1001: Prince: Purple Rain

Prince: Purple Rain

First Listen: At Home, Bose Lifestyle 15 Audio via Chromecast.

Second Listen: At Home, Bose Lifestyle 15 Audio via Chromecast.
Third Listen:  On HP Folio Ultrabook with Sennheiser HD-360 PRO DJ Studio Style while reading lyrics

While I am very familiar with Prince, I don’t think that I’ve listened to many of his studio recordings in their entirety.  I usually reach for the greatest hits.  That aside I had never listened to the Purple Rain Album before I did this time.  I also watched the movie which sort of changed my feeling about some of the tracks on the album as a whole.

The Music

Favorite Tracks:

-Let’s Go Crazy:  How can you not love this classic track.  It’s one of those tracks that is an instant mood changer.  You listen to this track and you’re instantly happy and ready to dance no matter your mood.  Not to mention the sick guitar solo.

-Purple Rain: Maybe it’s the experience of doing this song at karaoke and being held up on my friend’s shoulders as I horribly belted out one of the worst renditions of Purple Rain to an ironically enthusiastic crowd, that makes this song one of my favorites but I absolutely love it. 

-I Would Die 4 U: That upbeat tempo combined with that smooth execution of quickly belted out run on sentences is a combination that can’t be beat.

-When Doves Cry: Rounds out the list of songs that I’ve heard before in great fashion.

-Beautiful Ones: This song is played in an early and somewhat pivotal point in the film as Prince declares his love for Apollonia through this song.  I’m a sucker for dramatic declarations of love so there you go.

Unfavorite Tracks:

-Computer Blue: It is like the only song you get to on this album and you outright want the skip.  You don’t really do it though because the guitar in the middle is amazing but to get to that you have to torture yourself with this just plain mediocre verse.  It’s also far too long.

-Take Me With You: While I do love the lyrical simplicity of the song and I do love the drum riff that breaks out in the beginning and end of the song, I feel like the transition between that riff and the rest of the song is not as clean as I would like it to be.

Overall Listing:

1.       Prince: Purple Rain (Amazon)
2.       Stooges: Stooges (Amazon)
3.       Frank Sinatra: In The Wee Small Hours (Amazon)

The Food

So Prince is a Vegan.  Because of that I had to go with a vegan meal. I wanted to incorporate the color purple into both food and drink but quite frankly that is rather difficult to do.  I really don’t know of that many purple foods, it’s just not that easy of a color.  Grapes, red cabbage, red onion, eggplant.  Exactly four things that don’t really go together.  Although I may have not completely owned up to the challenge of making a meal that exactly goes with the album.  I did make a good vegan dish, and I did use a bit of eggplant.  For the meal I made a decadent smooth and creamy curry cauliflower soup, along with portabella mushroom steaks and sautéed eggplant.

Curry Cauliflower Soup

1 Head of cauliflower diced (you can use much of the core for this but not the green leafy part)

1 ½ Teaspoons Curry Powder

1 Can Coconut Milk

1 Cup Vegetable Stock

2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Sautee the cauliflower over medium heat with the curry powder, salt and pepper.

When the cauliflower starts to brown.  Deglaze with the vegetable stock and the coconut milk and cover and simmer until the cauliflower is very tender.  (If the cauliflower is not very tender, you won’t get a smooth and rich texture when you try to blend it, it will come out sort of grainy, if this happens to you though you can always take what you have in the blender, add it back to the pan and keep on cooking it for a bit before blending again.  It really isn’t that huge of an issue if you mess up)

Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth

For the sides

4 Portobello Caps

1 Medium Eggplant

1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin

1 Tablespoon Ground Coriander

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and season with the cumin, coriander and season with the salt pepper and coriander.  Cook over medium heat until browned.

Remove the top from the Eggplant and cube it.  Season with salt pepper and coriander and sauté over medium heat until tender.

The Drink

For the drink I wanted to make something purple again, but what out there is purple.  I thought about this for quite a while and then I finally came to the conclusion that well…. Hibiscus Tea is kind of purplish-red.

Hibiscus Tea Martini

3 Ounces Cold Hibiscus Tea, sweetened appropriately

1.5 Ounces Gin

Shake the two together and serve up in a chilled martini glass.

