Sunday, March 29, 2009

Armadillo in Texas?


For dinner, I had lobster ravioli (not as posh as it sounds- thanks, Costco), with a garlicky tomato sauce and a glass of Yellowtail Pinot Grigio. Oh, and an orange-flavored Cadbury's egg for dessert. It was all pretty good.

More interesting is what I ate last night: a catered dinner at the Galleria's Westin Hotel, as part of a grad school celebration.

The first course was a mixed greens salad with a balsamic vinaigrette and a rather large, deep-fried goat cheese thingy. I want to call it a "purse", but that sounds pretentious. It was actually very good- nicely balanced dressing, an interesting mix of greens, and rather innovative cheese thingy. I wish the rest of the meal had been that good.

We didn't get a choice of entree, although our Kosher friend was accommodated with a fabulous-looking roasted veggie plate. The main course was chicken. It reminded me of an armadillo on the plate. Not kidding- the scaly chicken skin was left on, and it had been stuffed and cut into slices that resembled an armadillo's rounded carapace. I tried to remove the skin, because it had the leathery, rubbery texture of chicken feet (don't ask), but most of it refused to come off. The filling remains unidentified. My first thought was of mushed veggies, ratatouille gone wrong, but the texture was too smooth, and it had a toxic yellow-orange tinge. Sort of unconscionable, considering a simple stuffing of cheese and roasted pepper (or any number of other, not-toxic-orange things) would've been amazing. The green beans that accompanied it were crunchy, hard, and raw.

The desserts had been taunting us the whole time, as they'd been placed in the middle of each table prior to service. Unfortunately, they were deceptively attractive. I settled on a chocolate mousse sitting atop a thick, crumbly chocolate crust base. The mousse was decent, but had a plasticky texture. It had been dusted with too much cocoa powder, which puffed all over the white tablecloth with each forkful of mousse. And the crust was too thick and cakey to balance the mousse.

I tried a spoonful of the other dessert for research purposes. It was far worse. It looked like berries mixed with Cool Whip, but it had been sitting out too long and tasted like styrofoam. Next year, we'll advocate for better food.

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