Last Night's Birthday Dinner!

Yesterday was a great day! In addition to restarting the blog, I enjoyed a fantastic dinner at the Republic Chophouse, in downtown Green Bay. We've never eaten there before, but this won't be the last time!

To make everyone drool just a little, here are the meals (sorry, no pictures):

Starters:  Bennett and Tammy enjoyed the bacon-wrapped scallops in a maple-jack glaze, Ethan had steak bites (bites of New York strip, wrapped in prosciutto, seared and served with garlic aioli, and I had chile-lime raw ahi tuna taco on Napa cabbage, avocado and habanero-sour cream.  Oh, that was good! I am going to try to replicate that tuna taco. When I do, I will post the results here.

Salad/Soup: Bennett was rogue and enjoyed the tomato-basil bisque while the rest of us had a green salad with a basil vinaigrette.

Main Course:  Ethan enjoyed citrus-cucumber salmon and garlic-cheese mashed potatoes. Bennett and Tammy loved the Ritz Cracker crusted rack of lamb (four bones) with a blackberry-veal demi-glace. Bennett also chose the garlic-cheese mashed, and Tammy went with grilled asparagus. And I...well, I went for the gold ring. I enjoyed a 16 ounce Irish New Yorker (an inch-thick boneless New York strip steak, marinated in Guinness stout, whiskey, and soy sauce, grilled medium rare, and served with truffle-Parmesan steak fries. It also came with a Jameson's Irish whiskey shooter which I saved for the after dinner coffee.)

Dessert: Both boys went with the caramelized pineapple custard, and Tammy got the spiced rum cake with port-wine poached pears, and I ordered the HUGE four-layer red velvet cake. Tammy and I were going to share each of ours, but the red velvet cake was easily large enough for four, and the rum cake was nearly that large. We ate the spiced rum cake and brought the red velvet cake home. It sits in our fridge, taunting us.

Oh, yeah...I completely blew my calorie budget, and I didn't care. You only turn 50 once, and this was a special meal.

Today, I am back on track (and only up 1.5 pounds, which I consider a victory because I planned for a two pound gain--sodium/water retention.)

If you are in Green Bay between now and July 18, you can enjoy Green Bay Restaurant Week, too. The meals are awesome (as are the prices.)  If you can't make it to Green Bay, well I guess my summaries will need to suffice. Tammy and I have two more meals (lunches, this time) planned at two other restaurants.  Keep watching here for details.