NYE 2012 at Pumpkin

For whatever reason, disappointingly, I didn't photograph our new years eve.
But we did have a fantastic meal at Pumpkin.

First the oddities:
The place is small, very crowded and loud.
Cash only...but needed a deposit on a credit card.
They couldn't tell us anything about the menu, even the day before!

Now that that's out of the way on to the fantastic evening!

The service was superb, as was the meal.

Servers appeared calm and were clearly well informed; they could speak about the dishes with ease.
Even though we were told before we sat down (late) that we were allotted an hour and a half for our meal, we never felt rushed.

Our meal:
A miso, butternut squash soup
Escargo
Quail (I will say that with the sour cherry sauce splashed on the plate, it looked as if they killed the poor little thing right there.)
Duck with pork belly
Beef Cheeks
Chocolate cake
Butterscotch pudding

As elementary as my listing of the menu looks, each dish was beautiful in appearance and taste.

We're looking forward to going back again!

TGFSC - Days 2 & 3

I couldn't write about the food stamp challenge we're doing this week last night because I was busy baking my self silly.

Day 2
Again pretty easy. But I notice that I've gone from counting calories to counting cents. Its just as annoying and tiresome.

Our Menu for Day 2:
Breakfast:
Yogurt ($1)
Cottage Cheese ($.5)
Lunch:
Chicken sandwich on WW bread with cheese, lettuce and tomato ($1.25)
Snack:
Apple ($.17)
Dinner:
Chicken, broccoli rabe, mushrooms and onion with pasta ($1.67)

Our #foodstampchallenge dinner day 2

Dessert:
Peeps (2/$.016)

Total for the day: $4.58
$.42 cents left!!

This was great...seriously. I can't believe how cheap it was!

Day 3
Today was harder. We had some running around town to do and didn't have time to eat breakfast, so by noon we were both hungry and cranky, but knew we had another 2 hours until we could get home to eat something...it sucked!
Another reason today was particularly difficult, a new restaurant opened up in our neighborhood and we had made plans to meet friends there prior to agreeing to this challenge. We decided to have some cottage cheese after the gym to hold us over while we met our friends and shared a drink. When they were ready to order dinner, we left.
I feel very privileged that I do not have to make these scarifies on a routine basis.

Our Menu for Day 3:
Breakfast:
None :( $0
Lunch:
Chicken sandwich on WW bread with lettuce and tomato ($1)
Pretzle ($.12)
Snack:
Summer Sangria from SoWe ($2.5)
Dinner:
Chicken, brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes ($1.34)
Total for the day: $4.96
$.04 left

Chicken, brussel sprouts and sweet potato for $1.34

Unfortunately, I'm still hungry today...damn that drink with friends! ;)

1/2 price sushi?!

Seriously, we found some lox that was marked down, and decided to purchase it. What was wrong with us?!
But we're SO happy we did, we were able to make two meals from this $10 package of fish, which I'm still very pleased we purchased!
I've attached a pic of our sushi bowl, salmon, rice & fresh veggies, yum!

Varga happiness

We got lucky tonight & were able to meet for dinner at Varga Bar.
We decided to taste a few items; brussel sprouts (bc they're Nicole's fav) special polenta and special ravioli.
The brussel sprouts were awesome!
Crunchy, salty, tart, melt in your mouth goodness.

Awesome brussel sprouts

The wild mushroom polenta was hot & soft inside with a nice thin crunchy outside.

Wild mushroom polenta

The ravioli tied with the brussel sprouts as my favorite. The light earthy, cinnamon/nutmeg-ish sauce paired perfectly with the winter squash & lobster. The ravioli themselves were very nice, thin pasta light fluffy filling.

Ravoli with winter squash and lobster

I liked the food and the atmosphere better than Adsum!

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