I went to check out Mi Tierra Cafe on a recommendation for the best Mexican food in San Antonio. The restaurant is in Market Square, just a little over a half mile from the Riverwalk that tourists such as myself usually flock to for a myriad of restaurants and bars. During the evening, there are few things that give away what to expect inside. None of the patrons were out basking in the 104 degree Texas heat. I couldn’t imagine why.

Once inside, your eyes are assaulted by brilliantly colored pinata and lights dangling from the ceiling. Loud mariachis strum their guitars and shake their maracas, and an enormous display of baked puffs (not the Pauly Shore type) stretches across in front of you. The wait staff is dressed in brightly colored traditional Mexican garb, further driving home the violation of your eyes with everything presented in extra hi-def technicolor Mexicaness.

You adjust to it all fairly quickly, don’t worry.

I was whisked away to a booth, and took a few moments to take in everything from the menu. Six pages of food and drinks, everything from margaritas to meaty plates to 24 hour breakfast options like Huervos Rancheros. I can dig it. I asked for the Queso Flameado and the Michoacan, and spent several minutes fending off the “preview” struma-strum-strums of the roving gang of mariachis.

Shake shake shake. One mariachi attempted to attempt the start of a song. I shook my head, and he quickly scampered away, with even his maracas sulking. Shake.

Mi Tierra gives you a free dish of piping hot tortilla chips, and a nice, moderately spicy yet cool salsa, compliments of the house. If this was going to be a cheat meal from my normal diet, I was going to go all out. I shoved one chip after another into my maw, drinking down the salsa in a single gulp.

Ok it didn’t quite go down like that, but the salsa here is definitely good.

The queso flameado arrive in short time. Not exactly traditional Mexican fare in my opinion, leaning a bit more towards american tastes, this is a giant, piping hot cast-iron plate of cheese, with just a little bit of chopped chorizo to give it a nice smoky flavor. I sampled it with both the corn and flour tortillas, and naturally, the flour ones tasted much, much better. There has to be a better “it’s so addictive” type of analogy for things than crack. Why does everything have to be as good as crack? Are we a society hell bent on making crack the gold standard?

Anyways. Fresh flour tortillas. Crack. You know the drill.

The Michoacan is a plate of carnitas de puerco, or a baked pork tips marinated in orange and spices. It comes with the traditional accoutrements, guacamole, spanish rice, beans, and a tomato and onion salad. These carnitas aren’t your typical pulled pork variety, but rather, large chunks of Porky the Pig. The pork was a bit dry for my tastes and cut with large cuts of fat, which made me wonder if they preparation could have used a little bit of tweaking. Chunks of fat would usually indicate a moist and tender meat, especially with pork.

I’d hate to think that this is the best authentic Mexican food in San Antonio, but I might have just ordered the wrong main dish here. An excellent restaurant would have every dish prepared to absolute perfection, so I could see myself coming back to Mi Tierra to try something else to give it another chance. The service here is more than accomodating, with my waitress coming by every few minutes to top off my glass of water.

You didn’t forget about the bakery in the front, did you? Neither did I. I opted to try one of the various empanadas in front, finally settling on the apple empanada after a long deliberation between those and the mango ones. A perfect dessert after a heavy meal, and something to take back to your hotel room for another day of eating. They also have cookies, cupcakes, pies, candied yams, and macadamia brittle for you to try. Even if you miss the opportunity to have dinner here, there’s always a chance to get in with the bakery and grab something to go.

