Three Dog Kitchen

Wednesday night we met with the second landscape guy (whom T likes; I like the first one) to go over his quote and such.  Boy, redoing your entire backyard is not cheap.  But, if we can get it done, it will look so nice.  Clean, polished, comfortable, and a place where we can relax outside and I will most likely complain out loud about the neighbor’s smoking.  I’m not fond of our neighbors. 

Anyway, after that meeting we had to decide on dinner.  Because T had been gone over the weekend on his 4-day trip, I spent all those meals cooking for myself.  I don’t think I ate out once while he was gone.  As such, I was kind of tired of eating at home and I wanted to go out.  Of course, due to his absence, T had a list of things to do before we headed on vacation.  I was trying to make a case for Souplantation, he was trying to push the envelope of tortilla soup (that would make 8 cups) we had in the pantry.  I had almost argued (internally) that we could eat at home since we’d be spending the next week, essentially, eating out and spending money.  But, I must have been pouty and T is too nice to me, so we ended up in the car headed to Souplantation.  On the way there, we passed Outback Steakhouse, for which I had a $25 giftcard (thanks, Melanie!)  It was closer, it would be cheaper, and that’s how we ended up there instead of Souplantation.

We ended up with a variety of dishes: seared tuna, french onion soup, a blue cheese side salad, and I ordered the Slow-Roasted Sirloin Medley.  Now, there is also a dish on the specials menu called Herb-Rubbed Slow Roasted Sirloin.  This dish comes on a crouton, with steamed vegetables, garlic mashed potatoes, and au jus dipping sauce.  However, I wanted the dish I had last time - the Sirloin Medley.  The Medley has sirloin on a crouton, but it has grape tomatoes, asparagus, spinach, and is topped with a garlicky-herb dressing.  It’s really good.  Now, why would a restaurant name two different dishes with such a similar name?  You might argue that they aren’t all that different, but if you want spinach and garlic sauce and not potatoes and au jus, it’s a huge difference.  So, we made sure the server wrote down the right one (Sirloin Medley) and he even checked with 3 people to make sure he was putting in the order for the correct dish.  What comes out?  Yup, the one with mashed potatoes.  He approached our table and before he even set it down I said, “That’s the wrong one.”  He took it back and came back with the same plate with tomatoes, asparagus, and the garlic dressing on top.  So, I had a combination of the two dishes, but without the spinach and with a lump of potatoes that neither of us ate.  To make up for this odd snafu, we got free ice cream with hot fudge sauce, which made us very full but it was good.  I think someone in the kitchen was confused because our receipt even said “Sirloin Medley” instead of “Herb Rubbed Sirloin”.

If you go to Outback and you want the good sirloin dish, make sure you order the one that says Medley (and it’s on the regular menu) and make sure your dish comes with grape tomatoes and a garlicky-herb dressing.  If it shows up with garlic mashed potatoes, it’s the wrong dish.

To Outback: Just because you add “Medley” to the end of one and “Herb-Rubbed” to the beginning of another dish title doesn’t mean your people will get it right.  I have no clear solution for you, as I’m not sure how I’d rename either dish, but perhaps you should have tested the dish names in-house for a while before releasing them to the public.  You know, like a quiz. 

“Bob, what’s on the Slow-Roasted Sirloin Medley?” 

“Uh, sirloin slices on a large crouton with, um, wait.  Is that the one with the mashed potatoes or the tomatoes and asparagus?  What’s the other one called?  Herb-Rubbed Slow-Roasted Sirloin?”

“Hmm… I see where you’re getting confused.  Perhaps we should work on this a little more.”

So, we’re going on this cruise to Alaska next week for our vacation.  I’m really looking forward to it, both because it’s a vacation and because it’s a cruise.  I love cruises and I’m glad that our Mexico cruise two years ago went so well (aside from an engine breaking and us missing Puerto Vallarta) because that means T won’t say no on future cruises.  I’m a big fan of unpacking my bags once, not worrying about where to eat, and definitely not being in charge of what time we’ll get to whatever place we’re headed.  My only responsibility is making sure we get back to the ship on time so it doesn’t leave us stranded.  And when we go on shore excursions booked through the cruise ship, they are responsible for returning us on time!  Yes, you pay more to book through them, but it’s worth my peace of mind.

