Birthday Dinner

Last night Gerad and I celebrated my birthday. We went to "Sycamore Street Grill" for dinner and as soon as we were served our bread I knew I had to blog about it! It was probably one of the best meals we've ever eaten!

With our bread we received olive tapenade with olive oil. The olive oil had a very fruity note that complimented the saltiness of the olives perfectly.

On to our appetizer. We had the Shrimp Crostini. The presentation was beautiful with one piece of shrimp "standing" on each piece of bread. There was a rich, creamy, thick feta sauce with sundried tomatoes and roasted red peppers. I would have told you on Thursday that I didn't like feta, but it was wonderful in a sauce. The shrimp were cooked perfectly and the four pieces we got wasn't quite enough!

We both had soup with our dinner, minestrone. It was delicious. The flavors were deep, it tasted as if it had been simmering ALL day! The carrots, celery and summer squash were cooked to the perfect soup consistancy. The broth was just incredible, it had a fire roasted quality with just a hint of herbs.

I ordered one of the evening's specials. A dinner salad with a roasted duck breast. I'd never had duck and thought why not try it. This salad was incredible. It was a mix of spring greens with mushrooms, radishes, tomatoes, jicama (the texture of an apple), cucumber and a raspberry vinaigrette. Now, when I think of a vinaigrette I think of a dressing somewhat thin - this was thick and yummy. There were pieces of raspberry in it along with the seeds. It had the perfect acidity level to match some of the stronger flavored greens. The duck was amazing. It was exquisitely cooked (as far as I know), it has such a rich deep flavor because of the fattiness of it. The flavor is a mix between chicken and pork but with more richness - it tastes fancy ;)

Gerad ordered the potato wrapped salmon(Wild Chinook) on top of balsamic cucumbers and onions with pink peppercorns. There was a balsamic drizzle on top of all of that. For his vegetable he had a mixture of carrots, zuchinni and summer squash matchsticks gently sauteed. The salmon was absolutely beautiful. They shoestring the potatoes and then wrap the salmon in it before pan frying. (It must have been really good because I didn't even get a taste!) The cucumbers were really good, kind of like the cucumbers my mom used to make when I was a kid. A cucumber in white vinegar with onions to do a quick pickle, except they used balsamic which made them really tie in to the salmon (so Gerad said!).

We didn't get desert because we were going to a movie, (Julie and Julia - which was really good, but had a few too many inuendos in it) but I'm sure it would have been delicious.

The perfect evening - (dinner and a movie) revolving around really good food ;)