Dinner at Domo in Denver

Ben had been talking up the restaurant he wanted to take us to dinner and I admit I was a little skeptical - Denver and Japanese food didn't seem to be a likely pairing. And then we arrived and I saw this:

And fell in love with this charming restaurant - it's a little Japanese oasis found on the outskirts of Denver. And the interior was just as cool as the exterior, delivering on the perfect atmosphere to deliver "country style" Japanese food .  As you can tell from everyone's faces, we were all excited for the meal ahead (and for those of you who guessed that I forced everyone to pose for pictures all weekend, you are also right!)

With a 7 pm dinner reservation, I was surprised how empty the restaurant was. Not that I was complaining, it gave us plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere while we waiting for Miley and her boyfriend Curt to join us :

Once they arrived, we placed for our order for drinks - Andrew ordered his standard tall Sapporo but was pleasantly surprised by the metal tankard that accompanied it.  It kept the beer nice and cold although we felt like we were dining in medieval times!

Ben, Amy and I opted for a sake drink special that resembled a mojito and I loved it - I found it delicious and refreshing:

The best part about eating at Domo is that every meal is accompanied by seven free side dishes that are mean to be shared family style across the table. Considering that these were generously proportioned dishes, it was like getting seven appetizers for free and they were all yummy. It was a good mix between all veggie dishes, such as bamboo shoots, pickled radish and broccoli as well as proteins like a beef-stew mixture:

For my entree, I opted for comfort food - a Yamakake noodle bowl, featuring pork, grated Japanese yam and udon noodles. To tell you the truth, I didn't notice the yam at all and I found the pork to be kind of bland but I happily slurped up the noodles and broth. It was just tough to beat the amazing side dishes that were served before our entrees came out.

Domo also features an extensive outdoor patio (we opted to eat indoors because it was a little chilly), garden and a museum on the premises, so we decided to stroll around after our meal:

Did I mention that Domo also has a large Aikido studio?

The museum section was crammed full of collectibles such as vintage sake cups, clothing and cooking utensils. It was a lot to take in all at once:

This room could've been taken straight out of a samurai castle/museum I toured in Hiroshima:

As I was walking out the door, I noticed this display - mind you, it was in the restaurant section of Domo, not the museum half. It's supposedly two million year old salt from Mongolia and I believe the little vial on the right offered restaurant patrons the chance to taste it - I didn't try it and I'm torn now whether 1) that was the wise decision or 2) I missed out on an incredible experience...so for those of you who do end up going, try it and let me know! :)

After Domo, we headed to another section of Denver to enjoy a night of karaoke (Curt was brave enough to belt out a song for the crowd) and bar hopping.  Then it was straight to bed, since we needed to get up at a decent time on Sunday morning to head to Boulder!

Silver Lounge Restaurant in Falmouth

Rich had eaten at the Silver Lounge Restaurant earlier in the week with Andrew and Andrea (apparently, I missed out on a good prime rib special) and enjoyed his meal, so he recommended it when we all wanted to grab a bite to eat.  The place was had the typical charming Cape Cod exterior with weathered shingles and was packed. So much so that I wanted to laugh at a lady that came in, requested a table for eight, and seemed utterly confused by the fact that she couldn't get seated with such a large group right away (mind you, without reservations).

We were told there would be a twenty minute wait, so we squeezed ourselves into their unique sitting area and decided to order some drinks from the bar:

The whole restaurant and even the waiting area featured marine props and decorations. I liked all the exposed wood and the nautical theme, it made the restaurant feel relaxed and casual (which it was):

Phu ordered a Dark and Stormy and I took the opportunity to try some of it because I've always been intrigued by the drink's description of dark rum and ginger beer. My reaction? Blech! Phu didn't seem to enjoy it much as well, I think because it was too strong? Chalk that up to "glad I didn't buy the whole drink to try it"!

I'm usually a beer drinking gal, but occasionally when I'm in the mood for wine, I go for a reisling and I'm always happy with the choice.

The minutes passed by pleasantly until we were seated at our table, which tucked into a little nook in the corner (surrounded with more charming decor):

I forgot to take a picture of the clam chowder that half the table ordered, which is unfortunate since it was by far the best item on the restaurant's menu! Our entrees were visually fun to look at, especially Amy's king crab legs, which everyone at the table compared to alien fingers. That didn't stop Amy from chomping away and from everyone else at the table from taking a bite:

Andrew and I both went for the surf and turf combo, and selected filet mignon and baked shrimp:

This entree pretty much summed up the experience of the restaurant. It was your typical American food/seafood combo and it was decent, while not anything special. Our "surf" portion of the meal only came with two shrimp that were baked into a pool of butter topped with a gooey coating - not sure why a whole casserole dish needed to be used for them! But over all, everyone seemed to like their food and I had no problems with the filet or the baked potato that accompanies every meal.

