Dining at the Kings

I am about to commit a great sin in food blogging; I am going to discuss a meal at a restaurant without pictures. :(  The food was very pretty, but I get strange looks from time to time when I whip out my cell phone and start snapping away at restaurants - and that's when I'm out with Matt. Tonight, I was out with my book club, and although they're very nice women, I don't know most of them that well. So I decided to keep the strange-factor to a minimum. 


But I do want to blog about the meal, because we were at the King's Contrivance. I've never been there, and it's higher up on the scale of restaurants than I normally visit. So here we go! (hocofood@@@)


The King's Contrivance is high-end "New American" dining. The restaurant is in a converted house off of Shaker Drive, atop a hill with a pretty circular driveway. Once you pass through the front door, a brilliant shade of red, you can see that the dining "room" is actually "rooms" - which makes the setup seem more intimate. The Maitre d' guided me upstairs to the party I was meeting, a group of about sixteen which took up the whole of the one large table in the room. This would be a great space for a dinner meeting or family celebration.


The restaurant offers a prix-fixed menu for 29.00, as well as their full menu. They offered a surprising number of options for the prix-fixed menu, though, so while I was tempted by some of the other offerings (escargot, panko-crusted brie, and the roquefort-crusted filet, to be precise) I went for the three-course meal.


I started with a bowl of seafood bisque, which was creamy and loaded with a few shrimp, big chunks of fresh crabmeat, and a few spoonfuls of rice (which was interesting, I've never had rice in bisque before). The soup was incredibly rich and had just a touch of sherry. I was really impressed with how perfectly the shrimp were cooked... I was less impressed with the fact that the cook did not remove the tail vein (which made one piece actually gritty). I know it's a pain to remove; I do it when I cook shrimp at home (and I don't need a gadget). Maybe I'm being picky, but seeing shrimp that's not properly cleaned, particularly at a nice restaurant, seems like carelessness or laziness to me.


The main coarse was pan-roasted Norwegian salmon, a thick slab of fish that came propped up on a thin corncake about the width of a waterglass. The salmon was very pretty, golden-crisp around the edges. It came drizzled with a wasabi vinaigrette that wasn't at all spicy, but lent a tangy salty flavor (like miso and rice wine vinegar) to the fish. Microgreens and a few fried wontons gave texture and crunch. The fish melted away in my mouth, perfectly cooked all the way through. Fantastic. Room-falls-silent-as-everyone-digs-in good. 


Alongside the fish were small, equally-sized mounds of seaweed salad and pickled ginger. I usually think of pickled ginger as a condiment or palate cleanser, so it was a little confusing to see so much of it... but I love it, so that totally worked for me. The corncake was nice with a fancy scalloped edge, mild in flavor, studded with whole kernels. This main dish was awesome. I could eat it every day.


For the last course, I chose the dessert of the day - strawberry shortcake made with strawberry gelato. Given the chill of the weekend, this was like a taste of spring. The biscuit was light and sweet and tender, a nice contrast to the cold, dense gelato. A dollop of heavy whipped cream decorated the plate and punched up the richness factor, but the intense strawberry flavor of the sauce (with some chopped fresh strawberries) kept the richness from becoming overwhelming. The portion size was perfect after the first two courses.


The service was polite and efficient. 


As someone who doesn't go out to high-end restaurants often, I'm pretty satisfied with my meal. Everything I tasted was delicious, and other peoples' food looked awesome. I'd like to go back some time, maybe for a very special occasion, and try some other items on the menu. I'm also curious to see if the experience is different for a party of two or four (versus a group of 16; I always wonder if I'm seeing the best side of a place when I go there for the first time with a large group). 




Have you been to The King's Contrivance?  Where are your favorite splurge-dining-spots? Tell me in the comments below!

This is only a test.

We watched a really interesting movie the other evening, one that came highly recommended from Jeff. 


