Kellari Taverna DC

It's a fabulous conundrum to choose a restaurant for lunch with your coworkers when someone else is treating.  My boyfriend asked for some suggestions with food, service and close proximity to their office being the most important parameters.  I suggested Tosca, Central, Blue Duck Tavern, Bourbon Steak, Ris or J&G.  Those were a little far, so they went to Kellari Taverna, the Greek fish restaurant on K Street.  http://www.kellaridc.com/ Kellari has a great Business Lunch special for $24.95 for 3 courses.

 Spanikopita - spinach, leeks and feta stuffed in phyllo dough.

 

Grilled Calamari

 Rockfish with polenta and rapini

Grilled Salmon - grilled fennel, roasted tomatoes

 Galaktoboureko - vanilla bean semolina custard with phyllo dough

Yogurt Cheesecake

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These days with many offices cutting back on holiday parties, it was a lovely gesture by their coworker to take everyone out for lunch.  Sometimes I forget how lucky my boyfriend and I are that we work with really nice people.  I've been lucky to never experience the office mean girls or caustic bosses.   

All of the food was good and a perfect portion size for someone like me.  For my boyfriend, he could have used a little more I think. 

Saturday Snack

We're apartment hunting.  After a few early morning tours, we ended up at a newly opened WalMart.  Say what you will about the destruction of small businesses by the monolith, but their bakery has some pretty tasty sandwich rolls.  My boyfriend needed a snack, so I picked up a few things to make him a lightened steak and cheese sandwich. 

Cooking Korean at Home

I'm an adopted Korean.  Cooking a mushroom lasagne with bechamel? No problem.  Cooking Korean foods? erm...  Luckily Annandale is close by with a lot of tasty, affordable and authentic Korean restaurants.  After trying out a good variety of dishes, I've become more familiar with the flavors and decided to tackle cooking a Korean meal.  I made bibimbap and gochujeon.

 Bibimbap Assembly.  You can use any vegetables you have on hand, the key is hot rice and kochujang (spicy red chili paste).

 Look how pretty.  Bean sprouts, marinated ground beef, mushrooms, bok choy and carrots.

 Top the bowl with a fried egg.  When you're ready to eat, mix everything up together.

GoChujeon - stuffed green peppers.

I picked up a bag of green peppers at Super H.  They looked like the spicy ones my boyfriend likes.  These were sweet though.  One day I'll read labels.  I found a recipe online for Korean stuffed peppers.  I slit the peppers, cleaned out the seeds, then put cooked spicy ground beef inside.  Dusted in flour, the peppers were cooked on a layer of egg, and steamed a bit like pan-fried dumplings.  The dipping sauce was soy with some rayu (chili sesame oil). 

My boyfriend loved it, and there was enough leftover to make 2 lunch bentos.  Since the Florida cookies and restaurant bonanza, we've been trying to eat lighter and more economically.  This was both. 

Carrabbas in Ft Myers

Our final night in Ft. Myers, we went to Carrabba's Italian Grill with my parents.  It's owned by the same group as Bonefish, but we all liked Carrabba's better.  We called ahead to put our name on the wait list, so our wait was not too long. http://www.carrabbas.com/ The portions are large, and all entrees come with your choice of soup or salad. 

We started off with the Cozze in Bianco.  Nice and plump PEI mussels steamed in garlic, white wine, basil and lemon butter.  (Full or half sizes available.)

Lobster Ravioli in a white wine cream sauce.

Linguine Pescatore - mussels, sea scallops and shrimp in a spicy marinara.

"The Johnny" - Sirloin marsala and Chicken Bryan (chicken topped with sundried tomato, goat cheese and lemon basil butter).

Crab cake with sirloin and sauteed spinach.

Bonefish Grill in Ft. Myers

http://www.bonefishgrill.com/ We went one night to Bonefish Grill with my parents.  Ft. Myers has pretty much any chain restaurant you can think of, and everywhere is crazy busy once the snow birds arrive.  With the cold snap, everyone was stuffed into the entrance way waiting for their party to be called. 

Bang Bang Shrimp - fried shrimp tossed in a creamy, spicy sauce.

Imperial Longfin stuffed with shrimp, scallops, crabmeat and lemon caper butter sauce with mashed potatoes and spaghetti sauce.  (If you ever see a photo of a Longfish, eek!)

Wolf Fish sauteed with rockshrimp with lemon butter sauce.

Grilled salmon with mango salsa, mashed potatoes and spaghetti squash.

Sesame-crusted Ahi Tuna with jasmine rice and vegetables.

Christmas in Florida

We headed to Florida for the Christmas holidays.  Driving south, we stopped for the night in Savannah, Georgia.  Looking online, we debated which place to try out for dinner.  We ended up going to the southern classic, Lady & Sons, owned by Paula Deen.  Now Paula is not really known as a "less is more" kind of gal, but we were on vacation.

The buffet has a nice variety of southern classics.  Fresh fried chicken, collard greens, creamy macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a variety of beans.  There were also ribs and ham, corn on the cob, salad and desserts.  Really nice collards. 

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We finally made it to Florida after another day of driving.  It was the first time for my boyfriend to meet my parents, and happily everyone got along really well together.

Christmas Eve dinner we had portabello mushrooms stuffed with crab, shrimp and a cheesy rice mixture.  With a light salad, rolls and a crisp Pinot Grigio, we had a very relaxed night before Christmas.

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Christmas morning tradition:  coffee, juice, fruit salad and cinnamon rolls.  This year we had orange cinnamon and regular glazed cinnamon rolls.

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Christmas Dinner

Grilled potatoes, grilled pork tenderloin and asparagus.

Shrimp casserole

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After a bit of home-cooking, we picked up some pizza to eat after watching True Grit.  It's become a holiday tradition to go see a movie. 

Vegetable lovers pizza - garlic, onion, fresh tomato, olives, mushrooms and peppers.

Mushroom, onion, sausage, and pepperoni.

Cracker Barrel

http://crackerbarrel.com/ After seeing billboards lining I-95 for hundreds of miles, we finished our chain restaurant tour of Florida at Cracker Barrel.  It was my first time, and I think it beats the pants off of iHop and Denny's.  Loved the biscuits and gravy.

Old Timer's Breakfast with 2 eggs sunny side up, 2 sausage patties, with a side of grits, biscuits and gravy and hashbrown casserole ($7.49).  Sunrise Sampler with 2 eggs sunny side up; sampling of country ham, sausage and bacon; fried apples, hashbrown casserole, grits and biscuits with gravy ($7.99).