Anyway, everyone knows that when you go on a cruise you are faced with multiple multi-course meals every day.  Plus a midnight snack and round-the-clock room service.  In preparation for this gluttony, I started taking salads to work.  Not only does this save money (I figure I spend $6 every time I go to the deli next door), but salads are good for you.  I actually don’t mind eating salads, as long as there’s a tasty dressing to drizzle over.  For a while, I would make salads with other tasty things: carrots, beets, cheese, hard-boiled egg, etc.  I would put dressing on the bottom of the container, put in the non-lettuce foods, add lettuce and then take it to work.  At lunchtime, I’d turn the whole thing upside down and shake.  Dressing and non-soggy lettuce, ta da!  But then I ran out of other things for my salads and I just never got around to buying more.  So I started relying on communal dressings in the work fridge.  But I got tired of them and then I started thinking of all the preservatives and then the expiration date and at one point I just ate my lettuce plain.  I remembered seeing salad bowls with built-in containers for dressing, so I actually bought one:

The idea is that you pour dressing into the container on top (which doesn’t unscrew from the lid, as far as I could tell) and pop the cover on.  Then you press down on the top, which pushes on a stick inside and pops the cover off (on the bottom, towards the salad inside).  The problem is that the cover doesn’t really stay on, so chances are that your salad will get doused with dressing before you’re ready.  Doesn’t really solve the soggy-lettuce problem, huh?  But, if you’re willing to overlook this minor design flaw, let me tell you that it is ridiculously hard to clean the little dressing container.  It doesn’t come off, it’s really hard to get inside, and… well, it’s lame.  Don’t buy it.  If you see it at Target or The Container Store, step away.  It’s not a good product.  I hear the one by Fit ‘n Fresh isn’t much better, either.

I kept thinking that someone should just make a salad bowl with a tiny dressing container that snaps into place.  Even my smallest plastic containers are just a bit too big for salad dressing, and who wants to keep track of a tiny container anyway?  I was actually at the point of wondering if perhaps I should invent such a container when I went shopping at Target.  And if I could find my salad bowl on Target’s website, I would totally show you a picture because it is a genius product.

If your Target is like mine, there is a seasonal aisle that gets filled with Christmas decorations, chocolate hearts, Easter candy, and Halloween costumes.  Apparently, my mom’s Target Greatland is not like this because we couldn’t find such an aisle.  But!  My Target had their aisle decked out in summer goodies, picnic totes, and lots of other cool stuff.  Next to picnic tablecloths, summery plastic cups, and horseshoe sets, I found this awesome shelf with lunchboxes, small divided plastic lunch containers, and my salad bowl.  So, because I don’t have a picture, I’m going to describe it to you:  It is a transparent, oval container with either a blue or pink lid.  There is a green plastic fork that snaps onto the lid, as well as a small, round, green “sauce” container that also snaps into place on the lid.  It is just perfect and exactly what I was looking for.  I bought two.

I also bought this pretty flatware caddy.  There are woven ones in bright colors, but I also found this stainless steel one for the same price.  When we have parties, I stick the plastic utensils in plastic cups and one (or all) of them inevitably gets knocked over.  Now I have a pretty container to hold the utensils AND napkins!  I love Target.  So, go check out your summer aisle before it’s all picked over!  you should have seen the tablecloth weights I managed not to buy (so cute!) and the floral placemats.

I’m still here… I’m just really tired.  That’s so lame to admit, especially because I don’t have any good reason.  Maybe it’s because we didn’t really get to sleep in over the weekend.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to get up earlier in the morning before work.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been slacking on exercising.  Maybe it’s because my brain is exhausted just thinking of everything we need to do before going on vacation next month.

Maybe I’m just tired.

We had a good weekend, though.  We met with two landscape contractors who should be working on a proposal or rough quote or something that would, I hope, help us figure out who to hire.  That is, of course, unless the cost to redo the backyard comes in ridiculously high.  I mean, the plans we have aren’t that grand, but it does require ripping everything out and starting from scratch, including a new irrigation system.  I think it we got it done the yard would look amazing, though.

We also ventured out to Earth Day in Balboa Park to wander among earth-friendly folk, people just looking for free samples, and a corridor composed of disgusting abortion pictures.  Is that really an effective way to get the message across?  Because it doesn’t really sway my mind one way or the other, I just think the pictures are unnecessary and graphic.

Because Earth Day always draws such a huge crowd, we took the opportunity to have brunch at Cafe Chloe and then ride our bikes from downtown to the Park.  It was a quick ride and much nicer than dealing with the lines of cars and terrible parking.  Plus, we had a lovely brunch with amazing coffee!  On the way back, we had lunch at Neighborhood Bar and, while my tuna salad was refreshing and good, T’s burger was out of this world.  It was like the cow knew it was going to become a burger so it worked really hard at becoming the best burger a cow could become.  Seriously, the burger didn’t even taste like a burger.  It was like a juicy, rich, decadent meaty sandwich on a soft roll.  Really good.

T leaves on Thursday for his Vegas hockey tournament.  I think it’s just a good excuse for all his buddies to get away for a good boys weekend without too much wifely nagging.  I’m going to fly out Friday night and then drive back with him.  The next week he goes off to D.C. for an ASCE meeting, throwing in a family visit and high school reunion in PA.  I wish I could go out with him for that trip, but I just don’t have the time to take off from work, especially since the next week we leave for our cruise to Alaska.  So busy.

