Curdled Milk ... Is There Anything It Can't Do???

Behold the Power of Cheese ... (J&B's house; Lesser Stinktown; February 24, 2008)

The day did not begin with dreams of cheesemongering ... it began like many a Sunday around our house:

"Did we win the Powerball?"

"Nope."

"There go our dreams of early retirement...again"

So there I was, lurking around the DIS and catching up with some long over-due responses that I owed to my food lovin' friends, when a very nice reader popped in and informed me of a contest that the DIS was sponsoring... a restaurant review contest. The winner would receive a two-night, three-day trip to WDW where he/she would have dinner with the official review guru of the DIS pod-cast group. Even better, the winner would get to broadcast his/her review on the podcast!

My scalp tingled...my hips twinged...my fingertips started to itch...point me to the DIS-commandments, otherwise known as the official rules, so that I may begin my quest to win the battle royale of food and verse.

Can you imagine my devastation approximately 14.5 minutes later when I was informed by no less a being than the DIS review guru himself that: a) there were no official rules posted anywhere; b) there was no official deadline; and c) the contest was over anyway.

Oh, my friends, I fell hard from the euphoric mountaintop of potential victory all the way to the slough of defeatism and despair. I'm not enough of an ego-maniac to assume that I would have won the contest, but I think I could have had a good shot at being a finalist.

I coulda been a contender.

Jay, being the dear, dear hubba that he is, suggested that some cheese might make me feel better. So we left the house and its bitter memories for a few hours and did some shopping and then later that evening during the Oscar Meyers we gorged on accessorized artisan cheese and followed it up with some creamy butternut squash soup.

So for your reading and future cheese-tasting pleasure, I present to you now ...

Improvised Cheese Plate a' la Armpeeet du Midwuest

The first cheese is quite possibly my all-time favorite - Fromager d'Affinois. It's a French cow's milk cheese - a double creme cheese with a white rind that is relatively stench-free. This is a fantastic, soft, creamy, ripened cheese that I prefer at room temperature - once it's warmed up a bit I just smear it across a slice of sourdough bread and I'm in taste bud heaven. I could eat this every day and never get tired of it. The texture is silky and the taste is slightly salty with just a hint of mushroom - think brie but much more soft and creamy and subtle.

Best Cheese Evah - so good it deserves its own plate!

We had three more cheeses that did their best to distract me from the taste treat discussed above; in Mickey's left ear is Ossau-Iraty; in his right ear is Comte', and filling out the rest of Mickey's head is a big slice of Double Creme Brie.

We don't spend much time on presentation when it's just the two of us, so it's perfectly understandable if you're underwhelmed by our lack of cheese artiness; but trust me when I tell you that if you stop by the house some day for a wine / port / cheese party we'll make it pretty.

So let's talk about these cheesie choices ... Ossau-Iraty is a French cheese made from ewe's milk. It has a very delicate flavor - smooth and slightly sweet with just a suggestion of nuttiness. There is no bitterness to this cheese at all and it has a firm texture without being hard or dry.

Comte' is a French cheese made from unpasteurized cow's milk and if I remember my reading correctly, it is the most highly produced cheese in the country. This cheese's rind is usually a dusty-brown color - the cheese itself is a pale, creamy yellow. The texture is firm yet flexible - there is a hint of oiliness - and the taste is mild, slightly sweet, and nutty.

The Double Creme Brie was a new choice for us - the only other time we've ever had brie is en croute, which is taaaaaaa-stteeeeeee. Brie is also a soft cow's milk cheese from France (I'm sensing a trend here...) and it is pale in color with a slightly grayish tinge underneath its white rind. The rind is meant to be eaten with this cheese, which presents a problem for me because I don't like rinds. If this cheese tasted the way the rind smelled, no one would ever eat the stuff because it smells like Grandma's mildewed basement. You know...the dark, dank basement with the giant crickets drinking homemade wine and playing poker with the bloated water bugs. Yeah, that's the way this rind smelled.

The other thing I noticed with this Brie is that no matter how long it sat out, it never really softened up - it spread like butter that's forgotten how to melt. And it had a very bitter aftertaste that I just couldn't get past. The lesson for me is that brie needs to be baked into pastry in order to be enjoyed properly.

