Eating in a box

As I said, May is a tough month for my blog. Lots of travel and weekend commitments are keeping me from my usual bento delivery at work. I plan on doing one this weekend so stay tuned. In the mean time I wanted to post some pictures from my birthday dinner. My fabulous girlfriend Sophie treated me a very romatic dinner at the Mansion at Judges' Hill. The restaurant is in fact an old Mansion that has been renovated to be a bed and breakfast. There are two dining areas one in a large hall and a smaller secondary room (about the size of a living room). We got really lucky because a large conference booked the mansion and large dinner space and they decided not to accept any further reservations or diners but since we reserved before the big group we got the whole secondary room to ourselves. (nice and cozy) We each got the tasting menu, which at $35 per person is a really good deal for the amount and quality of the food we got. First course started with a cheese plate. The cheese is ...

Special bento today. It's my wife's birthday tomorrow, so I figured on making a special bento just for her. Pulled out the stops and splurged a bit on the menu. Hopefully a great week to start birthday week. Well on to the box. We'll start with the sides: First up we have Steamed Vegetables with a ginger miso dressing. I've latched onto the wonders of pre-bagged veggies that you toss into the microwave. They even have this one brand that also have a couple of slots of butter so that when you finish microwaving it's all done for you. What a great idea and timesaver. I'll have to re-use this one. Our second side is a Lobster salad with tarragon and chives. Picked up a couple of frozen lobster tails and put this little number together. I could easily have substituted chicken in place of this for a more budget conscious menu item. Note to self: a little tarragon goes a *long* way. For the main course we have Filet Mignon with a shitake wine sauce. Pretty self expl...