See Mi Tierra Cafe on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Queso Afficianados
• Birthday Parties
• Soccer Moms w/ a Van Full of Kids in Tow
• Watching Futball at the Bar

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters
• Black Tie Night Out
• Your First Real Meal After Spending A Week at Burning Man

The restaurant is one of the “hot spot” restaurants of the moment and is enjoying the in crowd clamoring at the doors.  Jen and I were offered seats that look into the kitchen at the hostess table, but we declined them, as the seats there were a good 10 degrees warmer than elsewhere in the establishment.  We were then told it would be a ten minute wait, so we waited at the bar while our table opened up.  The tiny hostess came by and confirmed who I was, and offered us to our table…which was right behind me, next to the restrooms.  Not exactly being excited at eating a meal there, I asked if we could sit elsewhere in the restaurant.  The girl offered us the seats near the kitchen, which I politely declined again.  Jen and I then asked her how long of a wait it would be for a normal table, one that wasn’t near the kitchen, and wasn’t near the baños.  At this point, the girl was clearly losing her patience with us and snapped that we would be waiting for around three to four hours.

Really?  Three to four hours?  That’s not what you told me at the hostess table.  I’m not sure I could cozy up to the bar and suck down margaritas and mojitos for a sixth of the day.  It was evident that this girl was “doing us a favor” by giving us such a short wait with the table near the bathrooms.  At that point, Jen and I took the table at the bathrooms, which was more of a bar table than a restaurant table, and tried to ignore the lack of hospitality there.

Thankfully, our server more than made up for her behavior, being extremely courteous, informative with the menu, and rarely leaving our glasses unfilled.

Jen and I ordered an army of dishes, which included a sampling of the cheeses, the jamon serrano (natch), and the egg and potato Tortilla Espanola classic pictured above.  For me, the dishes were a welcomed reminder of the food I ate traveling through Spain several years back, which is to say, the preparation is very authentic.

There tends to be a lot less set to appease the vegetarian crowd, as Jen only ordered a third of the dishes that we put in to our waiter.  The tomato salad is well balanced and very well executed, with a wide assortment of heirloom tomatoes.

The fried squash blossoms are the top of the list of the ones I’ve tried thus far.  Filled with creamy spinach and given a golden deep fried shell, the trio of blossoms here will definitely have you craving another order.

I ordered the grilled octopus, which came out less charred than I had expected, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  It did come out fantastically tender, with virtually no similitude to the rubbery tentacles one would expect ordering this dish.  Don’t expect it to pick out any World Cup winners for you, though.

The duck breast is another tasty dish, albeit a bit on the overly salty side.  Then again, a good deal of Spanish food is heavy on the salt, and not having had any duck breast in Spain, I could easily see this as being as authentic as anything you’d eat in the heart of Madrid.

Tapas at Estadio do run from expensive to very expensive per plate.  The high price point for such small dishes are a bit of a turn-off, as Jen and I felt like we had been gouged in the wallet after our meal.  Expect an average of $10 a plate, and a meal to easily run north of $100 for two without drinks.

The crowd there is beyond eclectic, and makes for an eventful night of people watching.  We watched a throng of girls drinking at the bar, old enough to know better to be drinking out at Adam’s Morgan, but young enough to still be in skinny jeans, dangly bangles, and high heels.  We watched a creepy looking guy grab one of their asses as he passed by, and we watched a guy hit on them, get rejected, and then proceed to hit on a pair of late 50′s cougs.

I suppose everybody has to go out and eat, right?

Estadio is about as an authentic Spanish dining experience as you can get in the District.  That, and it’s fun to say the name the same way you’d say…..SERGIO.  Over and over again.

Estadio can be seen on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Spanish Scenesters
• Bougie Bon Vivants
• Paleoheads

Not Recommended For:

• Frugalistas
• Vegans
• An Intimate and Sensual Evening with Betty White

Restaurant reviews from Canadia coming soon, I promise!

Calling 2Amy’s just a pizzeria doesn’t seem to quite do this place justice. You don’t see slabs of pizza perched on stainless steel pedestals, slowly turning to cardboard behind Windexed glass panes. The interior of 2Amy’s is much, much classier, with brick walls, glossy subway tiles, and a large, hungry crowd waiting outside that never quite seems to entirel disperse.

There are an endless array of appetizers to whet your palette before your pizza arrives, so it’s a good idea to show up with a large party.  We were able to try a number of incredibly fresh and tasty plates.