1001: The Stooges

The Stooges:  The Stooges

First Listen: Samsung Galaxy Note 3, House of Marley Exodus Headphones while studdying

Second Listen: Samsung Galaxy Note 3, House of Marley Exodus Headphones, while reading lyrics

Third Listen: Bose Lifestyle 15 via Google Music Chromecast

I had no clue who the stooges were at all before listening to this album.  I did hear the name Iggy Pop, but I never knew what at all he was famous for.  It goes to show just how limited my knowledge of punk music is.  I did end up liking the album very much.  It is quite laid back as compared to Punk music of today, but I guess that is to be expected.

For this album I wanted to make something that was rather down to earth yet over the top.  I ended up deciding on curly fry pizza.  This was met with a lot of strange stares.  I thought everyone would think Curly fry pizza would be amazing, yet I got so many mixed feelings.  Yes I realize that Curly fry pizza wouldn’t be the healthiest thing you ever ate, but that’s not the point.  You can let go sometimes.  This pizza is letting go in a big way.

The Music

Favorite Tracks:

-1969: This song has a nice catchy tune and it really puts you in the timeframe of the era really well.  I say that in spite of the fact that most of the lyrics are pretty ambiguous and can be used to describe any timeframe.  The only thing that really invokes the time period is the repeating of the year.  It is the songs ambiguity in describing the time frame that allows it to take on a bit of a timeless effect.

-No Fun:  It’s just simple and straightforward music.  I love the guitar solo at the end as well.

-Ann: I appreciate the darkness of this song and the fact that it doesn’t linger on much.  It is direct to the point and finishes up nicely with a cool guitar solo into a fade out.  Straight up music without pretense.

Unfavorite Tracks:

-We Will Fail: I don’t have a problem with giving up in principle and the lyrical content of the song doesn’t bother me a s much as the constant chanting in the background.  It really gets on my nerves after the first couple of verse.  It’s kind of weird though because I do love the guitar in the background and replacing the percussion with simple claps in the background.

-Real Cool Time: You can’t have moral superiority and diss the lyrical content of a song like Turn Down For What, while simultaneously embracing Real Cool Time.  Real Cool Time is essentially the original Turn Down For What, although I must applaud the ability to make a catchy song with under twenty words.

Overall Rankings:

1.       Stooges: Stooges

2.       Frank Sinatra: In The Wee Small Hours (Amazon)

The Food

I was doubted about whether or not this pizza would be good, but I have to give myself some good credit for coming up with this one because it tastes pretty good.  There was a lot of experimentation going on in writing the recipe for this one and along the way I learned a few things.  I initially chose a really hoppy IPA in order to make the beer sauce, that goes on this pizza but that was a fatal error as when the beer cooks down you’re left with a weird aftertaste.  This is one place where a cheap light beer succeeds.  I also experimented with the cheeses as you can see in the picture.  I came to find out that the cheeses were the best in the following order: Pepper Jack, Swiss, Velveta (I don’t typically use processed cheeses at all but I figured it would work out alright, I actually expected it to fare better, but it was just alright), Cheddar, Munster (One that I randomly selected at the end and was just awful, nearly inedible).  If you’re serving an Omnivore, I had the thought as well that you can go the extra mile with this pizza and top it with a combination of diced bacon and cooked chicken fingers.  The dough is also super easy and only takes a mixer and a little bit of time to make.  The crust even tastes like curly fries.

Results of the Taste Test:
1. Pepper Jack

2. Swiss

3. Velveta

4. Cheddar

5. Munster (Don’t use Munster)

Curly Fry Pizza

For the Crust:

1 Pound Russet Potatoes, peeled and diced

1 ½ Cups Flour Plus more for rolling out dough

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1 Large Egg

1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Onion Powder

1 Teaspoon Paprika

2 Teaspoons Salt

For The Sauce:

1-16 Ounce Lager

2 Tablespoons Butter

1 Tablespoon Flour

4 Cloves Garlic Finely Minced

¼ Cup Vegetable Stock

Toppings:

8 ounces Shredded Cheese of your Choice

14 ounces Cooked Curly fries

Optional Meats of your choice: Bacon/Chicken Tenders

Preheat the oven to 375 Degrees

For the crust, boil the potatoes until  tender.  Drain add to the bowl of a stand mixer.

Using the paddle attachment.  Mix the potatoes until they are in small pieces.

Turn the mixer off and add all the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.

