How the Other Half Eat

For many years, the city of San Francisco has had an event called "Dine About Town" in which all their fanciest restaurants offer a $30 per person 3-course meal. While you may think $30 per person seems a lot, these are restaurants where the salads after run $18 and the entrees merely start at $30. Well, apparently, last year Sacramento started a similar event called "Dine Downtown." Unfortunately, it didn't get much publicity, so it kinda flopped. However, this year they tried to get the word out a little more and Cliff discovered the details online. Many of the priciest restaurants in the Downtown Sacramento area offered $30 3-course meals. The event started on January 10th and will end this Saturday.

So, Cliff and I were happy to take advantage of such an opportunity. We watch a lot of cooking shows and have grown to appreciate the art of cuisine. We decided to eat at the Firehouse for two reasons: 1) I have always wanted to go there and 2) Kevin works there. The evening began a few days prior by Kevin getting us a much-desired reservation (they have been really busy) for a nice booth and the best waiter in the house. The place was lovely, but it paled in comparison to our delicious meal. We both began with the chef's gift of an amuse bousch of cold califlower soup with white truffle oil. An amuse bousch is an "amusing bite" to tempt your taste buds. Tempt it did and the wonderful meal began. To begin with, the bread was excellent - particularly the garlic asiago cheese one! We both ordered the wild mushroom and fennel soup, which was really yummy. Then Cliff ordered the filet mignon kabob over garlic mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and chimichurri sauce. He loved it and the meat was cooked perfectly. I had the prosciutto wrapped scallops with pear chutney utop walnut-fennel rissotto croquets and steamed veggies. It also had a delicious sauce, but what it was escapes me. Oh - before the entree arrived, we were treated to a lemon-cucumber sorbet to cleanse the palet. It was so frickin' good! Finally, for dessert I enjoyed the black forest tort with raspberry sauce and Cliff had the chocolate decadence cake.

We used our piggy bank money to pay for the bulk of the meal, and it was totally worth it. I know that for some people, spending a lot of money on a single meal doesn't sound appealing, but there is just something so soul satisfying about a really quality meal. Especially since we had 3-courses but didn't feel stuffed because they serve the correct portions of things. We are now looking over the menus of the other restaurants participating in "Dine Downtown" so we can hit one more place on Friday night. Then, we'll just have to wait until next year...