Monday, November 1, 2010

Some Grown-Up Food



I spend a lot of time scanning menus, honing in on the items the girls will eat and enjoy (key to our entire dining out experience) while trying to avoid automatically resorting to the kid's menu dregs of chicken nuggets and buttery noodles.

In fact, I spend so much time thinking about what the girlies will consume that when I do find myself dining sans kids (it doesn't happen often), I still inevitably scan the menu for the "safe" choices. It's a hard habit to break.

A couple of weeks ago my hubby and I spent an weekend in Austin for our tenth anniversary -- with no kids in tow. We were (of course) excited about the alone time...the chance to hang out, meander in museums, go for drives without having to mitigate backseat dramas...but we were absolutely giddy with excitement about the food possibilities. We planned our meals with the precision of a general going into battle. (I even e-mailed this fantastic blogger for some restaurant suggestions, as while Bryan and I lived in Austin for many years, it was over a decade ago, and when we visit, we tend to frequent the same spots.)

While we ended up eating some admittedly "kid-friendly" fare -- namely lots of tacos (it was Austin after all) and a *huge* stack of pumpkin pancakes at Kirby Lane, we did revel in such adult indulgences as fresh arugula and heady gorgonzola pizza and an amazing, magical, wholly unique meal at Uchiko. It was maybe the best meal I've ever had...it lasted almost 3 hours, involved a genius French waiter, prosecco with grilled thyme and lemons and insanely delicious food that I couldn't pronounce.

It was definitely not a kid's meal.

We need to do that more often.

13 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you guys had a great weekend in Austin! And glad you got to try Uchiko... it's seriously amazing. (Also, yay Cipollina!) :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds amazing!!! The dinner part and kid-free weekend. Got to do it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. prosecco makes every meal better. glad you had a fantastic trip! xo

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm so excited to see that you were in Austin, where I live! Cipolina is a fantastic grown-up restauarant. Thanks, too, for introducing me to Poco-cocoa! Somehow I missed her wonderful writing until now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That pizza has me dreaming of jumping from my desk and going in search of something war, gooey, and chewy! And I love that it has greens on top; it's a complete meal!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good for you guys don't we all need more of that! Old habits!
    Cupcake
    www.thefamily-table.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. It is such a yummy pizza dish, really you arranged it so good way, with green vegetables.
    Community Association Institute

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love cheese pizza very much in raising foodies. The drinkers has separate place in this restaurant with special offers for plastic jars of full cocktails with quantity.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really nice and interesting post. I was looking for this kind of information and enjoyed reading this one. Keep posting. Thanks for sharing. pentole amc roma

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sharp idea and reason to present new blends of flavors, sauces and marinades to these essential strategies help to upgrade the kinds of these fundamental food varieties. This is, has and will keep on being objective of numerous individuals and surely with cafés to help put their style and food aside from others. Iranian Restaurant

    ReplyDelete