Add the egg and stir briefly until the dough comes together

Roll the dough out onto parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes

With the garlic, and beer in a medium saucepan cook until reduced in half

Add the stock and simmer.  In a separate pan whisk together the butter and flour mixture

Whisk the flour and butter mixture into the beer

Top your pizza with the sauce and curly fries and bake until the cheese is melted.  I know you’re going to want to eat this pizza immediately, but wait.  Let it cool for about 10 minutes for a perfect taste and texture.

The Drink

Electric Raspberry Lemonade

So I read somewhere that Iggy Pop liked Blue Raspberry Vodka and Lemonade.  I couldn’t find blue raspberry vodka anywhere so here’s my best effort.  This is a sneaky drink because it is amazingly potent despite not tasting of liquor much.

4.5 ounces Raspberry Vodka

3 Ounces Raspberry Lemonade

.75 Ounces Strawberry Liqueur (This can be skipped but I picked some up because it looked interesting.)

Shake all the ingredients and serve over ice.

The Cheese State

The first trip I had to Milwaukee, in some time, wasn’t that eventful.   I went up to see Cage The Elephant.  I thought it was a good deal originally because they had a show and all you had to do to get in was buy an album.  I have been a pretty big fan of the band since seeing them a couple of years ago and by pretty big fan I mean I causally listen to their album every now and then.

The show was at the Exclusive Music Company, it was a record store.  Despite the fact that I paid for the preorder in order to get in, I didn’t get a chance to get the lithograph I was promised since they were on a first come first serve basis.  I’m guessing once they all ran out they just let everyone bum rush the place.  This was slightly irritating.  I guess I should have gotten in line a little earlier.

It didn’t matter much because I still got to see them preform a rather short but good four song set.  It was done acoustic and was their four best songs.  I enjoyed the show quite a bit, but the line to get my things autographed was far too long.  Not to mention the fact that I no longer had anything to get autographed. 

From there we walked around the corner to a little speakeasy.  The Standard Tavern is a bit off of the main drag and it was a cool little spot.  Their beer selection was pretty big, and that is something that is not uncommon to Milwaukee bars in general.  If there’s two things Wisconsinites know how to do well it is cheese and beer.  The bartender was pretty quick which is all that you can ask for in a place like this.

The one thing that could be a plus or minus depending on your mood could be the music.  It is an interesting mix of Jazz and oldies.  The musical range is from 1930’s to 1950’s.  Anything is worth listening to after you’ve tossed back a few drinks anyway.  One of the things I did like about the bar was that the sink was on the outside of the restroom.  That way if you saw someone come out of the bathroom, you could look disapprovingly if they did not wash their hands after.

The hotel we stayed at was the Doubletree MilwaukeeRiver.  It was only a couple miles away from where we were.   The room was pretty spacious and I had a good view of the river.  Honestly it wasn’t exactly much to brag about.

Epic cheese curds of amazingness

My second visit to Milwaukee went by way of Madison.  DMC and I drove to Madison in order to see Animal Collective.  I saw it as a feasible option because of their Chicago show being sold out (later it was moved to a larger venue and more tickets being released, but we were in too deep by this point).  Besides, I may not be much for road trips, but I do love road trips.

We stopped at The Old Fashioned to get dinner.  I couldn’t come to a place called The Old Fashioned and not try the Old Fashioned.  Some might describe Old Fashioned as an outdated disgusting grandpa drink.  I am still admittedly more of a Manhattan person, but I had to go for a change up.  You have to keep people on their toes you know.  The drink was well mixed and sweet but not too sweet.

For an appetizer we decided on the cheese curds.  It was kind of a no brainer since the y appeared on Food Network’s Best Thing I Ever Ate and that was one of the draws to get us into the place.  They came with a choice of sauces and thinking I would probably never be there again, I thought why not pay the extra 50 cents per sauce in order to try them all.

Old Fashioned at The Old Fashioned

The cheese curds were little fired pillows of heaven.  Nice and crisp.  The cheese inside was absolutely amazing and some of the best that I have tasted.  I thought that the sauces would be overkill and to be honest, the curds themselves kind of don’t even really need much else.  The sauces do accent things pretty well, and did make a nice place for me to dip the fries that came with my burger.

The sauces were:

-Ranch: Pretty much self-explanatory and one of the only ones I probably could have skipped, but then again, ranch is a perfect combo with cheese.

-Roasted Garlic: My hands down favorite, but admittedly I am a bit of a garlic fiend.

