What's coming

No recipe in this post, yesterday was my day off... more exactly I took the day off and slowly, it's was birthday!!! Which means donuts for brunch (sorry they didn't survive long enough for a picture.. :) )

The reason I am writing is that among all the nice attentions I got today is a new cookbook!!! Get as excited as I am!!! it's Anne Burrell's new cook, Cook like a rock star. I love love love her, she has so much energy and she simply rocks, I watch her show and drool at pretty much anything she does... I did my best not to drown that book in drool but trust me it was tough.

So I guess I will probably cook my way through that book for a little while, I already bookmarked a bunch of recipes and will use it as inspiration for recipes to share here. If you love Italian, hearty, comfort, delicious food you should totally check that book out.

Along with that I got a Le Creuset cast iron French over (can anyone explain to me the difference between French and Deutch ovens??? I think it's just a matter of brands but I could be wrong). I have been thinking about one for a while but couldn't get my self to make that kind of investment so I was beyond excited, I think I cuddled with it for like 10 minutes.... yes I know, kinda crazy, I know...

And finally my very thoughtful boy friend took me out for a surprise dinner, the dinner was not the surprise but the restaurant was. We went to Morimoto's, downtown Philly, it was AWESOME, we really enjoy the Iron Chef and I love Morimoto so it was a real treat :). I chose the tasting menu and took some picture to make you drool ;). Sorry I waited until today to write so I forgot a lot about the dishes especially since I did not know a lot of the ingredients...

 

You might notice that some of the dishes are half eaten, because I got so excited when it came that it took me a few bites to realize that I did not take a picture of it ;). The first course was a yellow tail tartare, AMAZING,  had a little bit of caviar on the top but the best part was that it has a crispy bite to it and an great broth that complemented it perfectly.

This was Matt's appetizer, 10 hour pork, glazed pork belly on porridge, this was my second favorite dish, out of this world, I think that we could have had that over and over again and been happy. It was a bite of heaven, melt in your mouth delicious, come on it's pork belly!!!!

 

My second course was a white fish carpaccio with some hot oil and micro-cilantro, surprisingly not oily. They were 4 slices of fish, only one made it to the picture that is the proof that it was good. I have to admit that I would probably not eat a whole lot of it though.

 

The third course was a white white fish sashimi salad with micro greens over a bed of some sort of onion confit. The onion confit was a little overwhelming for my taste  but the fish and greens cut nicely through the richness.

Intermezzo, raspberry spritzer, perfect palate cleanser, very thin bubbles, absolutely delicious (not so much to Matt's liking).

Fist entree course was a seafood course, seared scallop in a tea broth. I did not care for the tea in the broth personally but the scallop was cooked to perfection, with a delicious crust and  a glaze, similar to a hoisin glaze.

Matt's entree was angry chicken (that we called by mistake angry bird... yes we are a geeky couple...) really nice and spice, lacked vegetables though, it came with some peppers but the waitress said they were extremely spicy and they considered more for decoration unless we felt very adventurous.....

My second entree course was madras duck with some vegetable and a scallion pancake. Interesting and I was happy to have duck breast for the first time in years but not something I would order again as a dish.

The one before last dish was sushi, 5 different starting with tuna and finishing with squid. Really nice and fresh but I have to admit that the squid was not a texture I particularly enjoyed, especially since I was expecting a white fish. The best way I can describe it is fishy, slimy, chewy, play-dough...

Finally desserts, Matt had white miso honeycake, shiso-vanilla bean ice cream with pear, which did not seem to be nearly as exciting as he expected.

I am not sure what mine was but it was my favorite dish, an almond and pear cake with a lightly whipped cream, miso caramel and pear. Can I have another pound of that cake??? pretty please....

Can you tell I am a foodie yet???