BrewHaus

Wow. New on the North Shore (open since September), tonight was my first exposure to their brats, kraut, and beer from a faucet. 

We 3 settled into a bier hall style trestle table and jumped in with a fried kraut ball appetizer.  The beer menu is long on local brews and short on lagers from Deutschland, but all come served in steins measured by the liter...so, Win!

I ordered an encased meat entrée, served with some home style potatoes, spaetzle, and sauteed veggies. Mein Frau took the wiener Schnitzel and similar sides.

The space was small and cozy, and the service was friendly and quick. 

The food tasted great, and all in the bill ran to $60 (1.5 liters of beer, app, 2 entrees)

Public House

I meant to take pictures in the tradition of obnoxious food bloggers everywhere, but I forgot...maybe I was distracted by my beautiful date.

We ditched the baby at my sister's and headed downtown to the Public House. Located in the boutique-ified new version of the Warehouse Row shops, the PH first came to my attention via their bar.

On a prior investigative trip to WR, and while amazed at the transformation from the outlet store offering of my youth, I came upon and was arrested by the sight of a swanky cocktail lounge called "the Social".  It may have just been because I had a kid hanging from me in a Bjorn, but on that day and at that moment, an upscale bar featuring handcrafted cocktails seemed absurdly adult...absurd in a way that I wanted to internalize.

Anyway, fast forward.  My sister offered last minute to watch our darling baby boy and I whipped out Open Table and found us a spot at PH. 

We did start in The Social and I had one of those handcrafted cocktails.  I forget what it was called, but it was a mix of light rum, grape, and house candied ginger.  It was delightful.  Mi amor had some pinot noir. Smiles all around. 

On to dinner.  The room was nice, with some clever design elements without being fussy or precious.  We started with a cheese plate and some bread (from local bakery Niedloves) and I jumped in on the pinot bandwagon for the remainder of mealtime. 

The entrée menu was a little surprising. The focus seemed to be gussied up comfort food, and if that theme had been communicated prior, I had missed it. They had pot roast, fried chicken, a steak option, grilled pork tenderloin ...and some fish dishes as well.  Many dishes featured grits. I chose the pork (grilled medium, with grits and sauteed kale) and she took the pot roast (also with kale and a fairly safe version of mashed potato) .

The food was well prepared and tasty, with a reasonable seasoning.  The service was professional and courteous, and we finished up with some apple fritters and a semifreddo (runny ice cream).

My date offered one of our best compliments: "this is a place we could bring out of town friends."

Asparagus

It happens every time - I eat a bunch of asparagus and then an hour later I think "what is that smell?"

Happy 6 months!

You are awesome!

Tilapia Tacos

We must be on a roll over here, cooking at home and making fun and fresh meals to boot.

Tonight, we made a new (to us) version of fish tacos. We cut up some tomatoes, onion, and cilantro, and added a splash of lime for some pico de gallo, and I blended up some more cilantro, with a good bit of garlic, salt, and some olive oil to make a sauce.

 We also sliced some fresh avocado and limes for additional layers of topping and depth of flavor.

The tilapia I seasoned with salt, pepper, and chili powder and browned in my cast iron pan (just a very little bit of olive oil in the pan), cooking for about 6 minutes total.

 The Fresh Market had some nice looking taco-sized tortillas in both yellow and white corn varieties, so I got some of both.

 The tacos came together well, and while a little messy to eat, I would definitely serve this meal to friends and family.  Between bites we discussed how some jalapenos or other spicy addition might be welcome for some.

I really like cooking at home when it works out this well.

Caprese and calamari

Tonight's fare may win the approval of our food friend Jeni Lee, or at least half of the dishes. 

I got some nice heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil for a nice caprese salad (finished with a little olive oil and pepper).

 To make this a meal, I also hand breaded and fried some calamari, dredged in some flour with paprika, chili powder, and garlic powder. Out of the oil, I added a little sea salt and ground pepper.

This was a great dinner, and fresh.

gas grill paella

A few years ago my sister and  traveled to Spain for the wedding of a friend.  She was married in a royal palace outside of Madrid, and it was beautiful as all weddings must be.  But for me, the real joy of the trip was seeing Madrid in the hands of a native.

We ate tapas at the best bars, and we dined with both our host family at their home and out at the most examplar restaurants they knew.  For one such dinner, we went out to a place famous for paella, and we dined in an inner courtyard under the open sky on paella and wine and friendly joy, and it was awesome.

Since that dinner I have thought of paella often and with strong feeling.  For the Christmas dinner we hosted this year, paella-style rice was one of our complementary courses.  Emboldened by that relative success, we thought this evening of doing a full-on paella for dinner, unburdened by guests and their tastes.

We elected to use the gas grill on the back deck, and we started with heating some olive oil in a paella pan.  When sufficiently hot, we added some raw (fresh, tail and shell on) shrimp and spanish-style chorizo.  Chorizo is awesome, and vegetarian should acknowledge it. 

After the shrimp were all pink and happy, we removed them to a bowl grill-side, and tossed in some chopped onions to simmer in the olive oil.  This took some time, which allowed for a refill on the homemade margaritas.  If you do not know how to make homemade margaritas, I weep for you.

Somewhere in the midst of cooking down the onions I added some salt, pepper, and paprika.  The hard core recipes call for Spanish style pimenton - you don't have that in your pantry, so use paprika.

This is the shrimp and chorizo, all cooked/warmed up, hanging out in a bowl by the grill waiting to be reintroduced to the juicy rice.

And speaking of, after the onions have softened a bit and begun to color, I added the rice, a can of diced tomatoes, and enough chicken stock to cover the rice.  At this point, the heat should be high enough to make the oil/rice/tomato mix bubble.

After 20 minutes or so, the liquid should have mostly bubbled away.  The secret of authentic paella is that rice should actually burn a little bit on the bottom - the crusty rice, soaked in shrimp juice, onion flavor, and chicken stock is super tasty.  Oh, and I forgot, we added some peas to the pan with the shrimp, etc.

We served the paella on the table in the pan, along with some sliced crusty bread.

It was awesome.