Tonight was a meeting with our financial advisor where, if all goes as planned, reinvesting money from the condo sale should provide us a nice cushion in our old age.  Money for the deluxe RV and premium food for the RV-dog, and that’s not counting our retirement accounts.  At least, that’s what I hope will happen.  I do feel good about having money invested in different types of accounts.  Different income streams and all.

Tomorrow we do beer tasting to see how the home-brewed beer turned out.  I’ve had a headache for the last 3 days, so it would be nice if it went away by tomorrow.  I guess we’ll see.  Then, more meetings with the landscape people.

I’m off to bed.  My nice, comfy bed with the soft pillows.  A good night’s sleep would be pretty awesome.

In this world, you come across many people who shun chain restaurants solely because they are chains.  I consider myself a little food snobby - I don’t enjoy eating bad meals when I know better ones are out there.  I also don’t think bad food is balanced by a nice view or fancy place settings.  Good food is good and if it’s a chain that makes it, hurrah for them!  Or, maybe huzzah for them!

The first time I went to a Renaissance Fair with T, which was odd and strange yet entertaining and enjoyable, we were eating lunch while the Big Parade with the Queen and Other Important Folk sauntered by.  I don’t know what the Oueen was saying to her loyal “subjects”, but whenever she stopped talking everyone else yelled “Huzzah!”  Eventually, we just yelled “Huzzah!” along with the rest, in between bites of the ginormous turkey leg, of course.  I think it’s an exclamation that should be brought back into today’s vernacular.  Huzzah!

I have spouted my annoyance with Chowhounds often here, and that is one site where you’ll find more snobs than anywhere else in the world.  Ironically, Chowhound also has a Chains board, but it’s often filled with snide “questions” like: “I’ve never heard of Jack in the Box… is there anything worth eating?” and “Being forced to eat at Cheesecake Factory - is there any menu item that won’t make me gag?”  Regarding JitB, I have to say that one of my favorite items is also one I find kind of disgusting - the “tacos”.  2 for 99-cents!  Mushy meat in a deep fried shell with (what I swear is) American cheese!  It’s like admitting that you sometimes prefer Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese to the “real” stuff (I do).  Granted, the last time I actually ate those tacos was a few years ago, but if I think about them, I get a little craving for them.  And The Cheesecake Factory?  Well, they have overpriced cheesecake and the menu is, like, 50 pages long, but it’s not like the food is awful.  The wait is awful and it’s loud, but there are dozens of things that are actually pretty good.  And you really can’t beat the portions.  Order anything and you’ll definitely have leftovers for lunch the next day.  I used to really enjoy their shrimp scampi, their salads, and most of their appetizers. 

Now, I’ve been known to pout if forced to eat somewhere that I don’t deem acceptable.  And I quickly point out every flaw I see - chlorinated water, cold bread rolls, stale chips, frozen pie that should not be frozen, too-chewy meat, etc.  I’m kind of a brat that way.  But I’ve never dismissed something just because it was a chain restaurant.  In fact, I used to hate the Olive Garden.  I was quite justified in this.  Every time I ate there I had pasta that was overcooked (and mushy), undercooked (and crunchy), or a dish that was oddly really cold in the middle.  But then I went for lunch at the request of a colleague and discovered that some of their new dishes were really good!  I had braised short ribs that were fantastic!  I also learned that if you ask for unbuttered bread sticks you get fresh ones because they have to bake them just for you.  And the unbuttered ones are just as good (c’mon, we’re not talking about the heavenly bread sticks from Pat & Oscar’s).  So, see?  My mind can be swayed, even by chains!  So, I get truly riled up by people who talk about chain restaurants like they’re all serving dog food and soggy lettuce, when I bet those exact people go home and eat frozen dinners but don’t admit it to anyone and are probably in self-denial. 

All this to say, we had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and it was lovely.  The only one left in San Diego is in San Marcos, which really isn’t that far from Poway, but it feels like it so we hardly go.  Well, actually, T had never been.  So, off we went to enjoy the complete meal of bread, soup or salad, pasta, iced tea, and spumoni.  For pretty much $10!  Now, I will never tout OSF as being a good Italian restaurant.  I only order one thing whenever I go there, anway, but it’s exactly what I expect and it fulfills my craving.  Spaghetti with mizithra cheese and meat sauce.  I love the brown butter and mizithra cheese, but the cheese is very salty so you need another sauce to balance it out.  T ordered the sampler with the meat sauce, mizithra cheese, clam sauce, and mushroom sauce.  Oh, the creamy pesto dressing is the best.  If you get salad instead of minestrone soup, get the creamy pesto dressing.  T seemed pretty happy with the food, so maybe we’ll be back.  I mean, if we want Italian food there are 2 good places close to home (one of which is within walking distance), but OSF never disappoints when you want some decent spaghetti at a good price.  Oh, they do give you a choice of vanilla ice cream or spumoni, but when do you ever get to eat spumoni?

