What I Had For Dinner Last Night!

This one's for you,Baydog! Should've known better than to mention that friends and I indulged in a restaurant week meal at a seafood restaurant of good repute without bothering to say what we ate, right?

We all ordered off of the special prix-fixe menu - in fact I'm copying the descriptions 'cause I can't remember all the little touches.

Starter - seared fluke roll (sushi) with marinated kohlrabi, shiso, ruby red grapefruit. I wasn't sure how they were going to work in the grapefruit but it was just a little bit sprinkled over the top, nice bit of tart sweetness against the saltier flavors.

Entree - Tough call, they had thyme roasted artic char, a crispy brook trout (one of us had that, looked like a cornmeal crust), and a grilled shrimp and braised pork belly dish. I liked the look of the accompaniments for the char (sweet shrimp & tuscan kale risotto, black mission fig, port wine -- I LOVE risotto!) better than the ones with the trout, and although usually I just stop dead when I hit the word "braised" on a menu, I thought since I was at the Blue Water Grill, I should focus on the fish (plus that way I save the pork-belly indulgences for my local fave Purple Yam). It was fantastic.

Dessert, I went for the chocolate espresso thingy - fantastic, sort of a flourless chocolate base with a thin layer of mousse on top. I owed the waiter for that one, I love all kinds of custard and they had a panna cotta and I couldn't decide so I asked the waiter which one he liked better & he didn't have to think about it for a second.

Restaurant Week was such a good invention - M had actually thought of setting up last night's dinner gathering because she and I had just been in Union Square a few weeks ago, walked past the restaurant, and got to reminiscing about this wonderful meal we'd had there a few years ago, when I'd gotten a gift card as a holiday gift at work. Blue Water Grill is a bit beyond our normal means these days, but the Restaurant Week menu was a very reasonable $35.00 (and in fact I didn't see anything on the normal menu that looked better than what I had). Of course, the two of us who indulge in alcohol did make it a little splurgier by splitting a bottle of the suggested red, a very nice Pinot Noir from New Zealand winery Stoneleigh - sometimes not having to drive home really is a good thing!

Can't afford to dine like that too often, but boy, is it ever nice to indulge every now & then.

And, oh boy. It just hit me that next indulgence might just be Bigelow's - there were rumours of another seal paddle this coming weekend! note later - oops. Not happening. Stupid NOAA.

Jones Beach marine forecast:

Saturday: NNW wind 6 to 11 kt increasing to 12 to 17 kt. Winds could gust as high as 25 kt. Snow likely, mainly before 9am. Seas 1 ft or less.

Sunday: NW wind 17 to 20 kt increasing to 21 to 24 kt in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 34 kt. A slight chance of snow showers after noon. Seas 1 ft or less.