-Blue Tiger:  Which I didn’t know what to expect but it kind of tastes like a spicy blue cheese dressing

-One of them was pink, and I thought it was the best to be fair our server didn’t tell us which one was which.

Burger at The Old Fashioned

The burger was also a huge win.  You can’t argue with how great value it was to get a burger that was grass feed beef and locally raised pork all with that Wisconsin cheddar.  Looking at the menu I knew which burger to choose almost immediately and I knew it was going to be the one that will be affectionately remembered in my heart as the number thirty.  Everything you wanted was on this burger, perfect juicy beef, crisp thick bacon, fresh sharp cheddar, more of that wonderful garlic sauce, crispy fried onions and of course an over medium egg to top everything off.

Real burgers have that soft cooked egg.  There is no better feeling than to pick up your burger, take a big bite and have that yolk run down your hands coating the burger in its magical goodness.  It wasn’t long before I finished that burger and was nearly too full to walk.  We had about an hour left before the concert, so we opted for a couple more drinks.  The Old Fashioned has a beer list that truly does a Wisconsin establishment proud.

Animal Collective Live in Madison

Our next stop was to see Animal Collective.  DMC was really excited about the concert but I was slightly more ambivalent because I have never been a really big fan.  I did listen to their music a bit before the show but the only song that was really recognizable to me was “My Girls”.

Hindsight is 20/20 though.  After the fact I started listening to Centipede Hz and I kind of feel in love with the album.   There was something about the song Today's Supernatural that hearing it kind of shook me to the core.  It has that good bit of edginess and is sort of a celebration of randomness.

The show started quite late and in the meantime we got a drink.  I was so upset by the pricing because the drinks were outrageously priced even by Chicago standards.  $16 is an absurd price to pay for a rail long island, concert or not.  Especially at such a small venue in a college town with incredibly sticky floors.  So sticky that at one point during the performance DMC tried to jump which ended up in a miserable fail since his feet stuck to the floor.

An hour late we finally got our first opening act.  Deradoorian gave a very interesting performance, but after being up from being on my way to work since 4 am, her vibe was just far too mellow for me at the moment.  It wasn’t as though I didn’t find her music interesting at the time, I was just not in the mood for it.

The performance was a lot better than I expected it to be.  I truly underestimated how entertaining psychedelic rock can be.  It is rare that I walk away from a musical performance really impressed after being mostly unfamiliar with the artist, but they nailed it in this case.  To be honest, I really couldn’t hear well enough to make out most of the lyrics, but it was impressive none the less.  The stage setup was pretty crazy, with giant teeth that played videos on them.  It was one of those see to believe type of performances.

Duck Confit Poutine

We took a drive from Madison to Milwaukee in order to check in to the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.  We checked in pretty late around 1 am.  We opted for parking across the street in the lot vice the parking garage.  This saved $18, as 24 hours of parking in the lot was only four bucks.  I used my points in order to reserve the room.  I usually keep them for emergencies, but in this case it was too big of a difference in value between points and the actual price of the room that I elected to use some of my points.

The hotel is a little older, but is very nice on the interior.  It gives you a bit of that nostalgic feel, similar to that you feel when you walk into an iconic hotel like The Drake.  We were upgraded to the parlor suite, which had tons of space and a kind of weird setup.  It was a very large open room which is setup much like a studio apartment.  Nothing to divide the bedroom from the rest of the room.  That aside it was still a very nice room.

Very Tasty Cupcake

The next morning we had breakfast at Comet Café.  When it came time to wake up we elected to sleep in rather than get something to eat for free from the hotel.  This turned out to be an excellent decision as the food at Comet Café was pretty awesome.  I spent a bit looking at the menu before I finally decided.  It was a hard decision to make at first but after looking at the menu for a bit it was a no brainer.  I had to go with the duck confit poutine and a bowl of tomato soup.

There were so many things on the menu that I wanted to try, but when else could I be able to go for a poutine made with duck confit, Fontina cheese and beer gravy.  I must admit, I didn’t want to eat anything for hours after this extremely heavy breakfast but it was worth it.  I even took most of the soup home for lunch later.  The fries were amazingly crisp, and the duck was plentiful considering the low price point.  The beer gravy lends a slightly hoppiness as well.  It is the perfect way to enjoy French fries.