The fried squash blossoms that are popping up all over various DC menus was something I’ve been wanting to try for  a few weeks now.  The taste is not too different from a light, fried okra, and the chefs here know the golden ratio for batter to oil for maximum taste.

The fried risotto balls were also very well done, although not something that I’d order on my own.  Risotto and molten hot magma (could have been cheese, although I swear it’s lava straight from Eyjafjallajokull) in a breaded crust, guaranteed to burn your mouth unless you know to cut these things open and let them cool down a bit prior to consumption.

Consider this your fair warning.

The prosciutto ham here is unbelievable.  I don’t know what sort of people had to get killed in order for this ham to get passed through customs from Italy, but they died for a very, very good cause.  2Amy’s takes it up a notch and pairs the ham with fresh honeydew (the money melon), a dusting of fresh ground pepper, and a quick splash of virgin olive oil.

The pork cheeks mixed with vegetables aren’t for everyone, and naturally only the more adventuresome will get over the sourcing of this meat.  The delicate texture of this meat here, however, seems to be overwhelmed by the mixture of oils and vegetables used to serve as it’s accompaniment.  That very well could be the traditional way of serving it Neapolitan style, but I’ve enjoyed pork cheese in previous experiences, and this dish just wasn’t something I was thrilled about.

The goat cheese served with a fig spread here is excellent in taste, texture, and quality.  Make sure you get the trifecta right and properly shove these two down your gullet on a raft of fresh baked bread.

The pickled sardines are flat out a must if enjoy like sardines.  The pickling process perfects the properties of these pescados for your palette.  The fish like taste is really kept at a minimum, with the strong pickling flavor coming out, giving these tiny fish a wholly unique taste.

The Margherita D.O.C. is most likely the most basic pizza you can order here at 2Amy’s, and that’s not at all a statement of disappointment.  The simple flavors of buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce, and basil stand strong, playing no supporting role in accompaniment to other pizza accoutrements to this Denominazione di Origine Controllata (D.O.C.) dish, which means that the pizza was prepared using only authentic Italian ingredients and authentic Italian preparation methods to produce what you see above.  The result?  Mostly likely one of the best pizzas, if not THE best pizza you’ll have within 50 miles of DC.

There are, of course, those who feel the need to take their pizzas the extra mile, and order a Margherita pizza with prosciutto, and 2Amy’s amply delivers with class.  My pizza arrived at the table covered in enormous slices of prosciutto, placed atop my pizza after being baked, but only moments before I tore into this dish.  You can also ask for your pizza to be served well done, as I did here.

You can by all accounts, buck the normalcy and order a pizza with buffalo mozzarella, sausage, and cockles, for an equally satisfying pie.  The flavors on this one are decidedly a bit different, but no more or less amazing than the traditional offerings above.

What better way to finish a dinner than with a pair of cannoli?  Fresh cream stuffed into crispy baked shells, this dessert was just enough sweet to finish a meal, without being overly heavy.

If that doesn’t quite suit your tastebuds, you can always perk up with a Foggy senor –  a shot of fresh espresso topped with whipped cream, a much more suitable way to exit a good dinner than doing Jaegerbombs and flipping over the table after you’ve paid your check.

It’s a bit unfortunate to me that 2Amy’s isn’t more accessible from downtown DC, but taking a trip solely for their pizzas is a journey that’s well rewarded.  The pizza here is hands down my choice as the best pizza in the city, and the fact that 2Amy’s is no dive should be given the consideration it deserves.  The staff here is knowledgeable, friendly, and accomodating; the vibe is energetic and happy; the food is going to blow your socks off, assuming you’re not some crunchy hippie rolling up in Birkenstocks and your nevernude denim shorts.

