Rudie's Seafood & Sausage

2017 passed by in a blur of work, travel, and bursts of activity followed by bursts of hibernation. We did somehow manage to summon the energy for a road trip down to Nashville after Christmas, and so found ourselves at Rudie's on NYE.

Which turned out to be a pretty great thing, especially in the biting cold. It's a warmly lit, well-heated, neighborhood restaurant in East Nashville, filled with comfort food options. Not much more you could ask for right on the cusp of healthy new years resolutions.

Resolutions for me which include a Dry January, so I was definitely ordering a Vesper Martini:

Vesper Martini

Smooth, intriguing, and full of alcohol - perfect.  

As mentioned, the menu is comforting. Which means indulgent. Wanting to warm up from the inside out, I ordered the Half Hog Stew.

Half Hog Stew

This consisted of a stew of tender braised pork (including unctuous pieces of fat), red potatoes, leeks, rosemary, accompanied by a gig and cave-aged cheddar grilled cheese, drizzled in honey. Sweet, salty, rich, and crunchy, all rolled into one dish. Heaven on a plate (and a bowl). 

Friends ordered similarly decadent dishes (but from the Chef's Specials menu) and were similarly happy with their choices:

Lobster Pot Pie

Lobster Pot Pie with lobster tail, lardon, fennel, leek, and grilled corn, accompanied by a lobster butter popover.

Pork Chop Tomahawk

Pork Chop Tomahawk (16oz!) with collard greens, black-eyed peas, and a sweet potato and relish puree. 

From a glance at some of the blackboards decorating the joint, the sources for the meat and seafood can be attributed to single farms across the country. Which would cater for the hipster-vibe of the place. 

Even with all the decadence, we couldn't pass up on a chocolate lava cake for dessert - split three ways of course. 

Dark Chocolate Lava Cake

Which came out not looking quite like a lava cake, but did have an interesting blueberry-lavender ice-cream (give me all the lavender ice-creams please) on the side. A perfect end to a wonderful NYE meal.

Overall, Rudie's is deserving of it's high rating. The ambiance is cozy, the servers are efficient and friendly, and the food is rich and decadent. Definitely a nice dinner date location, or for a indulgent catch-up with friends. If only I lived closer to Nashville.

Rudie's Seafood & Sausage

1402 McGavock Pike, Nashville, TN
Mon - Fri 4:00pm - 10:00pm, Sat 1:00pm - 10:00pm, Sun 11:00am - 10:00pm

Doretta Tavern & Raw Bar

I rarely have much to write about regarding the restaurants I try while on work trips. Usually it's much to late in the evening for many places to be open that are also within walking distance of wherever I happen to be staying that night. Add in the amount of travel time and 75% of my meals turn out to be either be from the hotel restaurant or somewhere in an airport.

Luckily, during a recent whirlwind trip to Boston (I was there for 18 hours), there was a decent Greek/Mediterranean restaurant just on the other side of the road from the hotel. I headed out for dinner around 9 pm at night and was looking for something cosy and comforting. Doretta fit the bill, even though the restaurant is located in an area of equally expensive restaurants (one glance at the shops on the street would would tell you that)

I have yet to try many Greek restaurants in the US, even after almost 4 years here, but the cuisine is just as mouth-watering as I remembered.  The food was full-flavoured and wonderful, and the serving sizes were generous.

To start, there was a tangy mushroom appetizer on the house.

Mushroom Appetizer

While I like mushrooms, I don't exactly love them. That said, the sourness of the vinegar added a fresh kick to the earthiness of the thinly sliced, lightly sauteed mushrooms and I polished off the dish.

The star of the evening was however the lamb main.

Lamb shoulder with loukaniko, lentils, turnip, and kumquat

The lamb was juicy, and melt-off-your-fork tender. The loukaniko (a Greek sausage) was brightly flavoured with hints of orange peel and fennel seeds and all kinds of wonderful herbs and seeds. Lentils are always a little boring to me, but these soaked up the lamb juices wonderfully. What do you say about turnips? I'm not sure, but the kumquats added an unexpected but refreshing tang. Overall, it was a satisfying dish, with plenty of flavours and variety, and most importantly, superbly cooked lamb. Heaven.

