, this time at III (3) Forks Restaurant. This is one of the places I've been meaning to try with my wife but never have found the occasion to do so. I was in for a treat and the restaurant wanted to reach out and show off their new happy hour menu (a trend it seems). We were greeted by our hosts for the evening. Earnest Hernandez was the Maitre d', our wine steward and chief host was Jeff (didn't get a last name). We had live piano music (which happens starting at 6pm every night) as pictured above. (didn't get a name here either). I happened to get to the event early and Maitre d' Hernandez was kind enough to take me around the restaurant and explain III Forks and their inspirations. III Forks is a "Prime" steakhouse, until tonight, I didn't connect that with the label of USDA Prime. The restaurant prides itself in selling only Prime cuts of meat, this label means that the meat has been rated by USDA to be the top ...