So, what sort of "stuff" did we have to dress up our cheese? Well, apart from the fresh sourdough bread that we picked up from the St. Louis Bread Company earlier in the day, we had some crackers, dried cherries, lingonberry preserves, and Il Balsamico (30 year).

Fix your own damn cheese plate - what do you think this is, a restaurant?

I can tell you that the Fromager needs nothing but sourdough bread, or maybe a cracker if you run out of bread. The preserves and the balsamic paired exceptionally well with both the Ossau-Iraty and the Comte, as did the dried cherries. The brie was good spread on the sourdough, but it was so thick and so bitter that I found myself avoiding it after two tries - it just couldn't compare with the Fromager.

Every cheese-fest needs a beverage. In this instance there were two because I wanted port and Jay wanted wine.

Drinkie, drinkie...

My beverage of choice was R. L. Buller & Son's Premium Fine Muscat - Australia. Actually, this is not a port - it's a dessert wine that's very similar to a young, tawny port. It has a gorgeous, deep amber color with a spicy aroma. The taste is rich - like liquid toffee - and it pairs unbelievably well with every cheese we tried this evening. For the cost conscious among us (and who isn't to some extent) this bottle sells for about $13 - an exceptional bargain for the quality of the beverage. And just for grins: this was given a 92 rating by Wine Spectator, and a 97 rating by Robert Parker.

Jay opted for Indigo Hills Pinot Noir - California, 2004. As I've said many times before, I'm not a big red wine drinker. However, I did give this a try and as red wines go I thought it was good. The aroma was subtle and it seemed like I picked up hints of cherries and maybe even some strawberries. The taste was strong but not overpowering and it didn't coat the tongue like so many red wines seem to do. Jay thought it was a terrific choice with the cheese and I thought it was a bold choice on his part - I'm a traditionalist and if I don't drink a dessert wine with cheese I default to a white wine every time.

Once we'd had our fill of cheese we decided to have some warm, comforting soup to round out the evening. Our choice, organic butternut squash soup that we purchase at the store and re-heat once we're ready to eat. I add about 4 ounces of heavy cream to the soup while it heats to give it a creamier, less intense flavor. I like to eat mine just like that, but Jason adds curry powder to his.

Creamy...butternuttery...squashie...

And there you have it! An unplanned little cheese-fest that filled my belly but didn't really do much to dispel my disappointment. Eh, the world is filled with disappointments ... thank gawd it's also filled with cheese! I recommend three out of the four cheeses we tried on this evening - I just can't bring myself to endorse the brie. I really do think it's better when baked into pastry and all melted and gooey.

See ya soon with more cheesie goodness - thanks for reading!

Greetings...Welcome...How Ya Doin?

Just wanted to officially welcome everyone to our sandbox ... we're glad you're here!!

Feel free to make comments and suggestions at will, but please refrain from kicking sand in the face of others. If you find a scorpion or a sandworm please contact an exterminator immediately. The sharing of recipes, especially of an alcoholic nature, is strongly encouraged.

Edited to play with smileys ...

A Non-Disney Food Review? That's Unpossible!!!

Annie Gunn's...Not to be Confused with Tim Gunn (2/17/08)

Annie Gunn's is the name of a restaurant that's affiliated with The Smokehouse Market in Chesterfield Valley. The market has been in operation since 1937, when Chesterfield was nothing but acres of farmland commonly known by the more colorful, if less pretentious name, of Gumbo Flats.

The restaurant is recognized as one of the better ones in Stinktown, although its outward appearance is a bit deceptive. It's a single story brick structure with an outdoor patio for additional dining - the restaurant comprises half of the building while the market occupies the other half. Jay and I like to shop in the market during prime grilling season - they sell wonderful cuts of meat and glorious fresh seafood. We've even been known to purchase artisan cheese from them, although their selection is not as varied as some of the other places we like to frequent.

Here's the link to the restaurant and market - check it out when you have some time!

http://www.smokehousemarket.com/index.html

As much as we've visited the market over the years, it's been a long time since Jay and I have eaten in the restaurant. The whole reason for our dinner was to celebrate a belated Christmas with his mom and dad. What do you give the parents who have everything but will never splurge on a nice meal for themselves?