The service here was great (attentive but not pushy), and there were quite a number of parties here just catching up over glasses of wine and small plates of food. The price tag was relatively steep ($32 for the lamb main) but given the location, it's understandable. 

I had a great time, and know where I'm going to eat next time I do a fly-in/fly-out of Boston. 

Doretta Tavern & Raw Bar

79 Park The Garden, MA 

Mon-Sun 5pm - 1am 

Appellation

I've always had a soft spot for restaurant weeks. They remind me of the sheer number of options in the city, and to head out and try new restaurants. Since moving to Illinois, we've barely tested the Chicago  restaurant scene. Chicago Restaurant Week was as good of an excuse as we could get to catch up with friends and try a new place - multitasking sometimes works after all.

Our friends suggested we try Appellation because, wine. Appellation is a small wine bar attached to a cheese/wine/bread shop that serves food almost as an after-thought. However, it was cosy and inviting and had good reviews and seemed worth checking out. 

To kick things off, we each had a glass of Processo.

Prosecco

I didn't get the name of the wine, but it was crisp and refreshing - a perfect way to start. While the special dinner menu already consisted of an entree, main and dessert (or appetiser, entree and dessert if you're speaking American), we unanimously agreed that a charcuterie board was required. 

  

Charcuterie Board

On the board: housemade chicken liver mouse, duck rilette, coppa, dodge city salami, salami manzo. First impressions were that the board was nicely varied, with different flavours and textures, from creamy to crunchy, and silky with fat to sharply salty. Second impressions were that the bread was much too hard. Almost painfully so, which was the only disappointment for an otherwise solid dish. 

Onto the 'real' first course. There were 3 options; a mac and cheese, brussels sprouts, and a winter salad. No one particularly felt like a salad, and in-fact, 3/4 of the table chose the mac and cheese (I was the odd one out given my rocky relationship with dairy). 

Seasonal Mac and Cheese with Duck Confit and Roasted Kale

Who could blame them though .Mac and cheese is comfort food at its finest. More cheese than mac, with plenty of cream and just enough flavour to keep it from feeling overwhelming, this was a decent dish. Heavy, but satisfying. 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Carrots with Chermoula, Pickled Raisin and Essex Feta

I did enjoy my Brussels sprouts more, but I'm a little strange like that. A combination of crisp sprouts, with sweetness from the carrots and raisins, and a little tangy-ness from the feta made this a well-balanced dish. One that I could see myself trying to recreate at home actually.

After the lovely first course and a modest wait, it was onto the main meal. We ordered all three options between us. 

The hanger steak dish was a disappointment unfortunately.  

Hanger Steak with Bernaise Butter and Frites

Cold, dry and tasteless, I felt much happier with the fries than with the steak itself. I can understand it being difficult to time 4 dishes to come out at the same time, but I expected better.

The fish dish looked much better executed.

Sauteed Fish with Cauliflower Fennel Puree, Hazelnut Caper Brown B

This was not without it's issues, given the original dish was to be prepared with skate, but the kitchen ran out and so was replaced with halibut (if my memory serves me correctly). While I didn't taste the dish, it smelt good and appeared to be better cooked than the steak dish. 

The final offering was a cheese fondue. 

Fondue of Raclette and Hittisau served with Baguette and Cornichons

I'm not sure how M wasn't completely cheesed-out after the mac and cheese followed by this, but he enjoyed his choice. I personally would have preferred more cheese, less wine in this but it was definitely tasty (in small doses). 

And then onto more cheese for dessert! Well, not for M (maybe he was cheese-ed out). 

Restaurant Week Cheese Plate

A decent selection, some nice accompaniments, and thankfully soft bread. Nothing spectacular, but not a disappointment either. 

Option 2 was a winter Panna Cotta. Sweet and simple. 

