And on the 5th day, I digested

So just got back from a nice looooong walk with Murray. Feel like quite a slug after 4 days of eating. It was delicious eating, but lots of calories in a short period of time. My trainer is going to hurt me today. I deserve it. But I'd do it all again (well, maybe not Horne & Dekker).

Friday night was Fearing's night. I've been to Fearing's several times and have always enjoyed it. Not only is it great food, but the space is beautiful and the service is always great. But this is Restaurant Week so I always lower my expectations.

We started out with wine. Fearing's house wine, the Huntington Cabernet, is perfectly good and none of us were really in the mood to spend a bunch of money on wine this night. It was $40 so we ordered that. Unfortunately, they had run out and instead of bringing us a comparable bottle to our table as a suggestion, we had some random guy in a suit (I'm not sure who he was. He never introduced himself.) bring the wine list over and start suggesting hundred dollar bottles of wine. Fail. I (not me, my friend I)took the menu and we selected the Trefethen Cabernet. It was almost double the price of our original selection but it was a good solid wine and went well with our selections. We gave that order to some other guy in a suit. Again, not sure who he was since he didn't introduce himself but he later showed up with our wine so I guess was the right person to order from.

Fearing's did something different than most RW restaurants. They gave you options. We had the RW menu and then we had the opportunity to enhance our selection with various items from their regular menu (for an additional cost of course). It was a nice touch and a way for the restaurant to increase their check average. I'm sure most people don't do the enhancement, but, as you know, I'm not most people.

Actually, I was the only one that didn't enhance their main entry. I stuck with the spare ribs because, well, I love spare ribs. But I did get an enhancement for my appetizer. The selection for the first course was either Dean's famous Tortilla Soup (which I think is a bit overrated) or a southwest caesar salad. The options had my favorite appetizer in Dallas - Crispy Barbecued Bluepoint Oysters on Jonah Crab, Applewood Smoked Bacon and Spinach ‘Rockefearing’. Basically Oysters Rockafeller southwest style. They use a little Sonny Bryan's BBQ sauce for that extra zing. The oysters were huge! I was full after the first course. But did that stop me from eating the rest? What do I say WiDi'ers? Hells to the no.

Everyone else had the southwest caesar salad. L, K and I all said they liked it but they weren't wowed by it. (oh, almost forgot to mention. When you go to Fearings, dig through the bread bowl and find the jalapeno corn muffins. So good).

As I said before, I had the spare ribs. A bit of a disappointment. Spare ribs should be melt in your mouth, fall off the bone. They weren't quite that. A little chewy but they tasted good. L had the bison which she said she like a lot. A nice touch: L likes her meat cooked really well (sigh, I love her anyway) but she'd never had bison so she wasn't sure how to order it to meet (hee) her taste. The waiter recommended ordering it "medium plus". That way if it was too rare for her, they could easily throw it back on the grill. It came out just the way she likes it (cooked about 3 times more than I like it). K and I ordered the scallops with shredded short ribs. They loved theirs and seemed to like their short ribs more than I did. Happy plates for all!

For dessert, a chocolate brownie with caramel and raspberries topped with ice cream. I is a brownie expert right now (look for her new line of brownies coming soon!) and she said it was one of the best brownies she has tasted (besides hers of course) in a long time. There was also a peach parfait which I found so ordinary. The peaches were canned and it had a Del Monte taste to it that I didn't particularly care for. It's peach season! Give me some fresh peaches!

A note about service. This was the first time I've been to Fearing's where Chef Dean did not make his rounds to each and every table. I guess he's entitled to a night off, but it's that type of thing which gives Fearing's the edge as compared to some of the other restaurants in town. So I missed that. But that's forgivable. Our service was so disjointed. I still have no idea who our server actually was since we had multiple people attending to us. No one introduced themselves. Everyone who showed up was helpful but who the heck are you? I know it's RW and you're busy but, "hello my name is _________ and I will be your server today. I will be assisted by __________." take about 2 seconds.

Well, that's it for RW. I don't know when I will blog next. Must rejuvenate the pocketbook and reduce the waistline first. Well, off to the gym for some much deserved punishment. Cheers!