15 February 2010

Valenbirthday Eats

We celebrated my birthday and Valentine's Day yesterday by donating blood at the Blood Center of Central Texas. I highly recommend blood donation to anyone who is eligible. It only takes about an hour and it doesn't really hurt and you can save up to three lives with a single pint.

Shortly thereafter we made our way to Chinatown Mopac for some of their amazing dim sum. I had sort of forgotten that it was the lunar new year, but it was a yummy way of ringing it in! We got chicken and shiitake mushroom open steamed dumplings, lai wong bao, steamed shrimp dumplings, chicken and basil potstickers, steamed spinach dumplings, and (my personal favorite) shrimp balls with shrimp chips. All in all it was an excellent meal and I can't wait to find some excuse to ditch my diet and go get more dim sum.

Later on in the evening, we went to Truluck's. We got our reservations about a month ago, but it was mostly worth it. We started with some of their complimentary aerated water. It turns out that aerated water tastes just like regular water, but whatever.

We started with warm goat cheese with sweet chilis, olives, and spiced pecans served with crostini. It was freaking awesome. This is definitely something that I'm going to try to make at home. The pecans added texture and sweetness, while the chilies were tart and tangy and the olives were the right amount of salty.

I followed with the Knife and Fork Caesar Salad. The caesar salad was made with large pieces of romaine lettuce with large shavings of pecorino cheese, a few anchovy filets, and a couple crostinis for croutons. It was okay. It was over dressed and the whole "knife and fork" part was basically because nothing was cut for you. The anchovies were a it out of place, but they were tasty. In all it was sort of gimmicky, but whatever. Colby liked it too.

What Colby *didn't* like, however, was the lobster bisque. I had some of it too and it was interesting. It was completely smooth, with no pieces of lobster and was strangely sweet. I was glad that I ordered the salad instead of the lobster bisque.

Our entrees came next and I got the Florida stone crab claw platter. It was really delicious and served with a mustard dipping sauce and parmesan mashed potatoes, and asparagus. The sides weren't really noteworthy, but the crab claws were really good. It was different than what I'm used to (snow crab). I wasn't a huge fan of the mustard dipping sauce, but it was really good with a bit of lemon.

Colby got the miso-glazed sea bass with crab fried rice. He said that it was the best fish he's ever had. The crab fried rice was pretty good as well. (he wouldn't let me try the fish!)

We finished with a key lime pie. It had a graham cracker crust with bits of coconut and it was exceptionally lime-tastic. I really liked it, but Colby thought that the lime was overpowering.

In all, I'd definitely go again... for like another birthday, or if someone magically granted us millions of dollars because it was crazy expensive.

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