The film opens with a group of people who have obviously undergone some stress an difficulty to get to the final stage of an interview. They are led into a room, and issued instructions. They have been given one question, and one answer is required.


There's also a lot at stake... it's a place in a high powered company, there are definite clues that the world beyond the room is not necessarily "normal." The characters appear to have powerful motivation to do well in the interview.

The only trouble is, they don't know the question.

XKCD #135

This is "Exam," a 2009 film that stars a bunch of people that look familiar but that I couldn't place. But there was some pretty impressive acting.


As for the story, I don't want to give anything away, but it drew me in pretty well. Even though we were able to figure out some things, knowing (or thinking I knew) didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the story. There were some extremely tense moments, places where I had to cover my eyes.


There were some points where I looked at the screen and wondered why they hadn't taken a certain action. There was at least one other where I found the character transitions to be... a little bit of a stretch. But almost as soon as I started to feel that, the scene switched gears and I felt I could look past it.


I know, nothing like a good, specific review, right?


Still, when we reached the end - I didn't feel that I had been lied to. There is a fine line between spinning the story around a question and lying to the audience. When it's the latter, I generally feel cheated... it damages the story. That was not the case here.

"Exam" was an excellent film - available on Netflix watch it now, and more than likely whatever other movie-watching service you choose - and should be on the "to watch" list for anyone who enjoys a good psychological thriller. 

Year In Review...

"You don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been."

I looked for the original source for this quote, and came up with the following: cliche, 'old saying', 'they', and even Will Smith as 'Hitch' (though, unfortunately, I couldn't verify that).

Like crop circles or the origin of that plate of cookies in the conference room... just because I don't know where it comes from, doesn't make it less relevant/interesting/delicious.

Accumulation of food in said conference room.  Winter, 2010.

Cliche or not... this time of year, it makes sense to look back at what I've accomplished before I sit down and decide where I want to go.

Week in Review: 11-21-10

Yeah.  I know.  It's the 22nd.  Better late than never?  :\  To be honest, I'm going to be glad when November is over.  Or at least, for a chance to sleep over the holiday weekend.


Here are some highlights from the last week:


Plans are in the works for a new Holiday Blog Segment: Holiday Coffee Deathmatch.  See the first face-off on Friday, November 28...


...which is also Black Friday.  Cindy, Bridget, and I typically get up (or stay up all night) and go shopping.  Last year, the deals at the Columbia Mall were lackluster, but the people watching was awesome.  This year, I think I'm going just for the pancakes.  We're looking for suggestions for a place to start.  


Arundel Mills opens at midnight (Friday morning), but hanging around outside that Best Buy will be slightly scary.


Matt and I caught the new Harry Potter movie with the Sixes on Sunday.  I know I read the book, but I apparently forgot most (ok, nearly all) of the details.  The effects were cool, but this stage of the story translated into long, drawn out periods of inaction on screen.  I felt 'Meh', though I'm looking forward to the finale.  I might have to go back and re-read the series...


...once I'm done Jessica Z. by Shawn Klomparens.  I'm enjoying the book so far, even though I'm going through it at a crawl.  Why so slow you ask?  Well, I have to ration my time because...


...NaNoWriMo is still going on.  I'm well over 50K and finishing my book.  I'm also realizing that January will not be editing.  It will be a rewrite.  There are lots of things I need to go back and add in, but I won't be doing it this week.  Instead.... 


I got the crazy fabulous idea to start another one and try to finish it in seven days.  Not just any book.  Per the twitter vote, I will be tackling crazy mashup of historical fiction and a fairy tale.


Is it possible to write historical fiction with approximately 6 hours of research behind it?  Because thats about how long I can spare to research the history of female incarceration in the US, the glam-gangster age of the 1930s, and Grimm's fairy tales. Anyone have suggestions for good resources?



Finally, the BBC released the new Doctor Who Christmas special trailer.  Yay!


That's all for now.  Tune in tomorrow for the Tuesday NaNoWriMo update.