That’s our edible adventure… do you feel a bit full yourself now?

It was an incredible start to an AMAZING lunch. On June 30th, we headed to Montalcino to tour Poggio Antico winery and enjoy a leisurely lunch at their award-winning restaurant (I don’t know exactly what awards they may have won but I assume a Michelin star or something like that; it really was to-die-for).

We were a group of 14: eight adults and six under 18. The Bessers, Jevons’, Lodge-Gutierrez’ and GutierrezHouseholders bonded over our mutual love of Italian brunellos, fine food and conversation. We were also celebrating Mica’s birthday (29 again… lucky girl with those youthful Gutierrez’ genes!). Unbeknownst to us, Francesca (Mica’s sister) and Bill (Mica’s husband) had arranged a surprise cake for the birthday girl. The bigger surprise came later when we discovered they had quietly taken care of the bill, which I’m sure was substantial given all we ate and drank.

Thanks, Francesca, Mathew and Bill for treating us to such an incredible lunch; it was truly unforgettable! Here’s just a peek (I was only photographing dishes at our end of the table):

Mathew’s egg appetizer. Some how it was soft or medium boiled, removed from its shell, then dipped in bread crumbs and deep fried. Those potato chip looking things are made from black truffles, I think.

Tate’s beef carpaccio appetizer; lucky for us, he shared with Mom and Dad!

Dane’s tagliatelle al ragu (his main course).

Tate’s agnolotti pasta (his main course); he traded most of it for the lamb chops Paul and I had (as did Dane).

These were cooked to perfection. Our boys each ate two.

Tate’s salad course. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a salad presented more beautifully in all our trips to Italy. The corner drops were aged balsamic vinegar. I got to eat quite a bit of this when Tate became interested in my lamb chops.

Mica’s surprise cake: a heavenly combination of berries and chocolate.

I don’t think we left a morsel of anything, except for the remainder of Mathew and Francesca’s GIANT bistecca alla Fiorentina. They finished it one night for dinner.

Comments, anyone?

Enjoy the ride while you can, parents!

On our trip last week, we made dinner at Chuy’s our first priority. We headed over after Paul’s final meeting of the day and caught the tail end of happy hour (lucky bastards, we are).

Tate, being Texas-born, immediately took to queso. One of the bar waiters sweetly brought over another complimentary bowl for him since the vat at the salsa bar was on its last dregs. Since he loved it so much – and I am anti-Velveeta again now that we’re back in the land of fruits and vegetables – I decided to look for a healthier version I can make at home.

By the way, the top photo is not mine. I found it on numerous websites and can’t find the original artist – to that unnamed person, I apologize. I don’t like using other peoples’ photos without proper credit (though I admit to not publishing photographers’ names when I purchased stock photos in the early days of my blog – I’m better about it now, FYI).

That said, here looks like a really terrific, reasonably healthy version:

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-natural-chile-con-queso.html

We’re moving our annual sangria party to later in the summer in case some of you were wondering why you hadn’t received an invitation in the mail by now. When we get through this especially busy time, you’ll find me whipping this up for friends. It just might become a summer staple around here!

Notice that you’re near the end of this post and I have not yet mentioned BBQ. Frankly speaking, it’s a religion in Texas and I am just not a convert. We did go to Ironworks on Friday afternoon. Paul was in heaven (and Tate to a certain degree) but Dane and I were a bit lost. Maybe it was all the cigarette butts we picked up around Lake Austin that morning – more on that tomorrow – but I could not muster all that much enthusiasm for smoked meat.

If you’re planning a trip to Austin, you should definitely try BBQ. There are LOTS of options: Ironworks or Kreutz’ for Kansas City-style bbq or The Salt Lick for whatever the antithesis of Kansas City-style sauce is (I think the meat is essentially prepared in the same manner however).

We went back the second day (Thursday) for lunch and also made one last lunch and shopping stop on Saturday before getting on the plane to come home. More tomorrow and maybe the next day about our Austin restaurant excursions and heavenly 24 hours at the Four Seasons.

If you want to check out the Central Market website, go to: http://www.centralmarket.com/default.aspx

As you can see from Tate’s smile, the entire dinner was a hit; he’s already asking about when we can go back (and for the record, he thinks the potato pizza is a tie with Serious Pie!).

