Portobello at Downtown Disney

Some would say that it is sad that the best part of your meal was the bread. However, in this case it isn't really a bad thing. The problem is that there was nowhere for the meal to go but down after the bread and roasted garlic came out. I will get back to this in a second...

Portobello is one of those places you wouldn't expect to find in a place like Downtown Disney. It has the feel of a local family restaurant rather than one that is part of a bigger national restaurant group. Portobello is part of Levy Restaurants that also has Fulton's Crab House and Wolfgang Puck Grand Cafe in Downtown Disney. It has the charm of a local eatery and reminds you of that every step of the way through your meal.

Speaking of the meal, lets talk about the best part of it. After we ordered we were brought out a plate of roasted garlic. There was a bottle of olive oil on the table, so I poured some of that on the plate along with some cracked black pepper. The garlic is so tender you can dig your knife into it and spread the garlic on your bread like butter. This was like putting heaven on your bread with every bite. Really hard to have anything better once you taste this.

The salad came out and it was meh at best. For my lunch I got the meatball sliders. These were really good, and I was informed that they make all their meatballs fresh every morning. The first meatball, from left to right, was a chicken meatball. This was different and good all at the same time. The second meatball was a spicy pork one that had fire breathing out of it for days. The last meatball was a beef & veal meatball that was the best of the bunch.

For something off the beaten path while at Downtown Disney, Portobello was a pretty decent choice.

Valentine's Day Dinner 2011: Salmon Hearts

I racked my brain to figure out how I could top last years widely popular Valentine's Day Dinner. It took all of about 5 min to determine it would be "Salmon Hearts". No this isn't the actual heart from a Salmon. Instead I decided to cook some Salmon in the shape of hearts. This was a lot easier said than done.

To start off I needed to find fillets of Salmon that were big enough for me to cut hearts out and I decided the best way to accomplish this was via heart shaped cookie cutters. Fresh Market had some beautiful cuts and I decided to get two, one to cook regular and the other one to cut hearts out of. The salmon is "Cuban Style" as it was marinated with Nellie & Joe's Key West Style Cuban Marinade. This stuff is really the best marinade on the market and goes well with pretty much everything. Oh...back to the hearts.

I ventured over to Kitchen Outfitters and luckily they had one box of heart shaped cookie cutters left. This box was perfect because it had various sizes of hearts for me to use. The big debate I had with myself was to cut before cooking or after cooking. I decided to go with before cooking and these cutters went right through the Salmon like a hot knife through butter. That was a good thing, until I got to the skin. With all my good knives, not one of them would cut through that skin. So I ended up pulling the hearts off the skin. My big concern now was would these hearts hold their shape through the cooking process. Luckily for the most part they did hold their shape and worked out very nicely for the presentation. I cut the other fillet in half for us to share after it was done cooking.

As for the rest of the meal:

We started off with a Shrimp Cocktail and had Rosemary & Sea Salt Rolls with a balsamic-olive oil dipping mixture that included several spices. These spices were cracked black pepper, garlic, oregano, and cracked red pepper. The shrimp were fresh Wild Georgia Shrimp that I seasoned with some cajun rub. I also put some of this rub in the water that I boiled the shrimp in. After an ice bath they were peeled and placed on the place with a cocktail sauce heart.

The side items for dinner were garlic red skin mashed potatoes and fresh cut green beans & caramelized onions. I partly peeled the potatoes as I wanted to have some of the red skin in the mixture. I then mashed the cooked potatoes with butter, heavy whipping cream, garlic, and cracked black pepper. The mixture was then transferred to a baking dish and was finished in the oven. The green beans & onions were cooked in a little olive oil, salt, garlic, and pepper. I caramelized the onions and the green beans were still crisp with a great bite to them.

To compliment this meal we drank a bottle of 2009 Don Miguel Gascón Argentine Malbec and for dessert we had Red Velvet Cupcakes from Fresh Market.

I got to say, as good as last years Valentine's Dinner was...this one was even that much better.

Chicken Parm from Carrabba's Italian Grill

You can't spell Carrabba's without carbs! This was my last bread heavy meal before Passover, so I loaded up. The fresh bread and spice mixture with the olive oil is always top notch. The ceasar salad was decent. The chicken parm, I split it with Brice, was as good as always. Good enough that I made a happy plate!