Two Stories

The laundry is in.  In exactly an hour I will need to move it so my neighbors don't have to (we all seem to wash clothes Monday night) and I don't want any of my neighbors to have to touch my...laundry.

I had leftovers for dinner.

I've been looking forward to going to the Red Stag Supperclub for a long time now.   I was very interested in what I heard about it, being a LEED-certified building (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System™) and focused on using local, organic ingredients.  The Red Stag chef participated in a demo at the Mill City Farmer's Market and those always make me want to run out and try the restaurants right away (that's how I tried Sea Change for the first time--at their soft opening.)

I love brunch, I love breakfast out.  It's probably the easiest meal to prepare (except for maybe Hell's Kitchen huevos rancheros--have you seen the list of ingredients for that dish in Damn Good Food: 157 Recipes from Hell's Kitchen?)  Sometimes I feel guilty for not making omelets at home or attempting my own hollandaise sauce for another favorite, Eggs Benedict (especially Grand Cafe's with housemade gravlax.  And it's within walking distance!)  And I can't always reproduce some of my favorite Bloody Mary recipes at home.  So it's more than worth to go out, especially with a great friend.

We had reservations for 10:30, but when we got there we discovered they weren't necessarily needed.  (I think that's more of a night thing.)  I love the building.  It's all wood and beams and an open kitchen.  So comfortable and warm.  (That sounds so seriously dorky, but it really was!)

And delicious!

I had coffee (very good) and a Bloody Mary (of course!)  It was nice and spicy and had all of the vegetables I like in my bloodies, a salad in a glass!)  I had the Green Eggs and Ham.  The finely shredded hashbrowns were buttery on the inside and perfectly crisp on the outside.  The biscuit was fresh, the poached egg perfect--no sign of an overcooked yolk, and the hollandaise with a little green herbed oil was delicious.  My friend had the Buckwheat Pancakes with Hazelnut Butter.  I'm always wary of pancake with anything but buttermilk, but these were light and fluffy with a nuttiness (is that a word?) and earthly flavor from the butter and buckwheat.

I may have made up my mind to love this place before I was ever there, but I cannot wait to go back.  Plans are in the works to go on February 6th to see Mark Wheat host karaoke with dinner beforehand.  Super excited for that too.  I think I might try the Brick Pressed Chicken.

Then I went home and took a long nap.

Late in the afternoon, I drove down to Apple Valley to try Wild Bill's Sports Saloon with Molly.  It's very similar to Buffalo Wild Wings, which incidentally is right around the corner from Wild Bill's.  A large selection of various sauces that can go on many different fried things.

A lesson learned:  don't go to a sports bar (or saloon or whatever it calls itself) on a football Sunday, especially when the Vikings football game started at noon and most of the people in the bar have been there since then.  There were girls on the tables and PDAs that I didn't want to see while I had my dinner.

I ordered a Coke (horrors!), but I thought it would be good with the meal.  We ordered the boneless wings, four with Sesame Asian and four with Wild Bill's Orange Sauce.  I'm not usually much of a fruit/meat person (horrible memories of my grandmother's crockpot porkchops and peaches) but I thought I would try it and I thought for sure I would like the Asian sauce.  The "wings" came out right away, crispy on the outside still because they hadn't sat in the sauce too long.  As it turns out, I really liked the Orange Sauce and the Sesame Asian was horrible.  Overly salty and flavorless.  No sesames.

We finished those off in short order.  We ordered a Bourbon Teriyaki Chicken sandwich and a BBQ Pork Sandwich with Bill's Homemade BBQ and Smothered Poker Chips.  And then we waited.

And we waited.
And we waited.
All the while being treated to the antics in the bar.

Literally an hour later (I don't know why we didn't leave) our sandwiches were brought to us.  The chicken was okay, not thrilling (though it came with crinkly cut fries and those are something Molly loves) and the "pulled" pork was incredibly dense and nearly BBQ-less (I could only eat half of it and how often do you hear me say that?)  The smothered potato disks were covered with "queso" (mmm, plastic cheese), bacon, and green onion.  Um, delicious.

Because of the wait, the waitress cheerfully comped our drinks.

I still won't go back there.  Molly, we have to find another place in Apple Valley.

I have an extremely sore throat (thanks Morgan) so I am cranking up the humidifier and going to bed to read more about the food industry and think about changes I need to make.