You give them dinner Jay and Brenda style!

Our reservation was for 5:30 on Sunday evening and we were quickly seated at a snug little table for four with menus and Annie Gunn's wine bible. The interior is dim with paneled walls and hardwood floors; it's reminiscent of a sprawling farmhouse. It's comfortable but not fancy - the dining room is incidental ... the food takes center stage at this establishment.

I had already warned Jay that I needed a cheese plate, and if I were going to be expected to do the polite thing and share...well, we'd better order something else in addition to the cheese because the parasitic twin within was gnawing a hole in my belly.

The Cheese plate was described as follows on the menu: Shaft's Blue (Cow - California); Chimay ala Biere (Cow - Belgium); Coupole (Goat - Vermont); and L'Edel de Cleron (Cow - France). The cheeses were accompanied by a warm, fresh mini baguette, fruit, quince butter, and Nocellara olives.

I'm overwhelmed by the bacterial bounty.

From the top left you'll see the Chimay ala Biere, and following a diagonal down the plate to the lower right are L'Edel de Cleron, Shaft's Blue, and Coupole. I had high hopes that were rather dashed ... not every cheese plate can be a nose-hair curling experience comparable to that of Jiko or Victoria and Albert's. Let that be a lesson to those of you traveling to Stinktown - if you want a cheese plate that's going to tingle your tastebuds stop by our house 'cause we do it better!

The Belgian cheese had a very strong, earthy flavor and I only ate one slice because it left a dirty aftertase in my mouth that the wine just couldn't seem to erase. The biggest disappointment of the entire selection was the French cheese, which our waiter told us was a triple cream. I loves me the double and triple cream French cheeses, especially when smeared on warm bread and chased with grapes on a diet - aka raisins - but this creamy cheese tasted of nothing but rind. I've created an entirely new form of performance art based just on scraping the gooey guts from the inside of the cheese while leaving the rind in place just to avoid any hint of moldy, mildewy, taste. And it usually works like a charm ... but not this night.

I only had two more choices and one of them was a blue cheese - gack! I took a deep breath and stabbed bravely into the goat cheese where I at last discovered thick, crumbly, slightly tart success! This cheese was lovely and mild but a little drier than I am accustomed to in a goat cheese. Surprise taste combination of the evening: it tasted really good with figs!

Our second appetizer platter choice was the House Smoked Seafood Platter which included the following: Vermont Maple Glazed Jumbo Shrimp, Georges Bank Sea Scallops, Troutdale Farm Missouri Trout, and Irish Salmon with Traditional Garnishes and House Made Guiness Rye Bread.

The Burns Omni-Net: Sweeping the Seas Clean.

Tasty doesn't even begin to describe this platter, which was the unexpected favorite of your devoted, gluttonous author. I love shrimp, and these two big boys were sweet and slightly smoky and cooked to perfection. The scallops were also very good although they were cooked inconsistently; one was lovely and light - barely needing to be chewed - while the other was somewhat gummy. That little dab of paleness between the shrimp and the salmon was the trout - it was quite tasty but I was surprised that we hadn't been given more of it. The portion size seemed a little on the cheap. The salmon was delicious, made even better when smeared with some dill spread and draped across some of that rye bread.

Before I forget, Jay's dad and I were drinking Pinot Grigio: Danzante 2006, Venize, Italy. This was a very light wine, which tends to be my preference, with a subtle aroma and a clean taste. I really enjoyed it, which is why I had two glasses! Jason went with a Syrah - Bridlewood 2004, Central California Coast. As many of you know, I don't care for a lot of red wines because they often leave this fragile flower with a raging headache, but I will say that this wine had a stunning, deep red color and a surprisingly fruity aroma. Jay liked it well enough to have a second glass, too!

Jason and his parents are big salad eaters so of course they had to order some greens. Interestingly enough they all chose the same thing: Sweet Gem Lettuce Salad with Irish Black Bacon, Hard Boiled Egg, Sweet Onions, Salemville Blue Cheese Dressing, and Garlic Croutons.