I hope everyone has a nice weekend lined up.  We’ll be waiting for the fence guy to finish our end of the fence (we replaced the one running between us and the mean neighbors).  He was supposed to be done last Saturday, but apparently he greatly underestimated his schedule and still isn’t done, even though he also worked Sunday.  Our neighbors picked him (he did their back fence before and came in with a pretty low price) but I don’t really like him.  I wish we could have gotten our fence guy, the one who did our back fence and the front gate, but I’m sure our neighbors wouldn’t have wanted to go with someone who had a higher price.  It turns out he’s too busy anyway and isn’t taking new jobs right now, but I bet he would have finished when he said he would.  He and his brother did our entire back fence and front gate in 1 day.  The one we’re using now started Thursday and still isn’t done and at one point he had three other people working with him.  What the heck?  Good thing his price was low.

We’re also meeting with some landscape companies to get an idea of a) what to do with the back yard and b) how much it might cost us to do.  I have grand visions for more patio, a canopy tent, and a fire pit.  T wants a dedicated bbq area (not a built in bbq, though, that’s way too expensive) and thinks the fire pit should be kept away from the fence so as not to annoy any neighbors with fire pit smoke.  Whatever.  It’s not like they give any thought to whether or not we want to smell cigarette smoke coming in through the screen door that’s open because it’s hot and we aren’t ready to flip on the AC.  Bah.

Unless you live under a rock or never, ever go out to eat or stay away from internet chatter (in which case you probably wouldn’t even be reading this), you have heard of the new frozen yogurt craze.  It started with Pinkberry, the chain that offers a grand total of TWO flavors and charges you for the privelege of eating the new-fangled tart frozen yogurt.  And then charges you more if you want the non-plain flavor (in Pinkberry’s case, this is green tea).  In its wake, a slew of of chains followed and saturated the market, much like Starbucks when it was first discovered.  Granted, there are not frozen yogurt shops on every corner, but there are certainly a lot out there.

I remember frozen yogurt being marketed as a healthy alternative to ice cream.  Much like it is now trendy to use non-plastic grocery bags, you were hip if you pretended like the frozen yogurt was just as good as an ice cream sundae.  I didn’t like it.  If I wanted slightly tart frozen stuff… well, actually I didn’t.  I wanted ice cream.  Yogurt was for breakfast, in the sweet, flavored variety of Yoplait, Custard Style.  Then came TCBY, The Country’s Best Yogurt, with flavors that were sweet and much like soft serve ice cream rather than frozen yogurt.  I loved it, especially in a chocolate waffle cone.  Oh, yes, the waffle cones were flavored, not just dipped in chocolate.  Why hasn’t anyone brought that back?

After TCBY became “just a fad”, frozen yogurt went back to being something I avoided unless it was in a fruit smoothie.  There was a shop in San Luis Obispo that we would go to, and they had nice non-sour frozen yogurt, but I suspect we went more because they would fill the bottom of the cone with crushed Butterfingers.

Now, we enjoy Golden Spoon, my favorite being the peanut butter cup flavor.  Again, the frozen yogurt itself isn’t what attracts me.  The best part about Golden Spoon is that you can order a Mini size - the perfect amount of dessert for under $2.  On the other end of the spectrum, we discovered Yogurt World down on Convoy Street.  I guess they’re a Pinkberry follower, but they have a dozen flavors and you get to serve yourself.  Some are good, some are not.  Oddly enough, I like the plain tart yogurt and sometimes the tart peach.  The vanilla custard (not tart) is rich and creamy.  When they have banana yogurt, that’s practically the best flavor ever.

All this to say: a new yogurt shop opened up in Poway.  It’s called A Whole Lotta Yogurt (WLY) and it’s behind the Starbucks on Poway Road (12222 Poway Road, Suite 3).  When I heard about it, I said they either need to be different, like Yogurt World, or better than Golden Spoon or they won’t make it.  When we saw a coupon in the Clipper magazine, we figured that would be a good time to check it out.  So, after spending a weekend stuck at home waiting for the fence guy to finish (he’s still not done - he was supposed to be done Saturday, he worked Sunday and there’s still more to go - bah!) I was itching to get out of the house.  We hopped over to Mr. Hummos for the kefta plate and an appetizer combo (the baba ganoush is fantastic) and then walked to the new yogurt place.

