wherein we fall in love

So we fell in love last night with a new (to us) place, called indigenous.  We had a perfectly prepared meal with several knock your socks off courses and fabulous service (Thanks Jessica!) outside on the patio lit with fairy lights on an evening with 70* weather.  How could you not fall in love with a place under those circumstances? LOL

We had heard of the place before and had once called to get a reservation but they were so booked all they had was 5:30 LOL which as most of you know - is lunch to us... But last night we were able to get an 8:30 outside reservation and found the menu, the food and the server, very much to our liking. And you can BYO with a corkage fee.

This is a definite "return to" restaurant.

They are known for a number of dishes but many things change season to season so we were thrilled to find out that our two appetizers were among the standard menu items- we chose the Parmesan Beignets and the Mushroom Bisque.  While the beignets were wonderful, the bisque was exquisite- I gave some thought to ordering it for dessert as well! (the photos do neither of these dishes justice!)

 the mains were equally excellent - I ordered the special of line caught mangrove snapper with a fattoush salad mix under and a creamy sauce of basil and cilantro - seriously good! Phil had a lamb dish with savory middle eastern flavors.

the night was warm and the lighting was perfect- you could see your food and dining partners yet enjoy the fact that it was night- with a little sliver of a moon in the sky...the water glasses left their humidity on the coasters but it seemed a perfect temperature to us.

so if you get down this way and have an evening to spend in Sarasota- the place is near the Towles Court arts district- definitely go out of your way if you need to because this place is "worth the journey" as they used to say in Michelin guides... excellent meal and evening!

a success!

so it only took us five winters to find a really good sushi place- LOL- actually we have found a couple of places along the way that were fine but last night we found the place we have been looking for- and oddly enough it isn't a sushi place- it is a fusion Thai-Japanese place.  Living in a city of more than 8 million people we have a number of BYO sushi places in the neighborhood that are really just sushi and maybe a tiny bit of cooked food (tempura/miso soup etc..)

the last few years we have been carrying in from the Lawrence Fish Market but you have to plan early - and if we don't plan - and then have a "taste" for sushi we usually have gone to Ora Sushi on Clark in Andersonville or what is known as Sushi Mike (LOL) Tanoshii Sushi also on Clark in Andersonville (our neighborhood in Chicago- about 1.5 miles north of Wrigley Field along the lake front -for those who don't know Chicago neighborhoods)

so when you go to a community of 50,000 from 8 million there are some adjustments - and among them - perhaps the biggest among them is the lack of truly ethnic restaurants- we are still working on good Thai and good Mexican - Bosnian is a complete loss- Vietnamese is very iffy (one place, with decent Pho but that doesn't even have two of the most common dishes in Vietnamese cuisine- banh mi and banh xeo)

photo- wikimedia commons

photo kent Wang (Austin TX)

and forget about Peking Duck like we have just around the corner at Sun Wah BBQ....

or really good Greek food (Tarpon Springs is an hour hike up the coast) - one of the first Thai places we tried here served crab rangoon with orange cheese and no white pepper! YUCK! (made us long for Opart Thai House on Western Avenue...)

so there is no way you are going to come here and have a great meal of Cevapcici- (Sarajevo on Lawrence Avenue in Lincoln Square)

or soup dumplings Shanghai style (Ed's Potsticker House on S. Halsted)

--- but on the other hand you can't get a good grouper sandwich for hundreds of miles from our Chicago home- LOL and stone crab claws cost and arm and a leg (so to speak- LOL)

but being huge sushi fans (our first date was a sushi place where we were the only "round eyes" in there - or as they say in SE Asia - farang) ...LOL - we were questing for good sushi and we found it last night at Pacific Rim on Hillview in SRQ...

  

these are photos from their website- I didn't take any pictures I was having a good sushi dinner! Which did include the fabulous Sashimi Salmon and Sashimi White Tuna (both shown on the left side of the boat) and Sashimi Toro (excellent!)- so that one is handled- and we will keep on the quest for the others- so far Chinese is a wash out- the best we have at this point in a "local chain" called Yummy House but at least we haven't been reduced to PF Chang's franchise yet....LOL

ever onward...

I hope to post in the next day or so- about the terrorist Spaniards from the Age of Exploration from my Florida Maritime class (apparently beheading and clubbing folks to death was an acceptable practice in the name of the Catholic god back in 1556)... in the immortal words of Monty Python "no one expects the Spanish Inquisition"

back to bijou

since we had been here roughly three weeks and we hadn't yet made it to Bijou Cafe, tonight we scheduled a meal there.  the day was rainy- we both jumped out of bed at 6:15 when thunder cracked overhead so loudly we thought there had been an accident... and the rain never really let up all day. so a perfect excuse to get out of the house and head to a nice dinner.

the place will let you BYO with a corkage fee- so we brought an old Burg-

Phil had piri piri shrimp for starters and I had the melange salad (a favorite)

then I had a pepper steak which was tasty but the strip steak was not high quality, and Phil had the roast duck with cherry sauce- and for desserts we chose gelati for me (sea salt caramel with truffles) and the amarula creme brulee for Phil.  Since the place wasn't crowded we were in and out in less than two hours... and home early on a rainy night... supposed to be fine by Thanksgiving but showers on and off tomorrow (the day before the holiday.)

we have reserved for Michael's on East for the Friday after - while Larry is still here... also a place you can BYO- and that we haven't yet made it to for a meal since we returned.... stay tuned turducken for the holiday along with boudin balls - LOL and four pies- LOL!