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Date night at The Spence

I know I’ve been absent for a while. Jeff and I both got the flu last month so we’ve both been generally tired and “off” for quite some time now. After an entire month spent indoors eating dry toast for dinner and never seeing the light of day, it was finally time we got out into the world again.

This past weekend we took a date night to The Spence, one of Richard Blais’s newish restaurants in Atlanta. We decided to do our usual thing and order a bajillion small plates in lieu of entrees so that we could try more of the menu, which sounded incredible.

Started off with buffalo sweetbreads garnished with both creamed and powdered bleu cheese and a few sprigs of celery leaf. These were extraordinarily spicy, but still really soft and delicious.

Buffalo sweetbreads

Next was the porcini mushroom and shortrib pasta. It was pretty good, with chewy pasta and a runny egg. There was very little shortrib though, and I think the mushrooms were added as a powder because the flavor was there but they were nowhere to be seen.

Porcini and shortrib pasta

Then harissa spiced beef tartare with fried quail eggs and tater tots. This one was so yummy! I loved the tater tots standing in for the requisite toast, but there really should have been a lot more of them. We ended up just eating several spoonfuls of raw beef towards the end there.

Harissa beef tartare with tater tots

Another delicious dish suffering from a lack of sufficient toast: foie gras with Japanese green peaches. There was other stuff on it too that wasn’t mentioned on the menu. Some shallot slices that tasted like they were marinated in the peach juice, something that looked like yuzu gel but tasted like nothing, possibly crushed hazelnuts, and a pickled olive that took me by surprise. It was really tasty, but again there wasn’t enough toast to pile it all on so we ended up eating almost half of it straight up, which was not my favorite thing ever. Those little green peaches were incredible though.

Foie with green peaches and brioche

Jeff was full so we opted to skip to dessert. I could’ve eaten one more dish but I just hadn’t been too impressed by anything so far so I chose to skip it. We got the yuzu semifreddo with peach sorbet and chili oil….

Yuzu semifreddo and peach sorbet with chili oil

It was gross.

The semifreddo had almost no discernable flavor and the chili oil was CRAZY overpowering. The menu also didn’t mention that there would be flavorless cracker crumbs and bitter cacao nibs, which is strange because chocolate is a common allergen and should always be mentioned up front. There was also one lone sprig of cilantro that completely freaked me out when I wasn’t expecting it. None of the flavors in this dessert went together at all, it was really bizarre and easily the worst dessert I’ve ever had.

All in all, I wasn’t too impressed with The Spence. It was incredibly noisy, so noisy that you kind of have to just give up on talking to each other until you leave. Our waiter kind of sucked too, he acted like he had just decided that we weren’t going to order much from the beginning and that we were wasting his time. Maybe he was just having a bad night but his mood really seemed targeted at us. And maybe this is a weird thing to critique, but I hated the off-center plating of most of the dishes. I know it was intentional, but it didn’t appear intentional. It always just looked like the food had slid to one side of the plate in between the kitchen and the table, made me feel like I was eating rejects.

So, not my favorite Atlanta restaurant. Sucks because there were so many yummy-sounding things on the menu that I wanted to come back and try, but now not so much.

Moving on…

We parked the car at home after dinner and walked into Decatur looking for a place to grab a nice cocktail or two and ended up at The Pinewood. We basically had the whole bar to ourselves, so we really were able to relax and talk and enjoy our drinks leisurely.

I started with the Pinewood cup. It’s white whiskey, mint, sugar, bitter lemon soda, rhubarb bitters, and seasonal fruit. It was fruity and delicious with just enough booze.

Pinewood cup

Jeff got a Brown Derby which includes bourbon, honey, and fresh grapefruit juice. He always orders well, I liked his better than mine!

Brown derby

We were there long enough to try two more cocktails. He had a Dark and Stormy and I had a Porch Punch. The punch had peach and anise flavors; I really enjoyed it. Jeff’s cocktail was extra gingery from its house made ginger beer.