It’s sold by the ounce and they currently have 6 flavors (I think it’s 6).  The owner said that the store was designed and built by the same company that did Yogurt World.  Two tart flavors (Yogurt World wins on the plain tart, but WLY had a nice tart mango), the necessary chocolate and vanilla, and then others.  I tried the pistachio, but I wasn’t in the mood.  It wasn’t bad, just not the kind of pistachio I was hoping for.  Maybe I was expecting a gelato-style flavor?  The peanut butter flavor was really good.  Combined with the chocolate it could give Golden Spoon competition on the peanut butter cup.  T and I actually got the same flavors, except I added some tart mango to my cup.  Now, here’s why we’ll definitely go back: they have the soft mochi balls as a topping for your frozen yogurt.  They have oodles of other toppings (no fruit jelly-things), but the mochi balls are what we love at Yogurt World.

I was pretty happy as we walked back to the car.  I think I may still frequent Golden Spoon to get my Mini peanut butter cup, but I’m really happy we can get a frozen yogurt fix closer to home and not have to drive down to Convoy Street or Mira Mesa (where the new, still crowded Yogurt World opened).  I hope word gets out and they get popular (but not too popular!) because I want to be able to go back.

So, to A Whole Lotta Yogurt: Thank you for opening, thank you for having the mochi balls, and please consider doing a good banana flavor.

When we go back to Pennsylvania to visit T’s family, there are a few things I look forward to (aside from seeing his family, of course): real soft pretzels, scrapple (yes, really), and his dad’s biscuits and gravy.  When I was younger, I went through this phase where I always ordered chicken fried steak when we went out for breakfast.  Some places have really good ones, others have okay ones, and sometimes you find a really bad one where the coating is soggy and the gravy is inedible.  I learned that sausage gravy varies immensely from kitchen to kitchen and after a while I gave up trying to pinpoint who makes a good gravy.  I don’t like sausage gravy that’s too thick, too congealed, too salty, too pasty, too gloppy, too peppered, etc.  I’ve come to be picky about sausage gravy, which is probably why I haven’t ordered it in a long time.  But T’s dad makes an awesome one, and when he makes it there’s a huge pot of the stuff to pour over fresh biscuits (Pillsbury, but fresh nonetheless).  It’s so good, you want to lick the bowl afterwards.

I’ve made many things for breakfast at home - crepes, Dutch pancakes, stuffed french toast, quiche, cinnamon rolls, huevos rancheros - but never biscuits and gravy.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I was scared I’d turn out a gloppy, pasty mess.  But then I got a craving for it.  A sausagey gravy, sweet with onions, a dash (just a dash!) of pepper, and fresh hot biscuits.  Coincidentally, I had just seen a recipe for sausage gravy in Cook’s Country magazine (which I love more than Cook’s Illustrated).  I’d also just read about biscuits on the King Arthur blog.  And breakfast sausage was on sale at Vons.  It was like the universe was trying to tell me something.

One thing I noticed about the Cook’s gravy recipe was that it called for a pound of sausage.  I guess that’s good if you get your sausage from a butcher or by the pound, but I was working with the roll of Jimmy Dean sausage, which is only 12 oz.  I also used the reduced fat sausage and 2% milk instead of whole, and it all turned out delicious.  So, know that you can make this dish a teensy bit “healthier” and nothing will be sacrificed.  I don’t know that I’d try it with turkey sausage or veggie sausage, although if anyone does I’d be curious to hear how it went.  I ended up combining a few sausage gravy recipes, adding onion, and then tweaking it to account for the fact that I only used 12 oz of sausage.  I did use the cream biscuit recipe from King Arthur and they were tender but small and flat.  However, this was totally due to my rolling the dough too thin and using a tiny biscuit cutter, not the fault of the recipe.

I was really happy with the way my biscuits and gravy turned out, except I kept calling it sausage and gravy.  Or sausage and biscuits.  For the life of me, I could not get the phrase “biscuits and gravy” out of my mouth all morning.  T also enjoyed our morning breakfast, which made me happy.  It totally satisfied my craving and didn’t even take too long to pull together.

Sausage Gravy
1 12-oz roll Jimmy Dean sausage (the reduced fat kind works great here)
1 small onion, chopped (or half of a large onion)
1/4 c. flour
2 c. milk (I used 2% and didn’t notice a thing)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown the sausage in a deep skillet (it doesn’t have to be nonstick as you’ll scrape up the bits when you add the milk). Break up the sausage as you go so you get nice crumbles that aren’t too big. When half the sausage is no longer pink, add the onions. The sausage will have rendered just enough fat to cook the onions in.

2. Once the onions are translucent, sprinkle in the flour and stir to combine.

3. Slowly pour in the milk and bring the gravy to a slow simmer. Add salt and pepper to your preferences and simmer away until the gravy has thickened to your liking.

4. Split your hot biscuits and pour the gravy over them. Enjoy!

So, apparently Outback Steakhouse is 20 years old… did you know they’ve been around that long?  I recently received a gift card to go check out their new menu items, which made T happy since he loves Outback but we never eat there.