Salad, Part I


Salad, Part II

I rarely eat salad - it's an intestinal gamble that I don't often take - but my three dining partners all agreed that this was one heck of a tasty plate o'greens. I actually said that it reminded me of a cobb salad after a three-month diet.

No one other than me seemed to find that very amusing ... maybe it was the wine. ;-)

And who needs salad anyway when you can order Annie Gunn's Incredibly Famous Potato Soup???

Famous taters, precious.

I only ordered a cup of soup ... I wonder just how big the bowl of soup would have been? I love potato soup and this was very good - hot and creamy with just the right amount of salty bacon crumbled over the top. If I had a single suggestion it would be that they include fewer potatoes and a little more soup. I'm one of those people who likes potato soup creamy to the point of puree'. At least when I'm ready for the nursing home I won't mind having my meals liquified.

For our entree, Jay's mom and I ordered the exact same thing: Grilled 6-ounce Aged Filet Mignon w/Cabernet Cracked Pepper Butter and Whipped Yukon Gold Potatoes. Vegetables for the evening: Asparagus and Butternut Squash.

Quite possibly the perfect plate ...

This time it's alright to be crabby at dinner

As if two appetizer platters, soup, and salad weren't enough, the mother-in-law and I decided that we each needed a side of buttered poached jumbo crab meat to accompany our steaks. The entire course was incredible. The steak was tender and flavorful - coooked medium - and the cabernet pepper was noticeable but not overpowering. I experienced a slight sensation of heat on the back of my tongue but it was subtle. The potatoes were light and fluffy with just a hint of butter whipped into them; the butternut squash was delicately sweet and soft without being mushy. And the asparagus was crisp and flavorful.

And the sweet, sweet crab was drowning in butter and I still don't know if it tasted better all alone or sprawled across the filet. I may need to return another day and try it again before I can make up my mind.

Jay's dad ordered Grilled Berkshire Pork Tenderloin and Braised Pork Cheeks on Cornbread Stuffing with Redeye Gravy.

A man raised on a farm can never say "no" to pork.

Jay's dad seemed to like this just fine - what man doesn't like pork two ways? He pretty much licked the plate clean, which I took as indication that the meal had met with his digestive approval. He did allow Jay to try a piece of his pork cheek, which Tony Bourdain always raves about and Jay said it was pretty damn tasty.

Jason's entree represented his attempt to try something completely new - inspired by recent viewings of No Reservations with Tony Bourdain. So his selection was perfect given Tony's recent love affair with animal cheeks. Braised Marcho Farms Veal Cheeks on Whipped Yukon Gold Potatoes w/a Caramelized Winter Vegetable Sauce.

It's Cheeky!!


Jason really liked this dish. The veal was incredibly tender and flavorful. I even tried it and thought it was quite good - the veal had the consistency and texture of meat that had been slow cooked to perfection. Think of the best beef stew or beef brisket you've ever had and how the meat practically falls apart at the slightest touch and you'll have a good mental picture of this veal cheek.

We find that nothing aids the digestive process like a nice cappuccino. And since the weather had been cold and miserable all weekend it sounded very appealing before we faced the 30-minute drive back to our homestead on the outer fringes of Stinktown. The air doesn't smell quite as bad out in the sticks, hence the name Funky Odorville for our section of the metropolitan area.

Now that's foam!


Wow! One of the best cappies we've had in a long time. A great mix of espresso and milk, neither too bitter nor too milky, and a lovely foam cloud. And since I like my coffee drinks a little bit on the sweet side, these two raw sugar cubes were perfect!

And even though we really didn't have room for dessert I ordered it anyway! I actually thought the dessert menu was pretty boring, but the Bread Pudding with Caramel Whiskey Sauce caught my eye and I gave Jason the "pretty-please" eyes and viola!

Since when do I like bread pudding?


This was served piping hot...it must have come right out of the oven because we could see the steam rising from the pudding. And it was so good - whiskey caramel sauce should be bottled and sold to hardworking people like you and me so that we can take it to the office with us daily and pour it over everything from Yoplait Whips to Peanut Butter sandwiches.

