Two "foodies" dine out

Last night we had the blissful pleasure of having a family meal out with friends. This is such a pleasure, mostly due to the fact that we rarely do this as a family. Budget and common sense often plays a role in the fact that we don't eat out very often.

As a practice when I want to have a "date night" I will purchase some wine, fresh salad, and create a masterpiece meal with the prime rib steaks that I have in my freezer. These steaks are usually purchased 1-2 times per year, Christmas and 4th of July (or a 3-day weekend). Typically you can find these fabulous steaks on sale for $4-6 per steak. So when we eat our date night meals, we have the comfort of home, great food and meal that would typically cost $60 for the family, all for $20.

Did I ever mention that sometimes I am waaaay too practical?

Last night our adventure took us to the Burlington Cafe, which was our local Costco's business of the month. As the business of the month I swiped a menu to check-out, and viola they have cajun food!! Now unless I want to drive to Everett and eat at Alligator Soul (great bisque btw) Jason and I have not found a local Cajun restaurant that we have enjoyed. It has been since college and Mama's Cookin' Cajun in Ellensburg that we have found such fantastic down home Louisiana cookin'. The Burlington Cafe seemed like a good prospect to us.

We called up some friends, and made the plans to dine out. Now at first glance the cafe looks very retro, and doughty, even as we were seated in the back room (the Cafe at 5:30 was mostly empty) I was having my inner doubts. Trying to "be in the moment" I let it go and waited for our friends. Now as an area of growth (as we teachers call it), the cafe should invest in some dollar store crayons and coloring books for the kiddos, this is something that is needed for sure.

With a fresh coat of paint, and some great mardi-gras motif the Cafe was fun and entertaining. The kiddos dined on chicken strips and french fries, which were good but nothing spectacular. My friends ordered chicken fried steak with gravy, it came with corn and garlic mashed potatoes. As a fan of Chef Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, the first thing that I thought of when I saw the chicken fried steak was that they were serving them two meals. The portions were so large that I would have easily made 2 meals out of it. Chef Ramsey believes and I tend to agree that if your food is good enough and of quality ingredients you can sell smaller portions and people will buy them. The cafe could learn a thing from this lesson.

Jason and I ordered a "Cajun Hot Pot" that was essentially a Cajun bouillabaisse, with mussels, clams, craw fish, shrimp, scallops and andouille. This was served with fried okra, that was outstanding, and cornbread. After mass consumption of the Hot Pot here is the general gleen of what we decided about our dinner.

The soup was good, it had full body, and many layers of flavor. All of the seafood was fresh, except for the craw fish. I had only one scallop that was over-cooked, and the rest of the seafood was melt-in your mouth good. The shrimp was not over cooked and chewy, over all a great eat.

So go for it!