we have gourmet encased meats

Thursday turned out to be a dreary rainy day so what better way to cheer our guests up than a field trip to Frank n Dawg's gourmet encased meat emporium?

This place is amazing- they have so much creativity and the food is so good it should almost be criminal- but thank go it isn't....

While I am a huge fan of the Brunch Dog (Slagel farms pork loin breakfast sausage with Cobb smoked bacon, fried egg & drizzled with maple mayo) this time I chose the dawg of the month the BLT (Bacon sausage, heirloom tomatoes, romaine lettuce & a basil aioli)- it was fabulous... Phil usually does something in the duck sausage arena, and this time was no different.

you really owe it to yourself to check out their online menu - which is not complete but gives the sense of what is generally available at this well run and welcoming establishment-

here is a link: http://www.franksndawgs.com/menu

shown below the card/logo and the BLT dawg and the triple truffle fries YUM!!!!!

For dinner we went to Les Nomades (jackets required) and had a nice but unimaginative meal that paled in comparison to Goosefoot the night before and Frank n Dawg's for that day's lunch.... the service was spot on a Les Nomades and they were extremely accommodating on preparing something off the menu for Marissa (our 13 year old niece) but I took no photos for posting (the atmosphere was not conducive) -

We did have two nice wines- a 2002 Puligny Montrachet Les Folatieres - and a 1990 Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses, but they limit the number of bottles you can bring on their no corkage night (Thursday) so we weren't able to celebrate Steve's birthday with champagne there, as we felt for four courses we needed both a red and a white.  Of course that didn't stop us from having a bottle before we left home...

The wait staff was so very kind I feel bad for dissing the place but it is time to recognize it is 2013... and soon beyond- the jacket thing has to go!

BTW I know I have mentioned this in previous posts but Chris Nugent of goosefoot was at Les Nomades right before he left to start his own fabulous restaurant!

Then on Friday morning the Steve Friedmans (as my mother in law calls them- or S&S as we call them) went to Millennium Park to see Cloud Gate and made a mad dash through the art Institute before running to Rub's Backcountry Smokehouse (see post of July 31-  http://semifreelife.blogspot.com/2013/07/another-new-place-winner.html ) and brought us some for a carry out lunch- YUM...

then they were off to the airport and back home to Portland- where there is no dearth of good food either... the visit was lots of fun- and the week just zipped by...

a quick recap- Monday night arrival and sushi (with some wines at dinner and then more on the deck)  Tuesday they did a bike ride around the city and then we did dinner near Wrigley so they were close to the ball game they had tickets for on Tuesday night.  Wednesday the CAF River Architecture Tour for them then back to get Jack on a plane at 5- goosefoot at 8 for dinner (has its own post) Thursday the rainy day of Frank n Dawgs and Les Nomades and then Friday Millennium Park and the Art Institute....so they didn't do much sitting around LOL-

so we cooked on Friday night since it was JUST US - LOL and then Saturday we had an LCB competition team fund raiser which will get its own post - check out the meal (LOL) it may sound slightly familiar...