Friends of ours had a less than pleasant last meal at Outback, so they don’t go anymore.  The last time I was there, my meal consisted of sharing a bunch of fried appetizers so my memories are just full of heavy fried foods sitting in my stomach.  But I was willing to go back and look at the food with fresh eyes.

Because it’s Outback and because it’s their birthday, we had to order the Bloomin’ Onion.  Even though it’s deep fried and terribly unhealthy.  It arrived hot and crispy, with every part well battered and cooked (I’ve gotten some that had raw batter still in the crevices) and I’d forgotten how tasty that horseradish-y dipping sauce is.  We got through 3/4 of the onion before throwing in the towel with the intention of taking the rest home, but our server took the plate away.  Incidentally, she seemed like she wasn’t paying attention very much.  She forgot to bring T a new napkin three times and every time she came over she seemed a little spacey.

We ordered from the featured menu since it’s only running through April and they actually looked really good.  T got the Sirloin, Shrimp, and Scallops Mixed Grill and I ordered the Slow Roasted Sirloin Medley.  My dish was exactly as I hoped it would be - tasty, meaty, but fresh and light.  Slices of tender sirloin were arranged over a bed of spinach (I don’t know how they do their spinach but it’s awesome) with asparagus and cherry tomatoes scattered around the edges.  The whole dish was drizzled with a garlicky, lemony, herbed sauce that was perfect.  Really, I loved that dish.  I did not like the “homemade crouton” on the bottom, which was more like a greasy fried piece of bread.  But it’s okay, since I didn’t eat it and I was completely full from the rest of the meal.  T’s steak came nicely medium rare and it was a flavorful piece of sirloin.  I was actually surprised (although, their steaks are usually pretty good).  I didn’t taste the shrimp, but the scallops were actually cooked nicely.  A tad overdone, but certainly not rubbery and no grit at all.  He got a little rice medley along with the same garlicky spinach and finished it all.  I think he thought the steak was a little on the small side, but it did match the proportions in the picture.

As a promotion, if you order one of their featured meals AND a Coke Zero, you get a commemorative glass to keep and take home.  I considered it but I guess we certainly don’t need a commemorative glass taking up room in the cupboards when I still have 4 POM Tea glasses in there and I only use 1 at a time.

As a funny side note, we were seated next to this couple who must have figured out the best way to save money at Outback.  I told T that my goal* is to have enough money when we’re old that we don’t have to worry about such scrimping and frugality.  They ordered the 13 oz. Outback Special (sirloin) to split, but they wanted the steak actually cut into 2 pieces so each could be cooked to a different degree of doneness.  Then they added a House Salad with extra croutons to the meal.  Okay, I guess when you look at it, that’s not really too frugal.  I guess I just thought it was funny because they were sharing a steak but wanted it cooked 2 ways.

My faith in Outback has been restored.  I don’t know if I need to order the Bloomin’ Onion every time I go there, but I would certainly order that Slow Roasted Sirloin again.  I wonder what else they put that garlicky lemon sauce on?  If you do go for dinner, definitely check out the new menu items.  Outback certainly isn’t fine dining, but it is a good place to go for a good meal and it’s nicer than TGI Friday’s.

* T and I have been meeting with a financial planner over the last couple of months.  To go over our individual accounts and financial goals.  It’s not like we’re combining finanaces or anything.  But he always asks what our goals are and what results we want from the money we invest and I always tell him that my end goal is to have enough money when we retire that I don’t have to clip coupons and only shop when there are double coupons.  My goal is that when we retire we can afford a motorhome and have money to be able to feed the dog premium food.  Enough to be comfortable and not worry.  Incidentally, if you are looking for a financial advisor (he works for AIG, doesn’t charge a consultation fee but does receive a commission on certain investments), I highly recommend ours.  He drives down from Irvine to meet with us after work at home, which makes things very convenient, but he’s also good at answering questions and running scenarios for different investments.  If T asks him a skeptical question, he answers AND comes back with print outs of internet chatter so he can explain why the internet is wrong and he’s right.  And sometimes he admits that the internet is kind of right.  Anyway, we really like him so if you’d like to set something up with him, let me know.

Any time some noteable beer place opens up, someone takes notice.  T discovered Phileas Fogg while driving home one night after his hockey game, right on Poway Road in the funny strip mall that has a constant rotation of places.  Phileas Fogg is where Sipz used to be, and the bistro that came after it but didn’t last long.  Java Kai used to be in that strip, too.  I suppose it’s not really a convenient location; it’s more along the way to your final destination.  Kind of like Primm when you’re driving to Las Vegas - you’re so close to Vegas that you don’t really want to stop, even though Primm has all those outlet stores and the huge roller coaster.  And on your way out of Vegas, you just want to keep going and get home.

We did stop at Phileas Fogg once for beers, on our way to Jimmy’Z for some Poway Fun Bowl bar karaoke and people watching.  They had quite a crowd on a Friday night and the boys seemed impressed with the beer list.  The food menu looked pretty good, too.

