The Dinner

Wednesday nights dinner was beyond being able to put into words. The food was great, but I think what I liked more than the food was the people we got to meet and the conversation. We met Dotty Griffith and she also had a friend of hers join us. He used to own 1/2 of this magazine. I did not find this out until we had left that evening. He had mentioned what he did and I did not grasp it the background noise was too loud. When we left Scott then told me he had owned 1/2 of the magazine and sold it a few years ago. Needless to say he has done QUITE well for himself. We went to Brio Tuscan Grille. And this is how things work when you go with a food critic...you EAT A LOT, and DRINK A LOT. Dotty told us that this is how it works, everyone has to get something different from the menu. She has to try everyone's item and we are allowed to try anything of hers we care to. We will have drinks, appetizers, a main course and dessert. (And then off to the bathroom to puke!) We had two bottles of wine with only three people drinking. We ordered two appetizers, we had the fried calamari and the beef carppacio. I selected the beef, it was really very good, my one suprise's for the evening, beef carppacio is raw sliced beef, yes raw never seen any heat source unless the plate serving the meat has just been taken out of the dishwasher. Raw, and I am not into raw meat, but I selected it and it was good. It had a very clean taste and truthfully it did not taste like anything. The aoli they served with it and the mixed greens were really good. It was very cleansing to the pallet.

On to this main course, everyone at the table orders an entree'. I had the grilled lamb chops because lamb in an Italian setting sounded very interesting. Scott had the wood planked grilled salmon, Dotty had the Shrimp and Lobster Garganelli Pasta, and Michael our other dining companion had the grilled center cut-filet. Then we also had the straw and hay pasta dish. The waiter miss keyed my order and I got pork chops, they worked to correct that and get me the lamb chops, they let us keep the pork chops also. We had a TON of food. I had all that was left, which was 4 containers full packed up to take home.

Then we moved to coffee and dessert. We had the trio dessert, it was three desserts, a cheesecake that had been encased in a sugar creme-brulee like sugar topping. Then this dessert also had creme brulee and a warm chocolate torte with a scoop of vanilla gelato. It was just so much food. All the food I brought home I took to work on Thursday and 4 of us ate it for lunch and we still had one meal left. TONS OF FOOD. It was spectacular and I would really eat there again. The location was very nice, parking was a hassle but we figured it out and tons of shopping right out the front door. It is located in an open air mall. It was an experience that I am not likely to forget. I would love to have a job like that! I have to find my food business niche.