I can think of no higher praise for this dessert than to say ... I don't normally like bread pudding. But when it's paired with some kind of alcohol (thank you Commander's Palace ... we love your bread pudding souffle with the whiskey cream sauce!) then I'm all over it like Grimace with a scratch-off lottery ticket. Annie Gunn's bread pudding was Yummy to the nth power.

There you have it my friends - a long, satisfying meal with wonderful service that I neglected to mention until now. I highly recommend Annie Gunn's for a hearty and inventive dinner - their menu has a nice mix of classic dishes that appeal to pickier folks like me as well as more exotic / gourmet dishes for folks like Jason. They had Hudson Valley Foie Gras on the appetizer menu and they also had a specialty meat menu which included Kobe Beef. Just to be nosy I asked our waiter how much the Kobe was going for that evening ... the order was a 5 ounce minimum at $28 per ounce. Now that's indulgent!

Thanks for reading!!

Hungry Are The Damned (October 2007)

This space reserved for reviews still currently in progress over at the DIS from our 10-day October 2007 trip to WDW. We love the Food & Wine Festival so much ... if we were obscenely rich we'd just stay at WDW for the entire length of the festival. It's a dream of ours. ;-)

Reviews will include the following:

Kimonos Sushi Bar (Swan & Dolphin Resort)
Hurricane Hannah's (Beach Club Resort)
Jiko (Animal Kingdom Lodge)
Crystal Palace Character Breakfast (Magic Kingdom)
Casey's (Magic Kingdom)
Boardwalk Bakery (Boardwalk Inn)
Bistro Paris (Epcot)
Yacht Club Galley (Yacht Club Resort)
Afternoon Tea (Grand Floridian Resort)
Spoodles (Boardwalk Inn)
Kona Cafe (Polynesian Resort)
Food & Wine Pairing Le Cellier (F&W Festival - Epcot)
Room Service, Part I (Beach Club Resort)
Party for the Senseless (F&W Festival - Epcot)
Sc-Fi Dine-in Theatre (Disney-MGM)
Scotch & Food Pairing Rose & Crown Pub (F&W Festival - Epcot)
Boulangerie Patissiere (Epcot)
Room Service, Part II (Beach Club Resort)
ESPN Club (Boardwalk Inn)
Narcoosee's (Grand Floridian Resort)
Yorkshire County Fish Shop (Epcot)
Multiple Food & Wine Festival Booths (Epcot)

And a few birthday surprises, too!!


Let Us Celebrate the Start of Vacation with the Joining of Chocolate to Peanut Butter...(Beaches & Cream, Beach Club Resort; 10/15/07)

In years past when we've arrived at the Beach Club Villas for the start of an October vacation, Jason and I have always hoofed it over to Epcot to immediately begin devouring the F&W Festival booths scattered around the World Showcase. This year, thanks to an obscenely early flight from St. Louis which meant that we were out of bed by 3AM, we decided to approach the first day of our vacation in a more relaxed manner.

Beaches and Cream sounded like the perfect way to ease into our 10-day visit and thanks to good luck and good timing we were standing at the podium by 12PM on Monday afternoon. The wait for a table was about 20 minutes, but there were plenty of seats at the counter. A friendly reminder to those of you who may not be familiar with Beaches and Cream - all tables and counter seats are first-come, first-serve - the restaurant does not accept dining reservations. Jay and I opted for the counter - we hadn't had anything to eat since stopping at Starbucks at 5:15AM on the way to our gate at the airport and our stomachs were beginning to digest themselves.

We both ordered a single cheeseburger with french fries ... I stuck with American cheese for my burger while Jay decided to be all exotic and order his with cheddar cheese.

Plain old normal American cheeseburger - pillbox not included

Cheddah cheese-ah burgah

The food was tasty and hot - typical grilled burgers and crispy fries. From our seats at the counter we could see all the action at the grill and the ice cream fountain - nothing was cooked or prepared until a guest placed an order. So while it's reasonable to assume that our burgers were pre-formed beef patties pulled from the refrigerator, they weren't sitting under a heat lamp getting served up to the first person who ordered one. I'd estimate that it took about 15 minutes from the time we placed our order until we received our burgers, which is not bad at all considering that it was lunchtime. Hunger may have played a part, but Jay and I agreed that these were mighty fine cheeseburgers. And the fries were great - crispy, but not crunchy, with hot, pulpy potato goodness oozing forth with each bite.