Last weekend, we pointedly drove over (the whole 4 minutes it took) for lunch.  I’m going to preface this by saying it was Saturday afternoon, the place has only been open a month or so, and I guess their typical Saturdays have been very, very empty.  I only saw one server on duty, but half the seats at the bar were taken, a few bar tables, the lounge-y couches at the front, two outside tables, and 3-4 dining table all had patrons.  I repeat, all this for one server.  Because they haven’t been open long enough to settle into the swing of things, I’m willing to overlook this.  However, I think it would have been nice if they had someone on reserve duty who could have come in to help.  We had noticeable waits between drink refills and beer re-orders, not to mention the food wait.

T really had his heart set on the Tikka Masala, an item that is on the menu and has been since they opened.  However, you can’t have Tikka Masala because, even though it’s on the menu, it’s not being served.  I can understand being out of a certain item from time to time (though I was still upset that they ran out of curry sauce), but to have indefinite plans for serving a printed menu item?  I would think you could either make sure you’ve got your lineup ready before opening, take it off the menu until you’re ready (you could make it into a “daily special”), or at least put a note over the item on the menu itself so people know not to get hungry over it.  T ended up with the Phileas Cheesesteak, which was good and standard for a non-Philly-style sandwich, but we have been spoiled with good cheesesteaks that make our standards quite high. 

I ordered the fish and chips as it seemed like a good item to test the menu.  I actually wanted to specifically compare curry sauces, as the best one I’ve had so far has been at Dublin’s Irish Pub in Mammoth, CA.  Alas, Phileas was out of curry sauce.  I also suspect my crispy fish suffered from the aforementioned short-staffing.  It was still hot when I got it, but the bottom layer had gotten all soggy and didn’t want to stay on the fish.  The fish was good (1 large piece among semi-crisp but well-seasoned fries), but I found myself longing for the fish and chips from Patrick’s, the Irish pub in Poway.  There, you get smaller pieces (but not much smaller), but still a substantial amount of food and the lemon mayo sauce that comes with it is amazingly addictive.  I would actually order the dish just to get that lemon mayo.  It’s better on fries than anything.

We didn’t get dessert at Phileas, but the dessert menu has chocolate lava cake, cheesecake, ice cream, and one other item (maybe bread pudding?)  I’d love to see sticky toffee pudding on the menu, as we had a really decadent one in London and Phileas Fogg is trying to incorporate that comfy British food.

They have also started a beer club, where you mark off 50 beers from around the world and get a polo shirt when you’re done.  It reminds me of Spike’s in SLO, where I punched out 2 beers from their list of 40.  I’m not a huge beer drinker.  At Spike’s, though, you got to engrave a small plaque label when you finished.  The beer list at Phileas Fogg is pretty good and varied though, with some Heineken and Foster’s thrown into the mix.

I think Phileas Fogg has a good idea behind it and I hope they are successful enough to stick around.  They’re a nice choice for a beer stop, but I’m going to give them more time to work out the serving logistics before making a decision on their food status.

Summary:  Go for beer or a glass of wine (they have a nice wine selection) and maybe some appetizers, but give them time before testing it out as a dinner stop.  Also, let me know if you hear of sticky toffee pudding rumors.

Did you have a nice Easter?  Or Springtime celebration?  Did you dye eggs or bake a ham?  We did bake a ham, but we have no hard-boiled eggs for egg salad.  We do, however, have enough ham to feed 12 people.  Considering we only add up to 2, we will have a lot of leftovers.

My mom came to visit, straight from her return trip from Japan, so my dad flew in for brunch on Sunday, too!  T still has trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that my parents often fly down for the day.  I guess when you grow up with a flight attendant, though, such impromtu trips seem normal!

We enjoyed the Marine Room during their High Tide Brunch, but their Easter brunch was even better (and more expensive).  In addition to their crab claws, shrimp, oysters, , quiche, etc. they had prime rib and leg of lamb, along with a multitude of sauces to go with it.  And the food is so good.  Every dish they make is a quality dish, except for the blue crab quiche that didn’t really win any of us over.  I mean, it was tasty and good, just not very crabby.  Oddly enough, the tide was higher on Easter than it was when we went for the High Tide brunch!

After my parents left (with SaSa… we’re keeping the puppy for one more week and no, I’m not keeping her, really), T went off to work and I went out for some errand running.  I went to Sears with the intention of just looking at new washers and dryers, but after looking at them, my list, the Consumer Reports list, and the sale ads, I was kind of exhausted.  The sales guy confirmed that LG is the best brand to go with for front-loading washers, which was nice since he wasn’t pushing Kenmore (Sears’ brand) or the most expensive models.  I realized there really isn’t much difference between 4.0 and 4.2 cubic feet in a washer (it’s like 1.5 gallons), although I can tell the difference from a 3.5 cubic foot washer.  I realized that the models I like don’t ever really go on sale, so with the 15% discount with my Sears card, and since I already had the voucher with me, I just had him go ahead and ring it up.  I’m not the best shopper.  I get an idea of what I want, I look at some prices, and then I pretty much just buy it.  I don’t spend months tracking prices and watching sales.  I did consult Consumer Reports, though, which rated the LG very well but called the Frigidaire their “Best Buy”. 

