Personal Chef Would Rather Eat at Home

A Blog A Day For A Month: Day 19. Only 12 more days to go.

Sweet husband Tim and I went out last night. Now most people probably go out for dinner once in a while. Not us. Sweet husband offers to take me out to dinner almost every night.

But I almost always say no for a myriad of reasons ~ it's too expensive, the wine is marked up at least three times retail, it's not as good as I can normally make, on and on and on.

So I agreed to out "for happy hour" with our friends Tom and Vicki. I should mention though, that happy hour can sometimes turn into happy hours when the four of us are together. We went to In Cahoots in downtown Blue Ash. They have a great happy hour with a nice sized glass of wine at only $3.95/glass and they pour a very decent drink.

Dinner, however, was hit and miss. We've never had a problem before. Every item we've ordered ~ from angus burgers to beef stroganoff to curry chicken salad to smothered chicken ~ has been cooked and seasoned properly and plated beautifully. It always happens. You take somebody to a restaurant they haven't been to before, tell them it's good, and they end up having a less than stellar meal.

Sweet husband had a smoked top sirloin steak which was very good. Vicki had salmon. Again very good. Tom and I, on the other hand, ordered the "house favorite trout." Ugh! It was just plain broiled trout. No seasonings. No sauce. Overcooked, dry and flavorless.

Now I'm not shy but apparently Tom is. Two bites into the fish and I called our server, Stephanie, over. Absolutely no problem to switch the trout for the smoked steak. Tom muddled through his trout while I happily gnawed on smoked red meat.

And the best part? For the inconvenience, they bought me another glass of wine. Cant' beat that!