Restaurant – Page 2 – Fervent Foodie

Fervent Foodie is a contributing writer for the official Urbanspoon blog.

Whether on a hot first date or trying to impress the bigwigs at a business meeting, ordering a bottle of wine at a restaurant can be quite intimidating for a wine neophyte. A successful attempt requires balance: ordering with confidence, not looking like a cheapskate, and above all else selecting a wine that actually tastes good. With all the stuffy jargon and wine lists that include dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties, wine is often seen as a complex beverage only enjoyed by snooty oenophiles. If you don’t even know what an oenophile is, this article is for you, my friend.

(continue reading about how to order wine on the Urbanspoon blog)

As a foodie, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that my world revolves around food. I spend countless hours each week reading about it, researching it, cooking it, exploring it, talking to strangers about it, sharing it… you get the point. From the 5:30am pre-body pump peanut butter toast to the hot fudge brownie bowls I’d like to cap every night off with, food is the thread that links the pieces and parts of my days together. It’s what brings passion to my eyes during conversation. It’s what brings a smile to my face at the end of a trying week. It’s what intrigues me, and challenges me, and nourishes my body and mind.

Bottom line: food brings me joy.

Of course, with all this love and warm fuzzies there is a dark flip side: the food flop. Nothing is more disheartening than experiencing a food flop. Perhaps it’s a new dish that’s lacking in taste or worse yet a new dish that straight up makes you ralph. Either way, a food flop is like a sharp nail on a chalkboard. It brings a party to a screeching hault in a matter of seconds.

It’s no secret that trying out new restaurants is one of my favorite pastimes. I love the excitement of experiencing something new and the opportunity to have ALL of my senses blown away by a fabulous dining experience. When I try a new restaurant and that restaurant doesn’t rock my socks off, whelp, it’s downright depressing. It feels like a waste—not only a waste of money, but more importantly a waste of time that could have been used to try out a different much more fabulous establishment.

Does anyone else feel this way? Maybe I’m a foodie extremist.

Speaking of trying new places, after my Ladies who Lunch post last week I headed to lunch with a lady (Jamie) at King’s Kitchen uptown. I was thoroughly excited for the opportunity to lunch with a new friend AND to try out a new restaurant that I’d passed so many times but never stepped foot inside.

While perusing the menu, I was pretty pumped when I saw “macaroni and cheese” as a vegetable. That HAD to be a good sign.

Another plus were the free biscuits we were brought:

Then the meal came—grilled chicken with macaroni, broccoli, and collard greens:

And that’s where the plusses stopped.

The chicken was dry – so dry that it was difficult (and awkward) to cut through even with a knife.

And the mac and cheese?

Whelp, it was oily and lacking flavor… As were the collard greens… and the broccoli.

Even with this disappointment, at the end of the lunch I put my hand on my belly and said almost robotically “that was so good!” As soon as the words left my lips, I thought to myself “ummm Mary, no that was NOT good.” But what didn’t come to me until later that day was that it was OK to admit the food wasn’t good. It’s not always rainbows and chocolate ganache. Sometimes it’s dry meat and oily side dishes.

Despite the food flop, Jamie and I had a great time getting to know each other. Some might think it’s crazy that I invite random people I’ve never met to lunch. But if you want to be a Lady who Lunches, sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do 🙂

How to order wine like a boss.

It wasn’t THAT good, actually.