Overall, the atmosphere more than made up for any shortcomings in the food and I think it's a decent Cape Cod/touristy type of restaurant.

Blue-Eyed Crab Grille and Raw Bar

I have fallen in love, and unfortunately for me (but fortunately for my waistline), my love is located in Plymouth. The Blue-eyed Crab Grille was Tom and Charlotte's choice for a birthday dinner in Tom's honor but really, dinner was a gift for all of us. Ok, ok, I will stop with the flowery language, but seriously folks, I was digging the food here!

The Blue-eyed Crab in Plymouth was the second stop in our tour of southeastern Mass that had started earlier in the day at New Bedford.

It's in a pretty small location but luckily for us, there was no wait at around 5:30 p.m. on a warm Sunday (although there was a constant stream of people in and out). The interior was whimsically decorated to resemble being underwater:

While the underwater theme may not be original for a seafood restaurant, the Barbie-lounging-on-adirondack-chair lamps were definitely unique!

We started with an appetizer of crispy calamari with banana peppers, rocket greens and habanero plantain aioli. Everything was really fresh and really good. The aoili didn't stand out as much in flavor as the name would suggest but it still was tasty and a perfect complement to the rest of the ingredients. And we cleaned the plate of any remnants.

Inspired by a taste of Andrew's lobster roll from the Waterfront Grille, I ordered my own for dinner and I wasn't disappointed. It came with nicely crisped fries (which doesn't sound like much but a lot of restaurants seem to have a hard time with this), a delicious homemade sweet pickle spear and good coleslaw, according to Amy, since I don't eat coleslaw:

One picture will suffice for the rest of the table, as Andrew, Amy, Tom and Charlotte all opted for what has to be Blue-eyed Crab's signature (or at least one of their most popular) dishes - the crispy crab burger on a challah roll topped with pickled jalepenos, avocado-casino and greens lemon aioli. I was too into my lobster roll to get a taste from Andrew's sandwich but I can assure, the table was silent as everyone concentrated on savoring each bite of their crab burger other than the occasional exclamation of delight.  Andrew did remark that it was crammed full of fresh crab with little filler and Amy compared it to one of her favorite crab cake sandwiches at the Barking Crab.

We walked out the restaurant feeling full and content and again, I was just impressed by the freshness and the great preparation that allowed just simple good flavor shine through.

Eating at Plymouth's waterfront made me long for warmer summer days filled with more seafood meals - Blue-eyed Crab, I'm coming back for you!

Waterfront Grille

I can't wait for the weekend and the nice weather we're supposed to be having.

One of the last nice weekends we had, Andrew, Amy and I ended up taking a roundabout culinary tour of Southeastern MA.

First stop on our tour was North Dartmouth to pick up my cousin Andrew from school. He was in desperate need of escape from campus food, so we ended up taking him to the Waterfront Grille in New Bedford (based on a recommendation from one of Andrew's coworkers):

We were thrilled to score a table with a nice waterfront view:

With the sunny skies, some shades were definitely in order as Andrew kindly demonstrated:

The service was pretty attentive in the restaurant (almost too attentive) but I found our waiter to be weird. Amy didn't mind him and I don't know if I can explain why the waiter rubbed me the wrong way, but it was almost like he was trying too hard to quirky? Also, we were handed brunch menus when we walked in the door and mixed in with the menus was one for lunch. We didn't think anything about it, so my cousin Andrew and I ended up ending lunch items while Amy and Andrew stuck with the brunch menu.  The waiter took our orders without a problem, and then came back a few minutes later. He asked me if I had ordered the asparagus salad (which I had never heard of, since it wasn't listed on their menus). When I confirmed my meal choice once again, he told me it was on their lunch menu, which I shouldn't have been given. He told me that the Chef was willing to honor my request but he wanted me to know that it wasn't a brunch item and couldn't be ordered again if I came in another weekend for brunch.  I found this irritating as well - I wish the waiter had come back and just told me right away that I had ordered off the lunch menu and to make another selection. I guess I should be thankful that they were honoring my order but I didn't like impression that they were doing such a huge favor for me and I just didn't like all the acting in regards to confirming my menu choice. So again, it wasn't like the service was bad, I just wasn't a big fan of the waiter's personality and manner of handling things.  Anyway, back to the food!