Anyway, after that, my errand running pretty much fell flat.  Did you know Target and Wal-Mart close on Easter?  I didn’t.  I didn’t realize it was such a big holiday to warrant store closures.  This also meant that I wasn’t able to find Peeps for T, who likes to leave them out to get stale and then eat them.  Yes, I realize that we could have done Easter candy shopping months ago, but I wasn’t really into it and I thought maybe I’d find some clearance Peeps.  I also didn’t get to buy socks.

When I got back home, I had enough to time to play with the dogs, Tae-bo a little with Billy Blanks, and whip up some homemade marshmallows.  That’s all Peeps are, right?  Marshmallows and sugar?  I only did this because a) I knew T would be tickled to find I made Peeps just for him and b) I just read a post from The Kitchen on making Peeps.  They use Martha Stewart’s recipe, which works pretty well and is super easy.  The marshmallow part, anyway.  I think it makes half a recipe, though, because it certainly didn’t fill my KitchenAid mixing bowl very much.

I scattered white sugar on a baking sheet and awkwardly piped out chick-like shapes.  I also tried making flat bunny shapes.  It’s harder than you think it might be.  I had mixed 3 drops of yellow food coloring with 1 cup of sugar, to make my Peeps yellow.  I sprinkled the yellow sugar on the piped Peeps, but I found it’s hard to get the sides covered, so after everything was piped and sprinkled, I just rolled everything around to try and get them all not-sticky.

T was definitely pleased when he came home to see homemade Peeps.  They’re a little less airy than the store-bought ones, but they definitely have that grainy-sugar coating.  Our “Peeps” are ageing on the countertop right now, getting to that stage of staleness that he loves so much.  All in all, I’d say it was a success.

We love new restaurants.  I mean, we love finding new (or even just new-to-us) restaurants.  Sometimes they aren’t very good and we don’t ever go back, but sometimes they’re surprisingly tasty and we try to fit them into our rotation when we can.  If we discover we haven’t visited one in a while, it’s probably because the restaurant was more on the pricey side.  It’s hard to find good cheap eats close to home.

We recently tried the new Hawaiian place on Poway Road, by CVS and Big Lots, and we were sadly disappointed.  The short ribs had hardly any meat, the macaroni salad was weak, and the bbq beef was thin and underflavored.  The kahlua pork was okay and the bbq chicken was moist and tender, but it was all very blah.  The spam musubi was just a failure.  Too much rice (that was too dry), too tough nori, and the spam was very thin and almost crunchy.

Another “new” restaurant we’ve had an eye on is Capri Blu.  We got a flyer in the mail months and months ago, but then the coupons expired and we filled our dining-out nights elsewhere.  Then, in a moment of serendipity, T mentioned that we should start marking down new restaurants on our calendar, almost scheduling them so we would make a point to actually eat there.  And then another Capri Blu coupon came in the Clipper magazine.  So we went.

Capri Blu is in 4S Ranch, a new community that’s not quite Rancho Bernardo, not quite Carmel Valley, but somewhere in between.  We saw it when we took our Barbeques Galore “cooking” class, which also reminded us that we had wanted to eat there.  I’d describe it as a contemporary Italian place.  It’s not as simple as Filippi’s, nor as mainstream as Macaroni Grill, but it’s not as old-school as The Godfather.  The appetizer list includes dishes like ahi, stuffed eggplant, carpaccio, and calamari.  They have salumi and cheese platters with reasonable prices, although I don’t know how the portions are.  Pasta dishes are $14-16 and entrees hover around $20.  It’s not a cheap place, but it’s not too expensive either.  Sundays and Mondays are half-price wine nights, which makes their wine list extremely reasonable.

We ended up with the ravioli of the day (in the best pesto cream sauce I’ve ever had) , orechiette with sweet sausage, and a split spinach salad.  It was all really good.  The dishes were flavored simply and looked like something you could easily throw together at home, but it was all done very well.  We also enjoyed a creamy panna cotta for dessert, one of my new favorite desserts.

We signed up for their VIP card, which tracks how much you spend and then you get $15 off once you spend $100 total.  I don’t know how often we’ll go back, but it’s a good option to have that’s fairly close by.  Of course, Domenic’s is even closer, but they have a more traditional menu.  I guess it all depends on what kind of Italian-food mood we’re in on a Sunday night.