I really enjoyed the Caprese Salad from Imperium Food & Wine Restaurant in Celebration, Florida the other day. We go there frequently for business lunches and they always impress. I really like their paninis as well.
Thai Thani Pepper Plate
I was in Celebration, Florida, the other day for pleasure (yay, non-work!) and joined my wife and a couple of good friends for an outside lunch at Thai Thani. I have been to Thai Thani with clients before, but never with friends. It was nice to have a relaxing non-work-related lunch. 🙂
I ordered the Combination Appetizer for the table and also ordered the Red Coconut Curry with chicken for my entree. One important thing I learned on previous lunches it to order the Pepper Plate. The pepper plate comes with various peppers, including Thai peppers, and is a must-have if you like spicy food.
Even though I order my food as hot as it can go on the menu, it barely registers anything on the heat scale for me. But, the pepper plate fixes this as it arms you with everything you need to have a spicy meal.
My wife ordered the Tom Ka Gai soup which is based on “prepared with chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, galangal, lemon grass and lime.” It was very tasty and is the best Tom Ka Gai soup I have had since I used to travel to Phoenix, Arizona all the time (and ate at a place called Malees.) It is deep in flavor, with the right amount of coconut, and the lemon grass really sets everything apart. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The appetizer comes with skewered chicken, a peanut sauce for the chicken, spring rolls, and Krag Rangoons which are “crispy pastry filled with scallion, and a perfect blend of cream cheese and imitation crab meat.” The chicken was a little tough but the peanut sauce off-set this with great flavor. I enjoyed everything.
The Red Coconut Curry is filled to the brim with fresh vegetables, chicken, rice, and a luscious coconut sauce. It is described as “chicken, Beef or Pork cooked in coconut milk with string beans, egg plants, basil leaves, bell peppers, peas and bamboo shoots.” It is a heavy dish but oh so flavorful. I can’t wait to have it again.
I really like the food at Thai Thani, and although the service can be a bit on the slow side, I enjoy the atmosphere and am ready to go back. Highly recommended.
Cheese Platter
Back in July 2005 my wife and I were visiting New Orleans. There was no way we could have known about Hurricane Katrina, but it did come through, and destroyed large parts of the city. Due to the destruction, and the bad food I had eaten during my visit, I was in no particular hurry to return. This last Spring Break (2012,) I decided to bite the bullet and booked a five-day trip to a hotel in the French Quarter.
As mentioned, the food on my previous trip was all greasy, of low quality, and just didn’t taste good. I know, I know, everyone says “But New Orleans food is great!” This may be true, but everywhere I visited in the French Quarter in 2005 was not so great. This time around I armed myself with Zagat’s guide to New Orleans, several viewings of Urban Spoon, and a cross-reference of everything against Foursquare and Yelp.
Needless to say, my research paid off several times over. Not only did I find one good restaurant but I found several and had a great time. By the end of the trip I was “fooded out” but had enough room for Italian fare and walked down to the Italian Barrel. We had a reservation for two at 6pm and the place was nice and open when we arrived.
The Italian Barrel is small but has outdoor seating to allow more guests. It was raining when we visited; otherwise, outdoors would have been nice. We ordered the Cheese Platter (half order) for our appetizer and I ordered the Filet with Crab Meat for my entree.
The cheese platter was wonderful with each cheese having a different texture and flavor. The appetizer included a few side items to augment the cheese such as fresh honey comb (our favorite.) I’m glad we only ordered the half portion as a whole would have been enough for four people.
My filet came out next and was a bit on the rare side (I ordered it Medium Rare) but was huge. I think they gave me half of the cow given how large the filet was. I got more than my moneys worth and the crab meat on top was tasty as well. Overall we really enjoyed the Italian Barrel and can’t wait for our next visit.
Sea Bass with Mushroom Risotto
The Tommy Bahama brand is famous for their clothing line but they also have several restaurants around the country.
The other day I had dinner there with several business associates and enjoyed a wide array of appetizers including Chicken Lollipops, Coconut-Crusted Crab Cakes, and Macadamia Nut Encrusted Goat Cheese. For my entree I ordered the special of Sea Bass with Mushroom Risotto.
The appetizers were all good with a special emphasis on the Coconut-Crusted Crab Cakes. I really enjoy a light crab cake and the restaurant did not disappoint. It was lightly pan-fried and full of lump crab meat.
Sea bass can be difficult to cook as people tend to under-cook it but my entree was cooked perfectly with the sea-bass slightly firm throughout. The mushroom risotto was a bit on the gummy side but the mushroom sauce itself was rich, creamy, and packed with mushroom flavor. I especially enjoyed the grilled vegetables on the side and look forward to making the dish myself at home soon.
I do not normally care for chain restaurants but Tommy Bahamas had great service, a nice atmosphere, and good food. You cannot ask for much more in a restaurant and I will be back.
Ciao's Crab Cakes
On the way to take the kids to an event the other night we stopped at Ciao’s Italian Restaurant in Downtown Little Rock for a quiet dinner. Ciao’s has been around for 24+ years and used to be a place I frequented for lunch with my mother when I was near Downtown (she used to work in Downtown.)
