After several nights of scrounging leftovers and whatnot, we had a fancy dinner out for a friend's birthday at Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis for a good friend's birthday. The friend has introduced us to some excellent people at a recent dinner, so it was nice to converse with them. We ordered some Barbecue Nachos for the table. Said Birthday friend is a wine guy, so he paid a corkage fee and had us all covered for the evening. He even had a thirty-three-year-old wine to share, in honor of his birthday. It wasn't terrible, but the cork pretty much turned to dust, so high-jinks ensued trying to get that baby out. The wine was over-aged, but none of us had ever had a thirty-three-year-old wine before, so that was all part of the experience.
Good food, good company, good night. (I mean that quite literally, as I convinced the Man of the House cut out early. I fell asleep on the way home, and again when I was nursing the baby. I woke up around 1am when the Man was dealing with the Sassy One and the Tiny Little Cashew tumbled off the bed onto a pile of dirty laundry. Apparently the Man had fallen asleep in front of UFC when I never came to tell him to go to bed.
When I got Cashew righted and put safely to her crib, I found Sassy lying on the bathroom mat. I was bleary-eyed, tired, & confused. I took my contacts out, slipped on some pjs, swished my mouth with Listerine, and let the Man deal with whatever it was that I couldn't quite make sense of.
Two nights later, we went to the Zac Brown Band concert with our good friends (Cashew's godparents). Female-good-friend-godparent wanted to do dinner out before hand. You will NEVER hear me object for a chance to explore the culinary offerings of our fair city. The show was at the Target Center, so we went for something close. I suggested Solera and the other's agreed after we confirmed times and location and all. I love, love, loved it! I think the Man & FGFGP liked it almost as much. I'm not so sure about MGFGP as he literally has no sense of taste (I'm sure I'll write more about that some other time), and so the joys of tapas and flavor varieties, etc. may have been a bit lost on him. We did get to try some amazing food. If you've never had Spanish-style tapas and you like a variety of good flavors, I'd have to recommend you go for it. (We actually did a tapas menu for Elizabeth's baptism, and it was a hit...another Rachael Ray hybrid, actually, from her "Greatest Hits" type cookbook).
I had an amAzing glass of red wine that was a tempranillo blended with a Spanish grape that starts with a "c" and I can't remember anymore. Most expensive glass of wine I've every purchased, but I'd honestly say it was worth it. ($15/glass, if you care) Michael had a sangria that I don't remember the details of, but suffice to say, it was good.
We ordered some pistachio chicken croquetas, duck liver mousse, jamon iberico (ooh, I'm on a laptop and I don't have my special characters and that's going to drive me nuts...eee), and a Mahon cheese plate for the first round, stuffed piquillo peppers, prawns al ajillo, baby-back ribs, and some bacon-wrapped, goats-cheese-filled dates. The dates were to-die-for. No lie. They were maybe the best thing I've ever eaten. I would make a special trip JUST for those. Our last round we had some lomo (cured pork, similar to the iberico) and some braised beets (golden and red). Everything was good. I know I'm forgetting something. Everything came with things like cracker-crisps, quince jelly, marinated pistachios, bread-and-butter pickles (which I usually hate, but actually kind of liked) and some day-pickles.
With the alcohol, the tab was a bit spendy. Luckily, unlike Friday we didn't have to pay for a sitter. (Family helping out, thank goodness). Cannot *wait* to get back!
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