Dining out is amazing. So many options. Different cuisines. Highbrow, lowbrow and everything in-between and I love it all. Sunday my wife and I golfed. Thunderstorms. The golf course siren wails. We're drinking so fuck it. The marshall comes out. We're coming right in we say. Fuck it. We head to the green. I line up my putt and then it happens: I feel the hairs rise up, I yell get down to my wife and hit the ground. The flash of brilliant light is a split second before the loudest boom ever. The closer in time the light/sound are, the closer the strike and this was virtually simultaneous. Maybe going in and give it up after 14 holes.
Out to dinner. Our version of fine dining. Very, very weird fine dining establishment in Rhode Island, the most underrated food destination in the land. The "Lucky Dog Tavern" sounds like a biker bar. The building looks like an old biker bar and the half-dirt parking lot, neighborhood of fun down triple Deckers doesn't scream fine dining.
Inside it is small, as in 25-30 feet end to end. Maybe 30 seats, including the bar. Your reservation is clocked at 90 minutes and then out you go. Chef owned. Quebecois, Japanese and Portuguese influences, which is bizarre.
Started with Poutine. Very, very, very French Canadian dish in which they combine tater tots, slightly fried cheese curds, crispy pieces of duck and the finest brown gravy on earth. I would drink it from a glass and be happy. Too rich to finish, so take home. On to dinner and I order Pasta Divinia, which is a dish that exists nowhere else and the only reference I found is an Italian restaurant in Brussels. Chef owned so I get a huge plate of really good linguini, some very large, perfectly cooked shrimp and sea scallops and lobster claw and tail with roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts, perfectly done. The sauce? Never had anything like it: Roasted garlic, Champagne cream sauce. No cheese at all, no tomatos. A true cream sauce. Half came home, just waaay too much food, with all the incredible Sangrias we drank.
Best part? Eating at the bar on the way home from Desires and the fact I can tell my wife exactly how and why I know a restaurant in rural Slatersville Rhode Island, where we live far away.
What was your last great meal?
Last GREAT meal? A Korean BBQ offered a Spanish heritage Iberico pork that had been fed primarily pecans and walnuts it's whole life. That was a couple of years ago, but it was the best meat I've eaten outside of the wagyu and ribs I cook at home.