Jason’s bday last month + my birthday this weekend = birthday dinner with J’s parents. We agreed on El Paseo (Mill Valley, CA) – Tyler Florence’s newest restaurant. Who is he? If you don’t know – he’s had fantastic shows on Food Network as long as I’ve been watching – and his recipes are by far and away my #1 most used of all the food network stars. If he’s got a recipe for it – odds are I’ll love it. Pot roast to peach cobbler… anyhow! So we went…
First off – you walk up and it’s beautiful. Such a lovely setting. I insisted on getting some snapshots with the brick behind us. Jason was way irritated – as he was hungry and wanted to get inside. Too bad!
Then we sat down to rolls just out of the oven with a garlic butter + sea salt…
and I got daring and ordered a real caesar salad…
and for my entree I got the halibut I’d seen Tyler post a pic of a few weeks back on twitter and that I’d wanted ever since…
Then dessert time – and I had donut holes (stuffed with meyer lemon) and yes that’s a birthday candle. Entire meal + service was excellent! Will totally go back.
Oh, but there is icing to go atop this culinary delight… and that is:
to the left there, that’s THE Tyler Florence supervising all the meals leaving the kitchen. I knew he was there (Jason and I had spotted him going in/out of the kitchen) but I didn’t realize we were going to walk right past him! The orders were going out swiftly, and he was super intense into his work so I didn’t dare try and interrupt… it was just cool that he was there. His voice is what made me stop and turn and look again (he was just another guy in white shirt…) and we stopped to watch the action for a few minutes.
In my mind? Watching a creative person at work beats Hollywood celeb ANY DAY. Super cool – and a dinner out with J and his parents I won’t soon forget…
So thanks to Tyler for the great food + experience I won’t soon forget. I wasn’t so thankful today when I had to eat very little + exercise extra… but it was worth it. Great food always is.