Winter Panna Cotta

Option 3 (my choice) was a chocolate pudding. 

Chocolate Pudding with Orange Blossom with Whipped Cream and Pistachios

A light-weight dessert, the pistachios lent a nice salty contrast to the velvety, not-to-sweet chocolate pudding. I could have done without the whipped cream but each to their own. 

Overall thoughts on Appellation: good service and a cosy atmosphere in a simple, somewhat rustic setting. Wine selection is extensive, and product is good, although execution can sometimes be lacking. Perhaps this is more of a place for wine and bar snacks rather than a sit-down dinner. I'm glad we went and tried it though. 

Appellation

Street, IL 60640

Mon-Thu 4pm - 12 midnight, Fri/Sat 4pm - 1am, Sun 4pm-11pm

Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

As a mini-indulgence after a few months of hard work in the US, M and I decided to meet up and spend our Christmas and New Year’s in hectic New York. Known as the city-that-never-sleeps, the cacophony of noise, and the sheer mass of people is probably something that I would never get used to.

Thankfully, there’s plenty of good food to be had. On a freezing cold winter night, we headed off to Vic & Anthony’s Steakhouse near Union Square to get our fix of, well, steak.

Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

Cosy and warm with a friendly atmosphere, the restaurant had a focus on hearty meat-based meals, and suitably strong red wines to match. We decided to start with half a dozen natural oysters.

Fresh Oysters

They were accompanied by simple dressings intended to enhance their flavour. I’m still getting used to the milder flavours of US oysters vs. the Australian ones, but the most important element for an oyster dish is that they are fresh. These were certainly so.

For the mains, I continued the seafood theme (and broke the expectations of coming to a steakhouse), by ordering the sesame-crusted Ahi tuna. Still, tuna 'steak' is still steak right? 

Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna with Wasabi, Picked Ginger and Soy Ginger Glaze

Firm yet delicate, the slightly sweet glaze added a nice counterpoint to the meat-y flavour of the tuna. The crust was crunchy and not too thick, and the refreshing ginger and wasabi were requisite elements to complete the dish.

M chose the feature-dish in a filet mignon full of beautiful fat marbleised throughout the meat. 

Filet Mignon with Port Peppercorn Sauce

Rich and moist, it was a pretty perfect steak. The peppercorn sauce was creamy and not overly salty and helped balance out the heaviness of the meat.   

We had a great nice overall at Vic & Anthony’s. The service was efficient and the general ambiance was relaxing and romantic, but not overly so (a business dinner would be fine here). The food was excellent and while on the expensive side, easily justifiable for an indulgent night out. Next time, we’ll order dessert and a few more glasses of red to make it a perfectly decadent night.

Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

Mon 12pm-10pm, Tue-Sat 12pm-11pm, Sun 4pm-9pm

Wexler's

I think I'm incredibly lucky to be in San Francisco; there are just so many great restaurants scattered everywhere in the city. One such example is Wexler's, an unassuming little place in the Financial District.   Soothingly lit and and filled with the sounds of 80s pop, you can't help but relax a little when you walk through the front doors.

The menu is impressive, and reasonably priced with a menu that I suppose is modern American with a touch of French influence in style. To start off, we chose some BBQ Scotch Eggs, to share of course as we were already eyeing the dessert menu (more to come later).

BBQ Scotch Eggs with Burnt Ends, House Made Hot Sauce, Sweet Tea Gastrique

BBQ Scotch Eggs with Burnt Ends, House Made Hot Sauce, Sweet Tea Gastrique

I love runny yolks. With a slightly smoky flavour thanks to the crumb, the eggs worked really well with the accompanying hot sauce that added heat without excess salt.

For mains, it was indeed a meat affair. My friend ordered the short ribs, a cut of meat that is notoriously hard to get tender.

Smoked Short Rib with Braised Cabbage, Roasted Grapes, Mashed Potatoes, BBQ Au Jus

The meat was fall-off-the-bone tender and the accompaniments were a little unusual but certainly worked. A thoroughly well executed dish.