The lunch item that they ended up making for me? A scallop and berry salad which was very artfully arranged. I have never seen these two flavors combined but I found the salad to be very light and refreshing, and the scallops had a nice crust to them:

Andrew went with a lobster roll (which looked tiny to me) and sweet potato fries. Again, everything was fresh and delicious!

Amy also had scallops, in her case, cornmeal crusted scallops with a red pepper aioli that she raved about:

Andrew went with the turkey club sandwich (also ordered off the lunch menu, but he wasn't given grief about it) but as it turns out, it had no bacon at all in it. Which made it essentially a turkey sandwich. We first wondered that maybe they didn't have the bacon since this was again, something ordered off the contraband lunch menu, and then realized, duh, it's brunch. They must have plenty of bacon around. So poor Andrew was stuck with a plain turkey sandwich but we had no complaints about the fries - perfectly cooked and crispy (something I can personally attest to since I kept stealing them off his plate):

On our way out, Andrew (my husband) noticed some very cool looking crab chairs by Waterfront Grille's fire place. Their whole decor theme was very beach/ocean focused (the same could be said for their menu) but it was all done in a very charming way:

Overall, despite the menu snafu and my personal issues with the server, I would highly recommend the restaurant. It was in a great location, tons of ample parking, great food with fresh ingredients and reasonable prices for seafood.

Location number 2 of the day for me, Amy and Andrew was Plymouth to celebrate Tom's birthday. More on that leg of the tour tomorrow!

Restaurant Review: The Abbey

Full confession - this review is two months overdue!

If you've ever read restaurant reviews in publications, often the food writer refers to whomever accompanies them as their dining companion. I always found that term funny in the instances when the writer was clearly referring to a spouse or significant other. As a journalist, they clearly felt that using the phrase "dining companion" clearly elevated their meal beyond the ordinary. 

The reason for this random thought? While Andrew is most certainly my dining companion in life (I can hear the groans from my sister Amy for saying something so cheesy) and I eat the most meals with him, it's my friend Jen that is most frequently my dining companion for new or interesting restaurants. She's a Yelper and one of those people who knows about new restaurants so I can count on her for a good restaurant recommendation. And I have to admit that I not only have this restaurant review, but there is also another meal with Jen (from this month) that needs to be posted.  But I digress, back to the restaurant review.

Brookline is always a favorite (and convenient) location for us to meet for a meal, so when Jen mentioned that The Abbey had just opened in Washington Square, I was all for giving it a try.

First impressions of the place? It's dark and tiny!  We ate on a weeknight and relatively early (if I recall correctly, probably right before six) so we had no wait. But there was a slight wait by the time we left and I bet the line would be longer on the weekends, with not a lot of room to wait indoors by the bar (key in the winter time).

I ordered the Fried Halloumi Cheese with Yogurt Sauce because hello, did you just see the words "fried" and "cheese" appear together?  It was good but I didn't think the cheese or the dip had much flavor.

The bread and the hummus-like spread that they serve however, gets two thumbs up from me:

The Abbey is apparently known for their Bison (as in buffalo) Bolognese so I was glad that Jen ordered that as her entree. I did think it was a little picey ($17) but it did live up to the hype and was delicious:

As for my meal, I went with a gnocchi special and a side of shredded brussel sprouts (which everyone knows are my new favorite vegetable) - both were fresh, light and tasty. 

I think The Abbey is definitely worth trying, especially since they feature so many fresh ingredients in the dead of winter, but some of their entrees are a little pricey for me to eat there at a regular basis.

Freestone's City Grill

Following up on yesterday's post, while North Dartmouth has tons of chain restaurants that are close to campus, we decided to be adventurous and headed into New Bedford to find our dinner.  Andrew used to work in New Bedford, and had a hunch we'd be able to find a good place in New Bedford's charming downtown area - we're talking historical buildings and cobblestone streets.

We ended up trying Freestone's City Grill - there was a public parking lot around the corner, and thanks to some friendly locals, we realized you didn't have to pay for parking on Saturday (I'll admit to being skeptical of this but as the rest of the group accurately pointed out, none of the other cars had payment papers on their dash).

