August 19, 2016 Lunch – Central Grill Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and yellow squash with a tomato salad

August 19, 2016 Lunch – Central Grill   Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and yellow squash with a tomato salad

Today I made my slow return toward a normal diet.  I actually have enjoyed the more digestible food of late and feel better, having lost a bit of weight.

Today I spent five hours with the Kassams and Shane, their broker, on a transaction, during which time we went to lunch at Central Grill.  I ordered a tuna melt sandwich on gluten free bread.  I enjoyed the soft tuna with celery and little or no mayo on potato bread served with a slice of tomato and lettuce.   Rahim ordered an interesting meal of roast beef tacos,   Shane ordered a delicious roasted sliced turkey sandwich with a slice of cheese, green chile, guacamole, and a slice of tomato and a side of potato tots, which we all shared.

Shane was particularly impressed with Central Grill and agreed that it was highly rated due to the quality of its well prepared food, great service and reasonable prices.

After 4:00 I went to the bank and stopped at Lowe’s on the way home to buy some potatoes for dinner plus several cluster tomatoes and bottles of club soda.

We had decided to cook several of the steaks I bought at Albertson’s on Tuesday.  When Suzette came home she wanted to make a salad with fresh tomatoes from our garden and wanted to grill slices of yellow squash from the Center’s garden. I had baked six potatoes at 5:00 at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.

Suzette gathered small yellow grape, medium yellow and dark purple cherry tomatoes from the garden, cleaned them, and sliced the larger ones into bite sized pieces and added small pieces of butter lettuce.. She then made a dressing with fig balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressed the tomato salad.

Then she sliced the squash and brushed it with fig balsamic and olive oil dressing and salted and peppered the squash slices and two steaks and grilled them.  We are using the black long pepper we bought in Marrakesh, now because it does not seem to trigger my gagging reaction to black pepper and has a slightly different more fragrant smell and flavor from black pepper.

Then when Suzette brought in the Grilled steak and squashes she grated Iberico cheese onto the squash slices.  Suzette filled plates with a baked potato, slices of grilled steak and squash, and the lettuce and tomato salad drizzled with the fig balsamic dressing for a lovely and pleasant dinner.  I am finally back to eating regular food most of the time and have finished taking the sulfa drugs prescribed by my doctor.

I opened a bottle of 2014 Chateau Haut-Sorillon Bordeaux Superieur Appellation d’origine Protegee (Trader Joe’s $8.99?) red wine.  I liked the wine a lot.  It was not a great wine but a good representative red  Bordeaux and excellent with the steak and tomatoes.  I have drunk this wine several times and it is a consistent wine that goes well with steak, so a good value.

 I must admit that I am still getting over my food poisoning episode and am not yet back to my full blown desire for great food and wine, which is probably a good thing.  

Here are several tasting comments on the wine:

Steve Sommerville

Rated It    Three stars 

Decent table wine at $9. Not as flimsy and "grapey" as some of the wines found at Trader Joe's. This is a medium bodied, dry Bordeaux that has a decent finish and is fairly smooth on the palate. Decent balance of earth, fruit and oak. Went well with tinga. A fair wine at this price range and is a good food wine because it stands up to most hearty tomato and/or beef based sauces, yet should not over power most lighter sauces either.

Anthony Caddell

Rated It    

This wine is a ruby colored, medium body Bordeaux blend of 80% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. It is not very good. Unbalanced, acidic taste of laissez-faire fruit, disinterested tannins and an anemic alcohol level of 12.5%. Terrible, in English or en francaise.

 19   People approve this review

I sort of agree with both reviews.  A good wine for the money for the foods we ate. the but not a great wine.  Perfect for a simple steak dinner.  

In fact a wine attendant at Trader Joe’s once referred to Chateau Haut-sorillon as chateau Sirloin because so many folks drank it with grilled steaks.

I ran to the garden and picked five or six stalks of chives and finely diced about 1/3 of them to garnish the baked potatoes after we mashed butter and cream into them.

I enjoyed dinner but was hesitant to eat and drink heartily for fear of upsetting my system.

We had a bit more than one steak and several slices of squash left as PPIs.

The best part of the the meal was the salad with its tender, delicate leaves of lettuce and the lovely small fresh tomatoes that tasted truly wonderful with the fig balsamic dressing Suzette made.  

Bon Appetit