I ordered the pork cuts, without actually knowing what cuts of pork I would get.

Wexler’s Plate of Pork: Chef’s Selection of Cut and Seasonal Garnish

Somewhat disappointingly (in jest of course) I received nothing crazy in the end, just some generously sized chunks of pork that were perfectly moist and lightly flavoured. More apple sauce would not have gone astray, but the melting-ly soft apple were a very nice touch. 

When we saw what was on the dessert menu, we knew what we had to order.

Bourbon Banana Cream Pie with Dulce de Leche, Fleur de Sel

The banana, bourbon and cream pie was heavy on the bananas and cream, but not so much on the bourbon. That was slightly disappointing but it was a decent dessert nevertheless. The salted caramel certainly did wonders in making up for the lack of bourbon.

S'mores Brownie

The S'mores brownie was rich but perhaps a touch on the sweet side for my liking. It has given me inspiration to make my own version, with slightly less sugar in the brownie and a thicker layer of marshmallow.

Wexler's is impressive in atmosphere, service, and has great tasting food and at a reasonable price. I would certainly return, remembering that dessert should not be skipped, and perhaps sample from their interesting cocktail menu. The food is rich and fresh, and and refreshingly fun. Sounds like my type of a relaxing weekend meal. The Blood Orange-Fudge Pie on the current dessert menu is calling my name.

Wexler's

Mon 1130am-230pm, Tue-Thu 1130am-10pm, Fri 1130am-11pm, Sat 5pm-11pm

Trunk Diner

2013 is here already? Last year seems to have flashed by in a blur full of work, training, performances, mud races and of course lots of blogging including a site migration halfway through the year. I'm not one for resolutions, so I won't bore you by making up any of those, but 2013 food-wise hasn't been great so far. 

So, to celebrate the new year, I'll regale you with what I ate on NYE instead. After an astounding showing of The Hobbit at IMAX, we emerged happy yet somewhat hungry towards the tail end of lunch time. Not knowing what we felt like eating didn't help particularly, but out wanderings led us past Trunk Diner which was doing a roaring trade in the summer sun. 

Trunk Diner

The spin-off cafe-style establishment is next door to Trunk and has a much more relaxed feel with breakfast options, burgers, hot dogs, salads and of course beers amongst the offerings. Seeing as we decided to join in on the fun so late, there was only a limited menu available. Surely we'd find something to our tastes regardless though. 

We were right - mostly. M ordered a Chilli Cheese Dog.

Chilli Cheese Dog

The bread was really nice and soft, and there were plenty of tasty fillings (ground Wagyu chilli con carne & cheddar cheese) but $12 for a hot dog is a bit much in my book. Another in our party ordered a chorizo quesadilla (the only one available) which included chorizo, potato, thyme, oven baked tomato & cheese. Apologies for the missing photo, but once again there were no complaints about the taste or the filling, only how small the serving was for the $10 price tag. 

I had a little more luck with my Un-Cut salad of roast pumpkin, spinach, peas, green beans, corn, spring onion, pearled barley, Persian fetta & toasted almonds with a lemon zest dressing. I added some poached chicken for an extra boost of filling protein, and the damage was only $14. 

The Un-Cut Salad with Poached Chicken

I found the salad too bland, but the fresh produce and large serving meant that it was at least relatively satisfying. 

We were all much happier with our side-order of large fries though.

Fries

It makes little sense to go to an American Diner and not order fries after all. Thinly cut and heavily salted, this is healthy resolution breaking food, but beat a serve of McDonalds' fries any day.

If I were a beer drinker willing to spend a lazy afternoon snacking and relaxing in the sun with a great bunch of people, Trunk Diner would be perfect. As someone looking for a value-for-money bite to eat, Trunk Diner isn't quite what I'm after. Still, the atmosphere is great (in good weather especially) and the service is reasonable. The burger options sound tempting though so I may return for another trial - after all, I still have 363 days left in the year. 

Trunk Diner

Mon-Fri 730am-4pm, Sat-Sun 8am-4pm