See 2Amy’s Pizza on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Pizza Worshippers
• Neapolitan Expats
• First Dates
• Casual Birthdays
• Vegetarians

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters
• Cramming for Your Finals
• The Jumbo Slice Crowd
• Vegans

One of my friends mentioned to me how much he appreciated how I am constantly working on ways to cheat within the rules.  I couldn’t agree more.  So I decided to give a go at making a paleo fried shrimp recipe.  This is another super easy recipe to follow, and with minimal ingredients.  The coconut flour used as batter doesn’t stick perfectly to the shrimp, but it’s still an excellent paleo alternative to using a regular grain based flour.

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of large (31/35) shrimp, frozen
• 1 pasture raised egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
• 1/2 cup Avocado Oil or oil of your choice

Directions:

1. Defrost shrimp the night before, or under cold water in the sink.
2. Place the beaten egg in a small bowl or dish.  This egg wash will help the coconut flour stick to your shrimp.
3. Spread the 1/4 cup of coconut flour over a large flat surface, such as a cutting board or plate.  Evenly grind 1/2 tsp of black pepper over the coconut flour, and then 1/2 tsp of Old Bay over the coconut flour.
4. Gently pat one shrimp dry with a paper towel, and then dip the shrimp into the egg wash.  Make sure the shrimp is completely soaked, and then roll the shrimp into the coconut flour, getting a generous coating on your shrimp.  Set each of these aside and repeat until you have about 8-10 coated.
5. Heat a a large pan or skillet over medium high heat for about 5-10 minutes, until pan is hot.
6. Pour avocado oil into your pan, and gently lay each shrimp down into the oil.  You can use tongs or chopsticks, and handle your shrimp by the tail, so you minimize disturbing your batter.  Cook for about 60-90 seconds until the batter has turned a golden brown, and turn over to cook the other side.  Cook for an additional 60 seconds, and remove each shrimp to a plate.
7. At this point, you can start feasting, or prepare another batch of shrimp with the same process above.

Who’d have thought you could have fried food on your diet and still get away with it? I took my shrimp down in a pool of sriracha, but feel free to use whatever paleo dipping sauce you’d like!

Well, not in the physical sense, at least. The restaurant can barely be seen by pedestrians on the street, its sign dwarfed by the CVS pharmacy that makes up the majority of the building it shares. With a short walk up a flight of stairs, however, and you’re transported to a landing of dark wood floors, dim lighting, and a sense of the extraordinary, leaving the world DC below.

Sushi Taro is unique in more than a few ways, including their Kaiseki tasting menu and the ability to personalize your a la carte menu.  The Kaiseki tasting menu gives you an opportunity to meet the chef, who will be your sea sherpa through a multi course meal prepared through traditional Japanese techniques.  It’s an excellent opportunity to really explore textures and tastes at the hands of a stranger, but definitely an option for only those who can go into a meal with an open mind and an open-er-er palette.

The ability to readily add or change your a la carte sushi is also a bit of a novelty, with options including adding raw quail egg yolks, tempura batter bits, spicy mayo, or having your roll turned inside out.  It’s the little touches that make a restaurant unique and the willingness to appease patrons does not go unnoticed.

To start, I ordered the seaweed salad, which didn’t arrive at my table quite like I had expected, which is not to be taken as a bad thing.  If you’ve ordered a seaweed salad before, you probably have a small bowl of green seaweed in mind, served in a mildly sweet dressing with sesame seeds.  Not quite the case here.  A large bowl of two fresh seaweeds arrived, served with sliced radish and lettuce, and easily enough for two.  It’s a very simple dish, but utterly refreshing on a hot summer day.  I’m sure you could ask your waitress for the Nemo special and have some clownfish sushi scattered throughout, but let’s save ruining your children’s childhood for another day.

The urchin* sea snail umami was by and large my favorite order here.  Served rather unexpectedly still in the shell, the preparation and freshness of the urchin made for soft rather than chewy morsels.  This isn’t going to be a big hit with everybody, but if you’re doing yourself a disservice by passing on this dish.

For my main course, I asked for the chef’s choice sashimi  dish- a wide assortment of raw sealife, from octopus, tuna, scallop, and shrimp, to some more unidentifiable but equally delicious meats on my plate.  The presentation is top notch, and once again, I was floored by the freshness of the fish.