Cupcake Box From Comet Cafe

DMC ended up getting the fruit fetish and tofu scramble.  How you are a vegetarian and pass up on the opportunity for their vegan deep fried barbecue ribs is completely mindboggling to me.  Needless to say, this place has an abundance of options for vegan/vegetarian types.  Though we were stuffed we decided to take a couple of cupcakes to go and we opted for the apple caramel and chocolate vanilla.  I thought the apple caramel was better but I am a sucker for caramel so go figure.

Next up we made it to Lakefront Brewery just in time to go on the tour.  The tour was a blast.  Amazingly cheap and entertaining and is well worth it for what you get in beer alone.  You even get a coupon to use later on at surrounding restaurants.  Unfortunately, after the big breakfast and such we were much too full to take advantage of it.  Beer tour after a huge meal is not necessarily the best idea.

Inside Tour At Lakefront Brewery

On the tour for only six bucks you get four tokens, each good for a 6 ounce pour or you can trade two of them for a bottle of beer.  Even better you get a plastic cup that you can trade in at the end of your tour for a Lakefront Brewery pint glass.  I’m not going to go in depth as to what happens on the tour as it would ruin some of the very entertaining jokes.  The tour goes through the very interesting history of Lakefront Brewery as well as the history of beer.  I will admit that the brewery itself is much smaller than you might expect.

Lollapalooza: Sunday Recap

Sunday got off to a late start as I needed the sleep after the aftershow.  There were some ironies to the day.  Despite wearing the pair of cargo shorts that had the most pockets of any day I was there I did still end up loosing my camera (more on that later).  Anyhow, we woke up in time to get there early but opted for sleeping in for a few more hours.  The first thing we wanted to see that day was Wild Nothing.  I kind of didn’t know what to expect, as I wasn’t truly a fan of Wild Nothing but they still played a good set.  Hey I’m down for listening to new music at anytime especially with a drink in hand.

Wild Nothing

That being said, we were able to make our way down towards the front of the stage to listen to some of these very mellow indie rock tunes.  I love the way a light electronic melody is integrated on to tracks like “A Dancing Shell”.  All in all the set was pretty fun but not very memorable at all to be honest.   Still they are a band that is now on my radar to listen to a bit more.

The next band that I wanted to see was The Mowgli’s.  Unfortunately, they were at the stage I hated the most, The BMI Stage.  This stage suffers from three problems.  First, the next closest main stage (Bud Light Stage… As if I needed another reason to hate Bud Light) was the loudest stage at the park, and you get terrible bleed over to the BMI stage.  Then, you also have to deal with the fact that it is poorly planned.   It faces Lake Michigan, and with no backdrop to the stage, you really just end up watching a bunch of shadowy figures preform more than anything.   Last, it is in a really small area.  I guess like me there were many fans of the song “San Francisco”, because the stage was completely overrun with people, as if they were zombies on a farm at the end of season two of Walking Dead.  The stage was pretty loud though, and we could still hear them preforming through the bushes on a bench next to the fountain.  Luckily Alex Clare’s set on the Bud Light stage was done ten minutes into the Mowgli’s set, because you could still hear Alex Clare clearly over the Mogwli’s.

Tegan and Sara

Then everything started to blur together as we got to the rushed part of the day.  We saw a bit of Tegan and Sara which is where I lost my camera.   I must have just been careless and completely droped it when trying to put it back into my pocket.    As we headed for lunch and I was about to take a picture of the grilled cheese I had from Brunkrow Cheese.    When I say grilled cheese, I know what you might be thinking, but this particular grilled cheese does not involve any bread at all.  It is actually a piece of cheese thrown directly on to a grill.  You get nice grill marks and a wonderful taste of crisp cheese.  I really liked the original version, because the salty cheese goes good with the sweet maple syrup.  I was not a big fan of the bacon version, as I felt like the bacon just made things a bit too salty.  It is one of those rare instances where bacon actually made something worse.

We trekked back across the park to see Alt-J.  They were one of the bands that I was most looking forward too and they also had a huge crowd.  It was almost as though they could have played a larger stage as well.  I have been a big fan of the band since I heard their single “Breezeblooks”.  They have a very interesting sound that is pretty mellow.  Their song “Fitzpleasure” is also featured in a Microsoft commercial.  After hearing most of their set and another one of my favorites “Tesselate”, we were on a mission across the park again to see DIIV.

