Thursday, May 7, 2009

Chef Debbie's Amazing Dinner at Radio Milano

Do you Twitter? I started just a couple of months ago am finding it addictive.

If you're so inclined, you can follow me at ChefDebbieCPC. I Tweet about my blog, recipes, the cook day or anything else I can say in just 140 characters at a time.

I follow lots of foodie people around the world ~ restaurants, chefs, food writers, etc. and when I happened to mention a couple of weeks ago that sweet husband and I would be in Scottsdale this week, I received a Tweet from Radio Milano.

So sweet husband and I left our resort paradise to have dinner at Radio Milano ~ and, boy, are we glad we did!

My food photos didn't turn out very well ~ not sure if it was the second glass of wine or the lighting. The service from the instant we arrived (free valet parking) to immediately being greeted at the door to our super server, Les, was stellar.

The menu is small but packed full of interesting choices. Sweet husband started with the roasted red pepper soup followed by a beautiful, perfectly cooked piece of roasted halibut served over sautéed spinach. A generous splash of the grilled lemon accompaniment and sweet husband was very happy.

I'm never one to pass up an opportunity for pasta and I certainly wasn't disappointed. When I'm in a new restaurant, I always ask the server what his/her favorite entrée is and I'm rarely unhappy with the choice. Our server last night was Les and I can honestly say if he wasn't such a talented musician, he could make a bloody fortune as a server. Attentive, knowledgeable about the menu and not too bad on the eyes, his recommendation of the linguine and clams was spot on.

Baby clams ~ lots and lots of baby clams ~ were tossed with a perfect prepared al denté linguine and all tossed in a light white wine, olive oil, butter and garlic sauce. In many restaurants the white sauce is heavy but here all I wanted was 3~4 more loaves of bread to soak up the sauce. Sometimes I embarrass myself when I pick up the plate and lick it clean so I (occasionally) try to act dignified and use bread to finish the job.

Even though we shouldn't have, and really didn't need it, we finished our wonderful dinner with the radio chocolate pudding ~ a creamy confection of chocolate decadence topped with an espresso meringue. We fought over the last bite!

So thanks to my new foodie friends, Daniel (the general manager), Joe (Twitter expert extraordinaire) and Les, super server. It was a wonderful dinner and Tim and I can't wait to return and try an entire new array of delightful delicacies.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Chef Debbie's Spoiled Brat Vacation Update

Spoiled brat is back, and back with a vengeance!

Whew! It's been a long time since spoiled brat has made an appearance and I was afraid she was gone for good...

This is the view from our balcony. The trees directly below us are full of hummingbirds and I love sitting outside in the afternoon visiting with Bacchus and watching the hummers zip by.

Yesterday we went to the Phoenix Botanical Garden and they are featuring an amazing Chihuly exhibit spaced all throughout the catci. His work has been carefully placed to enhance the natural beauty, grace and color of the surroundings.

I took 200+ photos of the catci, flowers and butterflies.

Here's one of the Chihuly glass exhibits and it's over 30' tall. Unbelievable! I'm can't imagine how they shipped some of these pieces. I can barely get a dozen wine glasses from point A to point B without breaking some!

So sweet husband and I just got back from dinner at Meritage Steak House. We skipped lunch so we could eat there and we still couldn't finish our entrées.

Dinner was prix fixes with soup, salad or cheese course, main entrée with starch and roasted asparagus and a choice of 7~layer chocolate cake or crème brûlée.

I had the smoked prime rib (every bit of 14oz which I couldn't even begin to finish) and it came with the most sinful sour cream~blue cheese~horseradish cream, garlic mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus. Maple crème brûlée to finish dinner ~ cuz you just have to have something sweet at the end of a meal.

Tomorrow is another day in paradise. Up around 6:00 a.m.

Funny how I don't complain about getting up here at 6:00 a.m. to walk for 60 minutes while at home getting up that early going to work is, well, just work!

So tomorrow morning. Walk 60 minutes. Chef prepared breakfast. Pool for a couple of hours. Shade for weenie red head Debbie. Downtown Scottsdale for lunch and pop into a few shops. Back to the hotel to clean up and dinner at Radio Milano here in Phoenix.

Just another day in paradise.