More food porn.
Jan. 26th, 2002 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaTo celebrate Misha's birthday, we had dinner last night at McCormick & Schmick's. This is a high-end chain of seafood restaurants that originated in the Pacific Northwest and has apparently since spread nationwide. In Portland, I used to go to Jake's Famous Crawfish and Jake's Grill, both M&S restaurants, so I had high hopes for our dinner.
They change their menu daily, depending on which fish they happened to buy fresh that day. Their menu is a bit like a geography lesson - they don't just tell you have have sea bream, they tell you they have sea bream from off the Greek shores of the Mediterranean Sea. They don't just tell you they have Maryland crab, they tell you precisely which waters of the Chesapeake housed their crab. This is a restaurant devoted to the worship of seafood in all the complexity of its rites.
We began very nicely, with a half-bottle of Pinot Grigio an order of clams casino, and some steamed Prince Edward Island mussels. (Neither of us can remember what the mussels were steamed with, but they were marvelous.) That was easy enough to decide, but when it came time to choosing an entree I experienced utter decisional breakdown. Misha quickly and easily picked the King Salmon roasted on a cedar plank with northwest berry sauce, but I was torn. Torn between the Atlantic salmon stuffed with crab, bay shrimp, and brie... or perhaps the mahi mahi with garlic pineapple glaze... or the San Francisco seafood stew... or the Chilean sea bass with wilted greens... it was dreadful. I finally settled on sea scallops with a wild blackberry sauce, and did not regret it even a little bit. The sauce was slightly sweet, but not overly so - the waiter told me they reduced the blackberries with balsamic vinegar; that would do it - and it matched the flavor of scallops better than I would have guessed.
And then we came home, and decided that it was enough of a special occasion that we should break out the bottle of 22-year old cask-strength privately-bottled Macallan, brought home from our honeymoon in Scotland.
It was a very good night. A very good night.
They change their menu daily, depending on which fish they happened to buy fresh that day. Their menu is a bit like a geography lesson - they don't just tell you have have sea bream, they tell you they have sea bream from off the Greek shores of the Mediterranean Sea. They don't just tell you they have Maryland crab, they tell you precisely which waters of the Chesapeake housed their crab. This is a restaurant devoted to the worship of seafood in all the complexity of its rites.
We began very nicely, with a half-bottle of Pinot Grigio an order of clams casino, and some steamed Prince Edward Island mussels. (Neither of us can remember what the mussels were steamed with, but they were marvelous.) That was easy enough to decide, but when it came time to choosing an entree I experienced utter decisional breakdown. Misha quickly and easily picked the King Salmon roasted on a cedar plank with northwest berry sauce, but I was torn. Torn between the Atlantic salmon stuffed with crab, bay shrimp, and brie... or perhaps the mahi mahi with garlic pineapple glaze... or the San Francisco seafood stew... or the Chilean sea bass with wilted greens... it was dreadful. I finally settled on sea scallops with a wild blackberry sauce, and did not regret it even a little bit. The sauce was slightly sweet, but not overly so - the waiter told me they reduced the blackberries with balsamic vinegar; that would do it - and it matched the flavor of scallops better than I would have guessed.
And then we came home, and decided that it was enough of a special occasion that we should break out the bottle of 22-year old cask-strength privately-bottled Macallan, brought home from our honeymoon in Scotland.
It was a very good night. A very good night.
