Mimino

In London I was exposed to many different restaurants.  One of the most interesting the the Georgian restaurant, Mimino in the Kensington neighborhood.

For an appetizer I choose the Badrijani, roasted eggplant with walnut sauce.  Pretty good, obviously similar to babaganoush, but it felt more like humus.  The serving was also for a table, not one guy.  I felt full after eating it.  Fortunately I had bread and the entree next

The entree was chanakhi, lamb stew with tomatoes and eggplants.  This wasn't too spicy and had a dominate tomato flavor.  I didn't get much out of the lamb meat, and the eggplants were too mushy to be of any substance.  Nothing tasted bad in the dish, I believe I was hoping for something more exotic.

 

www.mimino.co.uk

 

Nardini's/Toni Macaroni

While dinning at Nardini's of the Toni Macaroni Group in Largs, Scotland I was able to try Haggis.  I was not able to try the traditional meat product stuffed in a sheep's stomach, I did get the meat part.  I liked it, was able to eat all of it, and would do it again.  The only caveat haggis comes with is the limited portion size I desire to consume.  Though I only had a small portion I felt like I was carrying it around with me for a couple of days afterwards.

It was topped with red cabbage and served with mashed potatoes and lamb shanks (I think).  I ate all of it and thought the entire meal was great. This was a perfect meal to fall asleep immediately after.

http://www.nardinis.co.uk/

The restaurant looked like it had gone through a recent makeover and was mostly Italian cuisine.  The other people I dinned with indicated the food was good.

The Commodore

While in Scotland for work I visited The Commodore in Helensburg.  I was pleasantly surprised at the cozy atmosphere and the great food.  Prior to the appetizers we were treated to cracklins, something I was unfamiliar with.  Basically they are fried bits o' pig.  They went great with beer, my only constructive criticism was that I didn't get enough.

http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/thecommodorehelensburgh/

As an appetizer I had the French Onion soup.  This tasted good, I ate all of it, but was no different than any other above average french onion soup I've eaten elsewhere.  There was no melted cheese on top of the soup.  The meal was served with toasted cheese bread.  I thought that was a little more useful than the mushy bread that often comes baked into the French Onion soup.

For the entree I had, for the first time, braised pork belly.  The meat has layers of fat it in, but not so much that it interferes with eating.  The fat was cooked enough, or delicate enough that it either melted or digested while you were chewing on it.

 

 

To keep myself warm, I added a portion of red cabbage to my entree.  It was served with white raisins, I wasn't particularly pleased with the addition of raisins to the red cabbage.  But, I also don't really care for raisins in wet food.

 

Overall this was a great pub to eat a warm meal on a rainy night in Scotland.

Norfolk Chop House

Late this summer Cary and I ventured out to the Norfolk Chop House for a dinner with Tina and Eric.  We were both very curious about this new restaurant with exciting possibilities for good cow meat.

The special for Sunday evenings was Prime Rib.  Both of us love Prime Rib and we each ordered to our preference, Cary likes hers medium, and I like mine medium well.  Both came out almost rare and covered in fat.  I was dissapointed in the meat selection, I believe Outback Steakhouse has better cuts of meat.  By no means did the cook make the meat uneatable, or awful tasting.  I got the impression the chef thinks meat tastes good one way, rare, and he doesn't care what the order specificies.  Its a shame, Cary and I were hoping to like this place.  There really isn't a god steak place in Norfolk.

The appetizers were fine and the servers were very nice.  If you've never been inside the restaurant you should go once, they've done a nice job of making the place look like a nice restaurant.

http://www.norfolkchophouse.com/

Bermuda Food

The photos of the food that we ate in Bermuda are spread out over several phones and cameras, so this is not a complete photo-shoot and updates may come later.

Prior to travelling to Bermuda Cary and I both read that we should expect mediocre food, like one would expect to find in England.  We did not find this to be the case, the food was very good.  FIsh and chips was the staple.  This is the closest that I would get to England in a while and figured this should be pretty close to what I would get there.  I tasted good, the fried portion generally helps everything taste good.  Not much different than a serving one could get in the United States.  I think I had this meal three times in Bermuda, each one was pleasant and filled me up.

The picture above is of a T Bone served at the restaurant Blu.  Cary had the filet.  This was by far the best meal we had on the island.  Blu was on a posh resort with what looked to be a very nice golf club, the food was very expensive and the wait staff was average.  The steak was mouth watering good.

In the hotel we stayed at there were several restauarnts.  The neatest of which was a nautical themed place called "something."  They had an excellent sellection of seafod, expensively priced.  Cary had "unknown" and I had "fish"  My fish was only OK and Cary's was great.

 

The experience Cary and I had while in Bermuda was excellent.  One need not worry about the blandness of the food.  The only real bad experience we had was by the swimming pool when we ordered a vegetable wrap.  It wasn't that good and screaming kids will ruin any experience.

Ribs

Summer 2012

Based upon the ribs I had in Colorado with Nikolai and Audrey I attempted to replicate the recipe.  I bought one rack o' ribs from the store, cut it in two.  The length would not fit into the crock pot.  Placed both smaller racks in the crock pot with three bottles of beer and put the heat on low for about 6 hours.  In hindsight, I think I left it in the beer for too long.  When I estimated they were ready for the grill, much of the meat fell off as I was pulling the ribs out of the crock pot.  Prior to placing them on the rib I coated them with homemade barbecue sauce, courtesy of the internets.  I used the grill to place a nice crust on the ribs and then served with french fries and broccoli.  They were awesome!

Citrus Virginia Beach, Virginia

Cary and I ventured out to Citrus in Virginia Beach for brunch.  We had never heard of this place until it was recommended to us by a friend of ours.  Online we discovered that Guy Fieri had visited the restaurant for his Diners and Dives television show. 

There was a 45 minute wait to sit.  Fortunately they have a bar set up for the massive amount of people waiting to be seated.  The drink of choice was a Citrus Mimosa.  It tasted good.  Good enough to have two.

When we were seated our orders were promptly taken.  I chose the Fried Softshell crab sandwich.  Cary choose the Egg white Omelet with hashbrowns and Sweet Potato biscuit.  All of the food tasted as if it had been appropriately cooked. 

We discovered nothing at this restaurant that justified a 45 minute wait.