Sushi Taro may not win the people’s choice of the best sushi restaurant in DC, but it certainly deserves a distinction of being one of the better establishments in the District.  The service was excellent, with rarely a moment passing that I did not have my drink refilled, or another dish arriving at the table.  The recent renovations have taken Sushi Taro much more upscale, and you can always pick up a movie at the Blockbuster downstairs after your meal (which is still somehow in business at the time of writing).  Best of all?  The entire meal is 100% paleo.

Recommended For:

• Fishicianados
• Paleoheads
• Pescatarians
• First Dates

Not Recommended For:

• PETA Monthly Meetings
• Pounding Sakebombs
• Committing Seppuku
• Texture phobes

* I could have sworn it was urchin on the menu, but a reader informed me that these were actually sea snails.

Do I need to bring my passport?

Are they going to give me one of those uber-intrusive body scans, and check me for contraband weapons or meats?

Do they speak English?

Will they put me in the corner and eat in a cage if they smell jerky on my breath?

It’s not as bad as you’d think, dear meat eater.  Upon entrance, Sunflower is about as normal as you’d expect any place to be, except for a fetish-level adoration for all things sunflowers.  There’s a large, expensive-looking etched glass wall with a sunflower mural embedded inside.  A sunflower lamp hovers over many diners, looking as if it’s ready to erupt into showers like the produce section at your supermarket, only drenching patrons with delicious seeds.  Sunflower photos. Plush sunflowers. Ceramic sunflowers. Sunflowers made of the parts of lesser sunflowers. You get the point, right?  They wholly live up to their namesake.

The diners were few and far between, perhaps because we came in at an off hour, but I’m guessing more likely because there simply isn’t a huge population of vegetarians in the area.  Jen and I took a corner table, and poured over the options.  I was actually pleased with the fact that there were a copia of options available, so much, that I had some difficulty in picking something from the list.

The pan-fried dumplings were a no-brainer for us.  Realizing that I’ve got my girl hooked on the perfect parcels of deliciousness (as long as they’re stuffed with an assortment of non-meat ingredients), we ordered these, which come with your option of being served steamed or pan-fried.  Each dumpling is filled with napa cabbage, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, ‘bean thread’ noodles, and yuba.  What is yuba?  It’s a tofu ‘skin’ with the consistency of pasta, and not a smaller tuba or something in the family of trombones.  Clarinets, even.  I don’t care what you stuff a dumpling with, it comes down to the dumpling skin and the sauce that makes this dish, and I give Sunflower the seal of approval on these.  I do wish that the dumplings were accompanied by a sweet sauce rather than a soy sauce, but nonetheless, these are a great way to start your meal.

Jen order the General Tso’s Surprise (WUAHAHAHA, SURPRISE! NO MEAT!) which is apparently the restaurant’s best seller, and it’s not hard to tell why. Excellent presentation aside, the dish is absolutely loaded with giant chunks of soy protein, steamed broccoli and carrot slices, then covered in a tasty kung pao sauce.  The sauce really brings this dish together, and the freshness of the vegetables stands out, although I should expected as much with the type of restaurant we were dining in.

I took our waiter’s recommendation to order the Curry Surpreme – soy protein with mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and green peas served with a thick Japanese curry sauce that really made this a hearty dish, even for a die-head (see also: hard headed) meat eater like myself.  Don’t be fooled, there’s some subtle kick to the curry, and I broke out into a small sweat halfway through the meal.

So what’s the synopsis here?

Sunflower was actually…really good.  I’ll admit that I had my reservations, but just as there’s 1,001 paleo or primal recipes to sub for your favorite foods, there are just as equally as many offerings here at Sunflower to give you an excellent meal at a reasonable price.  The service is very good, and alcohol is available upon request.  You have you option of two locations, one in Vienna and one in Falls Church, which is to say it’s a shame they don’t have one in the city, as I’d think it’d do very well there.