You can't see it very well from this angle, but Freestone's is actually in an old bank whose name is still carved in the front of the building:

In my hunger, I forgot to take a nice clear shot of the tables in Freestone's, but I liked how the standard wooden tables were dressed up with floral patterened inserts (if you squint at the picture below, you might be able to make out the floral pattern). What I liked even more was the French Onion soup that I got as part of my meal - nice flavor, ooey-gooey cheese on top, and a good amount of onions. I've never been a fan of the whole soggy bread in the soup thing, but for all you traditionalists, it did come with large round of bread on the bottom (which was oddly described as croutons on the menu):

Having hearty appetites, the five of us were able demolish a large dish of perfectly fried calamari:

As well as the wonderful creation called the Fried Cheese combo - fried raviolis, fried mozarella cheese and cream cheese jalapaneo poppers. I've seriously never had poppers that have had a fresh cream cheese filling squeeze out:

Amy went with the Freestone's Pasta - with a name like that and ingredients like shrimp, artichokes, onions, peppers, diced tomatoes, spinach, feta, parmesan cheese and ziti in a light garlic white wine sauce: 

My cousin Andrew picked the Oriental Stir-Fry with chicken:

Phu ordered the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich:

A typical Andrew order - Fried seafood platter including fried scallops and clams:

As for me, I was pretty full at this point but I can always do with more cheese. Especially when it comes in fondue form:

Can you say melty cheesy goodness? It came with a side of baguette bread, which is traditional, but the only thing that could've made it better was if it was toasted:

So why the rave reviews? I thought Freestone's offered a great selection of traditional bar fare, and did it well. Plus, I think their overall menu had a creative selection of sandwiches and entrees. I don't venture into New Bedford very often, but I think we'll need to visit my cousin Andrew at UMass-Dartmouth more often and make eating at Freestone's a tradition! Especially if there is fondue involved.

Foley's Backstreet Grille

October was a big month for birthdays - while we ended up celebrating Andrew's birthday on our cruise in Turkey, we missed our friend Phu's big 3-0 celebration while we were gone.  However, we did make it in time to celebrate Andrew's mom's birthday.  Through her selection, we were able to try a new restaurant - Foley's Backstreet Grille in Stoughton!

As I'm easing back into food blogging, you'll have to forgive me for my forgetfulness. For once, I was concentrating on eating food more than I was on taking pictures of it! I think it was all the meals on the cruise that made me lazy, since I got out of the practice of taking pictures of meals (you didn't think I would subject you to pictures of cruise food, did you?)  Anyway, I did take a few pictures, but this recap is going to be more on the overall impressions we got from the place.

Starters - I forgot to take a picture, but they serve these awesome homemade potato chips as a free starter at the table. Very salty but tasty.

For apps, we went with the calamari - nicely crisp without being too greasy, but missing some sort of dipping sauce:

And a gigando, I mean REALLY big, appetizer combo featuring boneless chicken wings, potato skins, onion things (that's what they call them) and ribs:

This was a great way to try four different menu items but I felt a little gross after eating it. As in way too much food, and the four of us couldn't even finish it.

For our entrees, we all went with choices of the specials menu.  Andrew and Tom went with the Seafood Angela (if I recall the name correctly) which was a seafood medley served over angel hair pasta.  They were both so stuffed at this point that they focused on eating the seafood, and pretty much left the pasta untouched on their plates:

Charlotte and I both enjoy a good slab of meat now and then, so we opted for the prime rib. I ended up having a small portion of this, and had enough left over for two more meals. That's right, two more!

Overall Impressions:

• Foley's is really on a back street - kind of tucked away on a side street and you would have to be looking for it to run across it. I think if you lived in Stoughton, you'd be going by it all the time but I have a feeling people aren't going out of their way to find this place
• The place was packed with families and old people. As in enough senior citizens that Andrew told me he thought that there was an assisted living facility nearby. To me, that suggested that Foley's was known as a family friendly place with reasonably priced meals.
• They had a cute theme going on with movie posters on the walls, which was echoed in the menu. Each section of the menu was named after a movie, so for example, Garden State listed their salads, Ocean's Eleven had seafood, etc.
• Homemade potato chips definitely a highlight
• Nice variety of menu options, all reasonably priced, but I didn't find any of the food to be stellar. It was definitely more homey, comfort food style
• They don't have a lot of choices in the way of beverages. Basically some wines, a few beers and a trio of malternative drinks (I think Mike's Hard Lemonade). Also, the birthday girl Charlotte who is a proud GRIT, didn't get to order her beloved Coke since it is a Pepsi establishment (full disclosure, I prefer Pepsi products, so this wasn't a bad thing in my eyes)
• They did take reservations (which probably saved us a 10 minute wait on a Friday evening) and I appreciated the fact that table had an actual "RESERVED" sign and was waiting for us when we arrived

Overall, I think it's not a bad place to stop by when you're in the area, especially if you're accompanied by kids and/or the grandparents, but I don't think Andrew and I will be going back on our own.

Sidenote: I should've taken a picture of Charlotte's birthday gift from us but it was a neat cartouche pendant that we picked up in Egypt with her name spelled out in heiroglyphics. It's going to be hard to top that for Christmas!