**Brenda's Dining Tip #68: Dip your fries in cheap yellow mustard instead of catsup / ketchup. It's like eating a glob of sunshine with every mouthful.**

Eeeeeeew! "A glob of sunshine with every mouthful"??? Where the hell did that come from? Who replaced my booze with Pollyanna Punch?

Anyway, be sure to save room for dessert when eating at Beaches and Cream, because that's what the place is really known for. And the portions are huge, so I highly recommend splitting dessert with the one you love unless you are having a Moe-ment, defined as: "Hey; no sharing!" Jason and I ordered a No Way Jose, which we had tried last year. In a word, it's fabulous! Chocolate and vanilla ice cream smothered with peanut butter and hot fudge toppings...covered with whipped cream, peanut butter and chocolate morsels, and crowned with a single bright red cherry all for the bargain price of eight dollars.

Now, without further ado, the close-up you've all been waiting for...Every Dieter's Nightmare and The International Ice Cream Association's Centerfold for the month of October...

The No Way Jose!!

Our waitress noticed that I was taking pictures of the food and asked if we wanted to have our picture taken with the dessert before we destroyed it. Bwahahahahahahaha!! Everyone's a comedian!

Dessert cleavage ... I swear it's unintentional

The camera loves Jay and it mocks me ... I wish I could say that I'm one of those people who look better in person than in a picture, but I'm just as silly looking in real life as several people here on the DISboards can actually attest to now.

What can I tell you about this dessert? It's superb. The peanut butter topping is creamy and rich while the hot fudge is thick and chocolaty - it's like eating a melted Reese's Peanut Butter Cup with ice cream. I think if I had a single suggestion to make it would be that the dessert be served entirely with vanilla ice cream rather than with chocolate and vanilla. I found that the vanilla ice cream complemented the other two flavors much better than the chocolate ice cream, which seemed to be warring with the hot fudge. But despite that nit-pick, this remains hands-down the best ice cream dessert we've had on WDW property. If you like peanut butter and chocolate this is the choice for you!

As God Is My Witness, I'll Never Be Hungry Again (October 2006)

This space currently saved for the transfer of our first WDW food reviews from October 18-October 28, 2006.

**Disclaimer** This was my very first attempt at writing WDW dining reviews ... so pardon me if things seem a bit rough around the edges. I was still trying to find my food-voice. ;-)

A little background before we begin, so that you know who the guilty parties are and why they do the seemingly bizarre things that they do:

Brenda: celebrated my 37th birthday the day before we arrived at WDW. I want to eat well, and sometimes I do, but Crohns disease makes me a picky eater; it's a defense mechanism - no one wants their intestinal tract to explode at Disney World. My gastronomic philosophy can best be summed up as this: I don't like stuff in my food.

Jason: trailing behind his aging wife at the ridiculously young age of 36...he wants to eat well, too, and has spent the last ten years convincing me that there is more to life than tuna fish. He is Captain Adventure when it comes to food - the spicier the better as far as Jay is concerned. His gastronomic philosophy is simple, but effective: Bye-bye belt!

We were joined for the last seven days of our trip by my parents. I mention this only because the pictures and reviews will begin to include their choices as well as ours and I didn't want you guys thinking that Jay and I were eating for a family of four all by ourselves!

Reviews will include the following:

Food & Wine Pairing at Coral Reef (Epcot - F&W Festival)
Kona Cafe (Polynesian Resort)
Artists Palette (Saratoga Springs Resort)
Raglan Road Irish Pub (Downtown Disney)
Beach Club Marketplace (Beach Club Resort)
Rose & Crown Pub (Epcot)
Sweet Sundays (Epcot - F&W Festival)
Hurricane Hannahs (Beach Club Resort)
The Plaza (Magic Kingdom)
Victoria & Albert's (Grand Floridian Resort)
Food & Wine Pairing at Restaurant Marrakesh (Epcot - F&W Festival)
Casey's (Magic Kingdom)
Cape May Buffet, Character Breakfast (Beach Club Resort)
Beaches & Cream (Beach Club Resort)
California Grill (Contemporary Resort)
Yacht Club Galley (Yacht Club Resort)
Columbia Harbor House (Magic Kingdom)
Afternoon Tea (Grand Floridian Resort)

I'll also be including a review of the Food & Wine Festival marketplace, which saw Jay and me pigging out at 23 of a possible 26 food booths over the length of our visit. I wish we were eating it all right now!