I highly recommend flour+water but want to caution parents that service is very leisurely. We were there for 1 hour and 40 minutes which was a bit long for a school night dinner. Reservations are a must as the poor folks waiting in the rain can attest.

http://www.flourandwater.com/

5:30 to 11pm Sunday through Wednesday
5:30 to midnight Thursday-Saturday

2401 Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94113
415.826.7000

This dish easily had WAY MORE tuna than the fried rice version (which I’d spied at the next table). The above image does not do it justice (indoor restaurant lighting and I didn’t have my Speedlite flash handy); The tuna was perfectly seared and Gregg plated it over a sweet-spicy sauce which I think contained soy sauce, brown sugar, jalapenos, and ginger. It was amazing! We all repeated dishes from the previous night’s dinner, too. Dane: shrimp; Tate: taco, me: BLT salad. We skipped the sides in order to have room for dessert.

We decided on the caramelized banana tart with coconut ice cream and rum/pineapple sauce. It was so incredibly over-the-top fabulous, I’m still thinking about it.

And the best (for me) was yet to come. Not only did they comp dessert, they charged the tuna tataki at the same price as the sashimi over fried rice appetizer.

Tate summed it up best that night: “It is so fun to be us right now!”

That night, the chef also visited our table and prepared us a special appetizer… but that’s a story for tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned!

P.S. In case you are interested, you may learn more at the resort’s website: http://www.cliffsresort.com/dining/

After a brief nap, we took a moderately expensive taxi ride to Brooklyn so Tate could realize one of his 2010 goals: eat a BLT at Choice Market. Fans of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” will remember this small restaurant from the ‘with Bacon’ episode. Our friend, Dave, who lives nearby, met us for lunch. Five BLTs were ordered and quickly consumed… delicious! To this day, Tate still describes the sandwich with a combination of awe and longing. Dinner that night was at my favorite NYC establishment: Balthazar. The boys were excited about the fries, dubbed the ‘BEST’ by Bobby Flay in the ‘Totally Fried’ episode of “The Best Thing…” They didn’t disappoint, neither did the perfectly cooked steaks and my selection of spring pea ravioli.

The next morning, we raced down to Clinton Street Bakery, made famous (at least to us) in an episode of “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” (most of our tv-watching is on the Food Network, in case you didn’t notice). The Clinton Street Bakery makes, hands down, the best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever eaten. That, plus the sugar-cured bacon, was enough to make me pre-diabetic, but it was so, so good. Later that morning, we decided to double down on the sweets and try to find the Wafels and Dinges (Belgian waffle) truck. Even though we were in the right place, we missed the truck by about half an hour (they sold out early). So we found a cute little lunch place (also a chain, I believe), Financier. Everyone had salads (Greek, Italian, etc.) and we resolved to find the truck on our return visit the following week.

In hindsight, it was better we didn’t find the waffle truck just then. In the afternoon, we trekked over to the upper West side and went to Levain Bakery to sample their chocolate chocolate cookies (favorite of chef Rocco Dispirito). The taste (and calorie content) were off the charts! We ate them fresh from the oven and they were crispy on the outside and moist/chewy on the inside. It would be so nice to know how they do this but it is a closely guarded secret (that not even Rocco or Bobby Flay can get out of them… a bummer for those who live on the West Coast).

That night, we had an early dinner at Daisy Mae’s BBQ on the recommendation of TV Chef, Michael Symon. He raved about the beef ribs in another “The Best Thing…” episode so it was definitely on our culinary radar. We walked up to the counter and innocently ordered two beef ribs and two sides without looking at the price list. When the woman behind the register said, “Eighty-three dollars,” my jaw dropped. Each 20-oz beef rib was a whopping $38. We quickly re-thought things and decided to start with one, just in case it was too much for the four of us. Turns out, it was just enough! Tate insisted on saving the 10+ inches of beef bone for our dog, Scout, and we wrapped it up to go (we carried the bone to Connecticut for a few days and then to Maine, finally throwing it out just before returning for a last, 24-hour stop in NYC).

My apologies for the lack of photos; we brought our little Nikon Coolpix camera instead of the multi-lens Canon Digital Rebel and I don’t like to photograph food with a point-and-shoot.

To be continued…