A Sunday afternoon Dish

So during training today I got inspired to cook something a bit more elaborate.  I decided on an Indian/Afghan inspired chicken dish with Roti bread.  So to start in a giant cast iron pot I started to saute some onions and peppers and cooked down some spinach in an olive oil and pork fat (I render the pork fat whenever I cook pork) with some onion and garlic along with some brown rice cooked in chicken broth and pork fat.  Also some cayenne pepper, a ton of curry and cumin...

Next to grill the meat, some organic chicken breasts and chicken sausages:

Once both were cooked time to mix and throw in the oven covered for an hour:

Once it was all cooked time to cook the Roti-Chapati bread on the griddle:

And put it all in a dish before it goes in my belly, GET IN MY STOMACH!

Happy Dining!

Venice Ristorante - Restaurant Review

Wow, nothing like last minute...Around 4:30 pm the lovely wife said hey see what you can find for my birthday tonight.  The thought was to hit a Restaurant Week restaurant.  Restaurant Week in Denver is 2 meals for $52.80 ( remember the mag was called 5280 from my original project for this blog, 5280 feet is the elevation of Denver).  Feb 26 started restaurant week.

Anyway all of our top choices were full on short notice.  So I went to the always reliable Yelp.  Since we were trying to eat early, I limited the choice to our neighborhood area (South Denver), and I picked Italian since she wasn't really picky.  Lo and behold Yelp advised Venice Ristorante.  I quickly secured a 5:45pm spot through Open Table.  We got dressed relatively quickly in a bit dressier apparel than normal for Denver as the site said "dressy".  On the way Dana briefly thought maybe she wanted sushi, which happened to be near our reservation, but when we arrived I suggested perhaps dressy would be better served at our original choice versus the neon sign Rice Bistro & Sushi.  Happily she agreed, on we went.

This was a very quaint white table cloth styled restaurant.  It was quite surprising given the nondescript exterior presence.  We were promptly seated even though we were about 10 minutes late for our reservation (the sushi debate).  We sat and quickly began perusing the menus.  Dana decided on the house Cab and I ordered a diet coke and a bottle of San Pellegrino bubbly water.  For our appetizer we decided on the Antipasto:

Quite good, the small crab cakes were all crab, the mozzarella with prosciutto and the other with tomato was delish.  The calamari was not over-breaded and Dana enjoyed the bruschetta.

For dinner I went with the Cioppino Tuscano seafood stew:

Wow this was really good, mild sauce spice wise but tons of flavor.  The clams were very tender and flavorful.  The fish and shrimp were great.

Dana went with the Kobe beef ribs.  Both of us ordered off of the night's special menu.  Neither of our dishes are featured on the website.

The dish reminded me a bit of pulled pork but more tender with less fat.  It was definitely good, hard to see the ribs under the onions.

For dessert we went with the chocolate lava cake ala mode, awesome:

So overall I would give this a rating of A-.  I don't have any complaints, I just was not overwhelmed (that's a high bar to achieve) by the food, though it was great.  The beauty was this place was cheaper than any 5280 restaurant night, which is the value we thought to expect moving from NYC to Denver.  I did not check out the restrooms (downside of just water and a diet coke, no wine).  But the rest of the place was very clean and well laid out.  It had that small, quaint European restaurant feel inside.  Most importantly the birthday girl was happy:

Happy Dining!

From 5280 to Home Cooking

So my wife and I lived in NYC for 4 years and ate out a lot!  It's about twice as expensive as Denver.  So the 150 dollar Denver meal is equivalent to 300 in NYC.  I never had a questionable $300 meal in NYC, but the number of $150 questionable meals in 9 trips to 5280 restaurants was shocking and disturbing.  We loved getting out but the value was not there.  So that's it, project dead.  Oh I was notified that 5280 rated restaurants pay for the privilege.  Makes sense.

Now when I say project is dead, I only mean the blog schedule and trying to hit all restaurants in 52 weeks.  We will hit some and I will review them when we do.  I love the critique process.  I also think it help my own cooking immensely.

Anyway this blog will continue with my home cooking experiments.  I now have a kitchen that is about as big as our apartment was in NYC.  Big difference, given the kitchen there was like a closet.  So first up on my home food preparation is New Year's Day 2011, a nice Australian Leg of Lamb.

The pictures started nice and then got hosed, not sure why.  I'll fix that before my next effort (note I make efforts like this regularly but only photo and blog on occasion.  My goal is 6 hand prepared dinners per week.).

A nice rub of salt, pepper, thyme and fresh rosemary.

Make slits in the lego of lamb and stuff with whole garlic cloves (note on a broiler pan).  Rub the rub baby!

Under the broiler, sear each side for 3 minutes.

And this is the same side but the other picture sucks.

Then at 350 degrees with the whole tray wrapped in aluminum foil, let it cook for 105 minutes.  Place on a plate and slice thinly.

Take the drippings in the broil pan and add 1 cup of chicken broth, salt and pepper and 1/4th cup of flour to create a nice gravy.

Serve with a nice a green salad, a Chianti Classico, and candles.  Wow the 50 inch plasma looks small in the background pounding out some Whisperings Classical Piano from iTunes radio.

Happy New Years and Happy Dining!