I Never Knew the Blues Could Taste so Good ... House of Blues (Downtown Disney, 10/18/06)

Between traveling to WDW and relaxing at the Mandara spa on our first day in Florida, there wasn't much time for food until dinner. Luckily, thanks to years of prowling the DIS and months of anal over-planning, I knew enough to make dinner reservations months in advance of any hunger pangs we might experience. Jay and I were not on the Disney dining plan until my parents joined us, so the first few days were all out of pocket and worth every penny.

Our dinner reservation was for 8PM and we were a few minutes late thanks to our decision to walk over to the West Side from our room at Saratoga Springs. This was the first time we stayed at SSR and we underestimated the length of time it would take to walk, especially because we forgot that HoB is at the very end of all the stuff on the West Side. The place was packed when we checked in, but I don't think we waited more than 10 minutes before being seated. We had a very personable waiter from Cuba whose name escapes me but he took great care of us and made some wonderful recommendations. Jason and I started the meal with an appetizer:

Pan Seared Voodoo Shrimp with Rosemary Cornbread and Dixie Beer Reduction

This was yummy! I love shrimp and although I was worried about too much spice, this dish was all about flavor rather than excruciating pain. The cajun seasoning was great and resulted in a bit of kick on the back of the tongue, but nothing too extreme. The cornbread was moist and flavorful and soaked up the dixie beer sauce just fine. We both really enjoyed this selection - I could have made a meal out of it by myself.

For his dinner, Jason ordered the Grilled Fillet of Atlantic Salmon with Shrimp Jambalya Risotto, Asparagus Tips, and Green Onion Butter. I'm not a huge fan of salmon, but Jay loves it and orders it whenever he can - he said this dish was very tasty indeed.

Pretty fishie...

As for me...I tried something different at the suggestion of our waiter who said, quite rightly, that I could eat chicken tenders anywhere. I was flying high from my successful experience with the voodoo shrimp and decided to roll the dice by ordering the Grilled Marinated Chicken Breast with a Savory Andouille-Cornbread Pudding, Pinot Noir Sauce, and Sauteed Vegetables. Well, I should have remembered that I was going to order chicken tenders for a reason; said reason being that I don't like things like andouille sausage and too many green vegetables often result in an intestinal reversal of fortune (was that more than you needed to know, gentle reader?).

The chicken breast was actually quite good - tender and flavorful thanks to the pinot noir sauce, but I thought the bread pudding was disgusting - the flavors just didn't do it for me. Here's a picture of my dinner before I didn't eat much of it:

Bread pudding is only for dessert!

Our wonderful waiter with the name I can't remember was very concerned that I didn't eat much, especially when it came to the bread pudding thingie. I told him I was a picky eater on a good day and that I liked plain cornbread better than the bread pudding that actually came with the dish. Bless his kind heart if he didn't come back a few minutes later with some plain old boring cornbread for this old crohn!

We had planned on ordering dessert but we just didn't have room for it. And to be honest, I was only six weeks out from my second surgery of the year and I was feeling pretty darn tired. I really just wanted a nice Darvocett and a soft, comfortable bed, so this was it for our first evening at the World.

Our waiter gave us a 10% coupon for the Gospel Brunch that HoB has on Sundays and we would have loved to have attended but we already had other plans, as you will read further along in this review. Still, it was a nice gesture on his part. We used our DVC discount and got 20% off the dining tab for the evening and then we strolled back over to the room to watch the Cardinals lose game 6 of the NLCS to the Mets before falling asleep. Overall, the experience at HoB was pretty darn good and we'd definitely go back again.