Eating the Worst is Sometimes the Best!

This weekend (the first I’ve had 2 days off in a row for 3 weeks) was a weekend for celebrating!  Not only do I have two days off, but the boy and I have been together for a whole two years (!).  So, we decided to get out of town even if we did only have 1 night.

leading up to this you all know that work has been downright crazy, so I was pretty excited when I discovered that going on a mini vacation was a possibility.  Naturally I over reacted (in a good way) and booked a getaway to a cute little boutiquey hotel in Austin, TX, and I spent all week looking forward to the trip! 

If you know me, and of course you do, you know that this whole vacation hinged on the food.  This is the story of a weekend filled with food so good I would consider it bad...maybe even dirty.

I got off work on Saturday afternoon around 4 and we began our weekend by attempting to visit The Woodshed, a restaurant popular in our area due to a “celebrity” chef named Tim Love who opened it in conjunction with our city (somehow I find this unfair, but I won’t get into that as I work for a municipality myself...).  At any rate, we attempted to go there, but were unwilling to wait 2 hours to dine (at 8pm), so we ended up at one of my former employees’ restaurants just across town.  I will say my old place (Wine Down) does live on through menu items I find when I visit the “kids” from my past at their new restaurant jobs.  
Exhibit A:

These shrimp and grits look awfully familiar!

 Didn’t Mom always say that imitation was the ultimate flattery?  I think so :)

The wine was great at the restaurant we went to for our celebration.  Our wait was long so I started with a...drum roll...Sauvignon Blanc (you knew that was coming, right?).  It was deliciously crisp with tropical pineapple notes that rounded out the mouth. I chose a pork osso bucco for my entree that was served with a wild mushroom risotto, so I chose a pinot noir to go with dinner.  The earthy notes in

Crazy huge pork Osso Bucco with mushroom risotto

the wine paired beautifully with the shitake mushrooms in the risotto.  Have you ever noticed a “piggy” flavor in pork when you eat it?  Maybe that’s just my farm-raised roots coming through, but sometimes I do. I characterize the flavors I find in pork the same way, leaving me thinking “piggy” instead of “porky.”  Either way, I think that piggy taste was complimentary to the strawberry jam I smelled/tasted in the California pinot noir.  We finished the dinner with a healthy slice of coconut cream pie to which I added a glass of tawny port.  Now, Tawny port is one of my favorite ways to end a meal, and I will concede that this was NOT a great pair necessarily, but I thoroughly enjoyed the port, and simultaneously enjoyed the pie, leaving me one happy gal even if the two things did not play on each other perfectly.

The “kid” we visited, my former chef at WD, is now an Executive Chef at this place, making me one very proud previous employer.  I also got a visit from the chef at my table (super cute).  This night was a perfect precursor to our out of town vacation that began the following day.  

I hope you’re all having a nice week so far.  I’ll continue reminiscing about my weekend as our week progresses, and you’ll be able to see how the C-man and I have the best time because we know just how to eat the worst!