You won’t even need to smuggle in contraband bacon in your underwear like me.

See Sunflower in Vienna on a map here.

See Sunflower in Falls Church on a map here.

Recommended For:

• First Dates
• Vegetarians
• Pescatarians
• Ovolacto-librarians
• Gentle Barbarians

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• One last meal after a long night at the clubs (You know who I’m talkin’ about, K-town)
• Anthophobics
• Carless Gastronoms
• Showing off your latest meat helmet creation

Son of Grok has a fantastic paleo BBQ sauce, but it’s more of a saucy sauce, meaning, you pour it right over you’re going to cook, or use it to marinate your delicious pasture raised meats.

I tend to need it more for crockpottery, so I modified it just a tiny bit for my purposes here.

BBQ Sauce:

Ingredients:

Buffalo brisket, about 2-3 lbs

1/2 large red onion, diced

3/4 cup tomatoes, diced, or tomato sauce

6 cloves of garlic, diced

2 tbsp avocado oil (olive oil works, too)

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp dijon mustard

2 tbsp organic apple cider vinegar (balsamic vinegar works in a pinch)

1 tsp kosher or sea salt

1 tsp hickory liquid smoke

Directions:

1. To prep, mix all the ingredients EXCEPT for the onion in a medium sized bowl until it gets a nice, thick consistency.  I opted out of the beef stock used in the original sauce recipe because cooking brisket in a crockpot does wonders in terms of bringing out the natural juices in the meat.  Buffalo tends to be an especially lean meat, but have to fear, this might be some of the best paleo brisket you’ll ever have.
2. Score the two flat sides of your brisket in a diagonal criss-crossing pattern, with each score being about 2-3 inches apart.  You don’t have to be perfect about scoring all the meat, but you do want to be able to really get the sauce into the meat.
3. Place the brisket into your crockpot, lean side up.  Pour half of your BBQ sauce over your brisket, rubbing in the sauce for just a few seconds until your brisket is fairly well covered.
4. Turn over your brisket, and pour the remainder of the sauce on your brisket, and repeat rubbing in the sauce until you get pretty good coverage.
5. Cover your BBQ-ified brisket with all the diced red onion, and spread evenly.
6. Cook for 5-6 hours. Your brisket should be lean, tender, and pull apart with a fork.  BAM!

Jen and I ventured up 14th street to the area to check out Social, one of the newer restaurants to open in the area and serve such a diverse crowd. As it was, we didn’t quite have any expectations when we arrived. The restaurant has two entrances- the left leads down to a bar area that’s packed with men who could care less if a woman walked in the door, and an upstairs dining area with luxurious leather couches and plush chairs for diners.

Almost too plush. No, actually, they were too plush. I nearly banged my chin on the table sitting down on the table, and the reclining angle of our seats nearly doubled the distance between Jen and I at our table. The decor here is, however, very tasteful and contemporary, with a myriad of professional photos adorning the walls.

The water service comes to each table with a bottle of water, but don’t be alarmed by the fact that you might be charged for a bottle of water, as Jen and I wondered through the majority of our meal. The water’s simply DC’s finest on tap, but a little clarification would have taken some stress out of the meal.

While we sat with our waters and poured over the menus, we noticed a certain absence, both in diners and staff. A fair number of tables were empty, but we attributed it to just a slow night. So it’d come with some logic that we’d be doted upon by our waiter.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Even our water boy, keenly aware of our lack of attention by the staff, came by and asked if we had been checked up on by our waiter, to which we naturally replied, “No.”

“Oh great.  I mean, that’s not great,” he fumbled.

He scurried off, and a few minutes later, our waiter finally arrived.  We put in our order for food before he barely greeted us, but I’d consider that less rude or impatient had we not been sitting there for at least 15 minutes.