Given the age of the restaurant I was admittedly hesitant as many restaurants do not evolve with the tastes of the community. Luckily, their menu has evolved and the food was quite good!
My son ordered the Omaha US Prime Steak Special, which is served only Medium Rare, and I had the Maryland Crab Cakes. For my starter I ordered the Mushroom Soup, and for the table we ordered appetizers of Focaccia Bread and Fried Ravioli.
The Focaccia Bread is served warm and comes with sides of pesto and an olive-oil mix. It is tasty and a nice precursor to the meal. The fried ravioli on the other hand reminds me of the fried ravioli you buy at the grocery store from the freezer section. Hopefully it is not homemade, as someone is wasting their time if so. It is tough, over-fried, and lacks any flavor.
The Mushroom Soup comes out next and has a strong mushroom flavor to it. I wish it had larger chunks of mushrooms in it but is tasty nonetheless. The Maryland Crab Cake entree comes out and surprises me at first as I had envisioned flat crab-cakes, not fried crab-cake balls. They are lightly fried though and pack a lot of flavor. I especially enjoy the steamed vegetables and the side of pasta and marinara is a nice touch. Overall I am happy with the crab-cakes and would order them again.
Everything but the fried ravioli was good and the service made up for any appetizer short-comings. The staff is very friendly, attentive, and I have nothing but compliments for them. I look forward to going back.
Smoked ribs this last weekend for 9 hours and served them with a homemade sauce from habanero, jalapeno, aleppo pepper, chilis, garlic, onion, tomatoes, sugar, salt, and other spices. I dry rubbed them and basted with malt, butter, and spice. Very tasty.
Charcuterie Plate
I can count the number of real delis I have been to in the United States on one hand and that is not a good thing. The skills learned over the last thousand years are slowly but surely being replaced by factories and robo-butchers. No longer do you go down to the corner-butcher to pickup homemade salami.
Today you get deli meats from a vacuum packed plastic bag at the grocery store with the name of a pig’s cranium on the cover. The product tastes like the care that went into making it as well. For the most part, the “deli” meats from the grocery store resemble the food I had in the lunch line when in grammar school, plasticy and tasteless.
Cochon Butcher in New Orleans bucks the trend by making all of their meats in-house. They make their own salami, porchetta, corned beef, and many other items. Everything follows the traditions passed down over generations and the resulting flavor is amazing.
I ordered the Charcuterie Plate ($14) along with the “Gambino” Sandwich ($12) while vacationing in the French Quarter over Spring Break.
The Charcuterie Plate comes with a variety of house made meats, olives, and some vegetables. It both looks and tastes great. I especially like the dried beef. The Gambino Sandwich is made also with a mix of house meats and reminds me of other Italian sandwiches I have had, only better.
Overall the meats were all very flavorful, with a deep earthiness to them, and left me wanting to return for more. I highly suggest trying out Cochon Butcher!
Prosciutto wrapped scallops
It’s after 6pm, I’m in the Marriott Hotel by LAX, and we have no idea where to go eat dinner. I have to wake up at 4pm to make my flight but after one more business call I have nothing to do. Where to go?
I check with the concierge, who recommends some good places and some bad ones, but still am torn on which one to pick. As experience has shown me, concierges can suggest horrible locations (it seems hotels are paid to suggest certain names,) so I use my phone to look-up places on Urbanspoon.
We settle on a place called Talia’s Italian in Manhattan Beach. Using OpenTable we are able to secure a table at 6:30pm. Perfect!
Google maps messes up and sends me to the middle of a neighborhood, but TeleNav saves the day and we arrive outside at 6:20. The restaurant is small, very small, but is very welcoming with a fine-dining atmosphere. We sit at the bar and wait for our table, which is ready in under 20 minutes.
I order the Burrata Caprese ($10) appetizer and the Fresh Diver Scallops ($26) for my entree. Burrata, is a form of mozzarella cheese which includes mozzarella wrapped around cream. It is very soft and does not keep long; hence, not being available in most stores.
Burrata is one of my favorite foods, so I am very happy when it arrives. It’s soft, fresh, and quite tasty. It is not the best Burrata I have ever had, but it is quite good.
The star of the show arrives later on into the dinner and looks great. At first I cannot tell what it is but upon inspection I can see how they wrap several scallops in a ring with prosciutto, and hold it all together with a skewer. They have been grilled and sit atop fresh polenta and spinach. A lemon/butter/wine sauce fills the bottom of the plate and has been poured over the top of my scallops, with a single slice of lemon on the very top.
The Fresh Diver Scallops taste as good as they look. They are perfectly seasoned and the char from grilling helps the prosciutto to have the right amount of crunch. The lemon/butter/wine sauce has a bit of acid to it but is silky smooth from the butter. I cannot say enough good things about the polenta as it is some of the best I have ever had. The cornmeal is not grainy, but is smooth, and the spinach helps offset the acid from the sauce. I love every bit of my dish and cannot wait to make it myself at home sometime!
I highly recommend Talia’s and cannot wait to go back.
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