DIIV

DIIV was playing on the smaller The Groove stage right before 2 Chainz.  They drew a pretty small crowd that got a lot bigger a lot of 2 Chainz fans when the set started to end.  Their music is pretty hypnotic.  My favorite song from them is the song How Long Have You Known which has a pretty trippy video.   You’ve got to appreciate any band that preforms while wearing alien masks.   I missed a bit of the performance because I had drunk so much by that point that I had to pee several times.  I also used the opportunity to grab a bit of food as well.

We then caught a little bit of Vampire Weekend.  I am a moderate fan of Vampire Weekend.  I loved the first two albums but the third one just fell a little short for me.  Still they are a great band, but they can’t really compete with Major Lazer.  Still I wanted to stay and see a bit of their set before running across Grant Park yet again.  We only caught a couple of their hit’s like “Holiday”, and fortunately they were at the Bud Light Stage so you could hear them most of the way across the park.  As we started to walk away they started to play the song “A-Punk” that I had to run back to hear before finally committing to leaving for real.  I really wish that they weren’t playing as the same time.

That being said nothing trumps LAZERPALOOZA.   It was a swift walk across Grant Park in order to make it over just in time to Major Lazer run the track “Original Don”.  It is a track that I can’t listen to without getting hype.    As soon as I heard it I was pushing my way through the crowd towards the front of the stage dancing.  You’ve got to really appreciate what Diplo does as a DJ  for Major Lazer, popularizing the obscure Dancehall genre and taking it main stream.  “Pon De Floor” was actually used as the beat for Beyonce’s “Run The World (Girls)”.

Knife Party

I had to cap things off with a bang, as this was decidedly a dance music night.  Knife Party was preforming and how could I turn that down.  I’m not big on Pheonix and The Cure so it was an easy choice for me.  Their most popular track “Internet Friends” boasts the iconic line “You blocked me on Facebook, and now you’re going to die.”  Those Dubstep heavy tracks was all that I wanted to finish off the weekend with a bang.

I was a little mad about loosing my camera but I overall had a good weekend.   I went to the lost and found and heard nothing from them.  Eventually I had given up hope.  That was until I found a post for my camera being found on Craigslist.  I knew that checking it was a longshot but I eventually got it in my head to check it again.

I had to drive up to Logan Square to meet the person who had my camera, so I had a quick dinner at Longman and Eagle while I waited on them to show.  Longman and Eagle is tucked away in a corner of Logan Square.  It is a nice little whiskey bar that serves phenominal drinks.  Not to mention the fact that when I was looking over the menu, I really wanted to order absolutely everything.

Bone Marrow

So many things jumped out at me on the menu but I decided to go for the marrow bones.  The idea of combining bone marrow which is one of my favorite appetizers to get especially  since it is rarely on menus stuck out at me so much that I had to try it.  It didn’t disappoint but it wasn’t exactly a perfect dish.  The presentation for all is beauty, made the dish so much more difficult to eat.  The  roasted bones were standing up like little towers with the bacon shallot jam on top.  The waiter told me that most people don’t get down into the bones and get the marrow and end up eating the bacon shallot jam and proclaiming it to be the best marrow ever.  This is kind of understandable with the whole setup they give you which leads you down the road and makes the actual marrow hard to get to.

For everything the dish gains in beauty it loses in practicality.  This dish would have been perfect had those bones been cut lengthwise, and the bacon shallot jam spread evenly throughout.  All that aside, I’m really stretching to find fault in the dish because it tasted amazing.  You have a lot of fat in the bacon shallot jam and some sweetness.  Then to cut through the sweetness you get a little bright burst from the lemon zest.  You might think the sea salt would make things too salty in addition to the jam but if you use a light hand with both the salt and bacon jam, you can achieve perfection.

New York Strip

I decided to try the margarita since it was the drink of the day and it definitely was a winner for me.  It had all you wanted in a drink.  The drink was about as good as a margarita as you could have.   For my second drink I would have the Longman and Eagle Manhattan.  The Manhattan is a drink I often use to measure the quality of cocktail that a place can produce.   This particular one was right on the money.

For dinner I had the New York Strip.  The only fault I can find with this dish was that I had to rush through eating it in order to meet and get my camera.  When it first arrived, It almost seems as though there wasn’t enough steak, but it was well more than enough.  The steak was a perfect medium rare.  I loved the crispy potatoes on top of the braised ox tail.  The sauce was very hearty and a little acidic.