We’ve actually been to The Pinewood once before with some friends, and I even took photos but never got around to blogging about it. The food we had on that occasion was all excellent. I remember some really stand-out fried green tomatoes and the creamiest broad bean hummus.

So if you’re ever in Decatur, definitely give The Pinewood a try. The Spence though, I’m not sure if I would recommend as much.

It was a really nice date night though. I’m glad we’re both feeling better and getting out and about again!

For my fellow Atlantans: What restaurant do you recommend we try next?

For Everyone: What’s the worst dessert you’ve ever had?

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Whiskey and waffles

This past weekend our friends, John and Emily, threw a whiskey and waffles party in an effort to use up some of the many opened bottles they had of both whiskey and maple syrup. Genius!

This here was our little contribution, a bottle of Old Pogue bourbon whiskey.

Old Pogue bourbon

It’s extremely mellow and sippable with the sweet flavor of caramel and very little burn. Definitely my new favorite bourbon!

And because I can’t go to a party and not cook something, I decided to use some of the bourbon to make bourbon baked apples to pair with the waffles we’d be enjoying.

I peeled and cored 5 large fuji apples and generously sprinkled them with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger. Then I topped them with a spoonful of brown sugar and 2 spoonfuls of the bourbon. Those got all stirred up.

Peeled apples tossed in spicesSpiced apples close up

I broke up a tablespoon of butter and dotted it all over the top, then baked them at 375 degrees for about an hour, stirring every 20 minutes.

Bits of butter over the apples

And this is what came out:

Bourbon baked apples

I spooned two more spoonfuls of bourbon over the warm apples and stirred it up to let them soak up all the delicious bourbon sauce. I wanted them to be very soft, almost falling apart, so that they’d make a luscious topping for the waffles.

I was having fun in the kitchen so I decided to make some maple cinnamon whipped cream too. Just a half pint of heavy whipping cream, sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon, and maple syrup until it tasted maple-y enough. I whipped it with a stand mixer using the beater attachment and it was fluffy and delicious in about 5 minutes.

When we got to John’s house, he made us a few signature cocktails to go with our brunch. I had a maple Old Fashioned using the Old Pogue bourbon and some maple syrup that was matured in bourbon barrels.

Maple old fashioned

Mmmm….bourbony!

And here’s the delicious brunch we all feasted on:

Waffle with maple cinnamon whipped cream

Crunchy bacon and buttery waffles that were crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Absolutely amazing paired with the maple cinnamon whipped cream, soft baked apples, and one of the many maple syrups we had to choose from.

After everyone got to eat, we moved the party outside for a whiskey tasting hour!

Outdoor whiskey tasting

That’s about half of what was actually available.

We all compared a newly opened bottle of Glenfiddich with one that had been open for about 3 months to try to guess which was which in a blind taste test. I think I was the only person to get it wrong. :( Doesn’t matter, still got to try lots of new whiskeys.

I think we managed to polish off at least two of the opened bottles we were trying to get rid of, so I’d say the party was a success. And, I didn’t feel like death the next morning either. Double win!

Below is the recipe for those amazing bourbon baked apples. If you’re not into booze with breakfast you could absolutely leave out the bourbon, but I’d try replacing it with juice or cider to maintain the same moisture levels.

Bourbon baked apples

These meltingly soft baked apples are baked in a sweet bourbon sauce and make a delicious topping for pancakes and waffles.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 5 large fuji apples
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • a big pinch each of nutmeg, clove, and ginger
  • 1 tbsp. brown sugar
  • 4 tbsp. bourbon
  • 1 tbsp. butter

Cooking Directions

  1. Peel, core, and chop apples. Place in a small baking dish.
  2. Sprinkle on spices, sugar, and bourbon. Toss to combine.
  3. Break up the butter with your fingers and dot all over the top.
  4. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
  5. When apples are cooked, you can spoon over extra bourbon if you want the flavor to stand out more or serve as is.

Favorite waffle topping?