blue cheese ice cream, and other gastronomic delights

that's right. this unfortunate concoction was actually part of our dinner on friday night. the kid wanted to hang with some friends at the local street fair, so we dropped her off while we headed off in search of some grub. of course, as i predicted, there IS no street fair when it's 45 degrees outside, but she happily joined her posse in front of the movie theatre and they took off to the nearest coffee bean.

we found ourselves at a restaurant that was empty save for two couples - one who was obviously on their first date. the hub and i snickered at the wrapped bouquet of red roses on the table and the cautious, probing conversation ("i'm allergic to cats." "my favorite color is blue.")

as we perused our menus. there was a strange combination of sushi/pasta/seafood, but we managed to find stuff that sounded tasty. we skipped the caribou, though. we're not THAT adventurous in our meal choices.

our amuse bouche was a really tasty tidbit that featured a nice little piece of smoked salmon topped with a creme fraiche-like substance, atop what looked like a fried wonton. i don't know if that's what it was exactly, but i popped it in my mouth and hoped the rest of the meal was going to follow suit.

i ordered a fabulous grilled alaskan king crab salad to start, and the hub went with a basic caprese salad. mozzarella is his friend. and then the server brought out the first item that caused us both to raise an eyebrow - "cranberry and basil sorbet, to cleanse your palate", he says.

it was gross. the basil was overwhelming, and beyond the pretty pink color of the ice, there was no cranberry flavor to be found. the hub and i stuck a spoonful in our mouths and made the same face - man, i wish i could've taken a picture. it was pretty damn funny.

as for the rest of our meal, the ribeye steak was a'ight, but the wine sauce was far too sweet for me. ew. and my poor, patient hub - because we had the bean with us and she was hungry too (she always times her cries for sustenance to coincide with MY food arriving all nice and hot and stuff), he ended up cutting my steak into nice little bite-size pieces for me. yes, i was like a six-year-old who couldn't be trusted with a steak knife. and, before you ask, i don't whip out a boob for all to see. i have a - oh, i can hardly bring myself to say it. um, i'll just call it a nursing cover. this is what it's actually called.

anyway, we finished our entrees and largely ignored the server as we checked out the dessert menu and he rattled off some modifications to that night's selections. the hub ended up being really sorry he didn't pay attention, as the "baked peaches" he ordered turned out to be baked persimmons instead. "this is NOT good," he grumbled - as i happily dug into my creme brulee.

and to top it off, that's where that horrific blue cheese ice cream came in. those slices of baked persimmon were placed decoratively in a floral formation around a perfectly round scoop of the stuff. we exchanged fearful glances as we both stuck our forks in to test it out.

and at first, i thought it wasn't bad. it was definitely blue-cheesy, but with a hint of sweetness that really didn't taste that bad. "this is fucking disgusting," the hub mumbled as he rolled the rest of the scoop onto my plate. and after i finished every last bit of my own dessert (which was different from the typical creme brulee - it was actually layered with slices of phyllo dough that had been baked till crunchy, and the burnt sugar on top was kind of sprinkled on instead of a crunchy layer) and went back to the blue cheese ice cream, i realized it WAS as disgusting as he proclaimed it to be, and i set my fork down in defeat.

no wonder that joint was fucking empty on a friday night.