Their menu, on first glance, reads like an incomplete math problem. Three numbers accompany every dish, and you’re to make the assumption that those three numbers indicate the prices of differing sizes of the order. But how big are the sizes? Small, medium, and large barely denote anything of actual serving size.  Our waiter explained that the small serving was the size of a tapas dish for one, the medium a size suitable for sharing, and the large, something for a large party, or in my case, the perfect size for my main course.

Jen wanted to start with the tomato and mozzarella with fresh basil, which came out with an excellent presentation, but lacked any originality, making this all looks and no substance order the Jennifer Anniston of our selections.

The Guacamole comes with a heaping side of fresh fried tortilla chips, sharing a similar affliction as the dish above.  The guacamole was certainly fresh and well made, and the chips glistened with oil like a tour bus of retired ladies in the South Beach sun…but somehow this still just didn’t have anything to make this really stand out.  Adding in the fact that the chips were flimsy and snapped when scooping up the delicious green butter only exacerbated the situation.

The Oven Roasted Madeira Mushrooms are soaked with truffle oil, oven roasted, and then simmered in a wine cream sauce, then served atop fresh sliced baguette bread and a creamy goat cheese spread.  This dish seemed to follow suit with the others, being a reasonably average tasting dish with great presentation.  The mushrooms are cooked to perfection, the goat cheese pairs well with the baguette and the mushrooms, but there’s a certain lack of inspiration that comes through a really great dish.

As for my main course, I ordered the large basket of meatballs.  A large bowl filled with somewhere in the range of 10-12 meatballs, which I easily devoured on my own, these were pretty much what you could expect out of a good meatball- satisfying, meaty, and covered in just the right amount of tomato sauce without being drowned in it.  I can’t complain about these one bit.

The dishes here all hold the same level of quality, which is to say, passable, and not worth too much complaint, but lack the creativity or appeal to really give them substantial praise, either.  The kitchen uses quality ingredients and sticks with fairly tame offerings without offending anybody’s palette.  Getting someone to actually serve you, however, is a completely different matter.  That’s not to say Jen and I were the only patrons to get frustrated with the service here;  we watched another couple move tables from a back corner table to one closer to the back where the wait staff hovered in hopes of getting better service.  By the time we left, the two were slumped back in their lounge chairs, looking annoyed, disappointed, and ready for a cheque.

Well, it could have been worse.  At least they didn’t do this:

Social can be found on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Anorexics
• Narcoleptics
• Scallywags
• Non-Tippers
• Waiting For a Storm to Pass

Not Recommended For:

• First Dates
• Gastronomic Greatness
• Attention Whores
• Out of Towners
• Cheat Meals

I saw this recipe a while back for a paleo coconut cake and have been waiting for chance to actually make it.  I had a few friends come over for dinner the other night, and decided that was about as good of an opportunity as any.  Looking over the ingredient list, I was a bit leery about how cake-like it could taste, but it was surprisingly good, so here’s to finding your new paleo birthday cake substitute.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut  milk
• 1/3 cup of avocado, grapeseed, or coconut oil
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 2 cage free eggs
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 cups desiccated (shredded) coconut
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1/3 cup coconut flour
• 1 tsp baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit (190 degrees Celsius).
2. Mix all wet ingredients (coconut milk, oil, honey, eggs, and extracts) in a medium sized mixing bowl well.
3. Add the dry ingredients (desiccated coconut, almond meal, coconut flour, baking soda) to the bowl, and continue to mix.
4. Grease an 8″ x 8″ baking dish lightly with oil.  I used grapeseed oil, as it doesn’t have too strong of a flavor to it.  Spread the cake mix evenly in the dish, and place into the oven.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes.  The cake is done when the top is a nice golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

I garnished this dish with Cointreau soaked strawberries (eh, okay, so maybe the Cointreau isn’t exactly paleo) and a coconut milk cream sauce.  For the sauce:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients well with a spoon or fork in a small bowl.

You can pour the sauce over the coconut cake and strawberries, and even add some coconut milk ice cream with this dish.

Well.  It’s technically paleo.