A Promised Post

I'd promised The Singer that I'd make a blog post about how awesome she is. For a recent special day, typically highlighted by plate renewals, she organised just what I needed. A nice quiet day with nothing to do but sit and hang out. It's funny, I'm more protective of the date than I am of my age.

It actually started the night before when she gave me my presents; some nice copper annodized BBQ cookware - a bean pan, a grill basket (for fish) and a BBQ wok. I rather enjoy being able to cook everything on the BBQ. On the actual day, I woke up to a lovely breakfast of french toast and berries. It's a rare treat when I don't have to cook breakfast; The Singer demands her sammiches on the weekend, but I get her to make the coffee so it's... well, a trade anyways.

As an aside, it's funny how things have changed over the past few years. I used to go to the Greek Souvlaki House for breakfast on both days of the weekend. A habit I had for several years. I think I've been twice this year, having traded the convenience of getting someone else to make my breakfast for the lazy, layabout option. A pretty fair trade.

For lunch, we went on picnic to Mooney's Bay and it was a lovely day to go. Just a little cool, but still we spread the blanket out and just let the world float by for a couple of hours. Like I said, my kind of day.

The Singer managed to surprise me with dinner at the Merlot Grill, on top of the Marriott. It didn't even register as a guess as I tried to figure it out. While the wine selection wasn't great (and overpriced - no, I'm not paying restaurant markup for a bottle of Naked Grape Pinot Grigio), the food was absolutely delectable. We started with an amuse-bouche of brie, baked in a pastry and garnished with cherries soaked in port. This was followed by a selection of breads, served with butter and a goat cheese with blueberries.

As The Singer said, "It's like they know you". For an appetizer, I had the sweetbreads and she had the caesar salad. The sweetbreads were wrapped in a phyllo pastry, along with carmelized leeks and onions in. Quite tasty and while I tried them knowing what they were, I don't know if I would order it again. I'm not a veal fan either.

For dinner, I had the Sweet Soy Cedar Planked Salmon - in fact, I'd pretty much made up my mind that I wanted some sort of fish even before I knew where we were going. I wasn't disappointed, at least not in the fish. It seems the chefs there either like to pick and choose the sides or just don't know their own menu - what should have been a Wasabi sticky rice nori roll came out looking very much like roasted potatoes. In fact, they were potatoes. Oh, those crazy chefs. I declined the substitution, mostly because I had just gotten my meal and wasn't willing to part with it again (now I have a hankering for the Seoul House though. Poor, poor Singer). Speaking of, her dinner was the lemon grass poached supreme of chicken, which as I understand it was a little on the bland side.

Dinner was topped off, for me, with a citrus ginger creme brule.

Now, any complaints I may have had about the dinner was easily made up for by the pure awesomeness that is my wife-to-be and the fact that the restaurant rotated, so we got a good view of Ottawa and the surrounding skyline over the two hours that we were at dinner.

Anyways, it's not a place we'd go often, but I'd certainly recommened at least one trip, especially in the spring/summer when you can watch the sunset and possibly catch fireworks from the Casino.