Family Feud at Sam Bond’s Garage

This is the first non-Amy-written post of our blog.  It’s by me, the guy frequently referred to as Matt.  Here it goes…

To cap the work week and kick-off the weekend, we ventured out Friday night.  Sam Bond’s Garage was the place and their version of Family Feud was the draw.  Sam Bond’s is a small venue with nightly live entertainment of all types.  Popular shows pack the house.  This is a good excuse to go early, which becomes a good excuse to plan on eating there too.  It helps that their food is quite good, as is their wide selection of beverages.

The ingredients for their menu are mostly, if not all, organic.  Many ingredients, particularly the vegetables, are local too.  We split their Hummus Plate, which had generous amounts of toasted pita, Sam Bond’s homemade hummus, feta (tasted like Alsea Acres to us), greens and cukes,   Plenty of food for the two of us after some moderate snacking at home.

On to the Feud. Tom Heinl was our Richard Dawson, but brought much more game than the original.  The set and sound effects rocked.  Questions and answers were very Eugene.  Local businesses were the “families”, with Wandering Goat and Poppi’s Anatolia facing off in the final rounds.  The production of it all was such an experience that I can’t remember who won.

I’ve been patronizing Sam Bond’s for about 10 years now.  Chalk up another great night.

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A Holiday Party at Adam’s Place

Being the local food junkies that we are, its odd that we rarely go to Adams Place, and have never actually eaten in the dining room.  We sometimes meet friends there on Fridays after work for a little bite to eat and a drink or two, but never dinner.  Adam’s Place gets great reviews and is a perennial “Northwest Best Places” listee.  They do a great job of using local ingredients and was one of the first restaurants in Eugene to source directly from farmers.  So, you ask, what has taken you so long to go to Adams?

The prices for one – it’s not a place that you go to if you realize that you just don’t feel like cooking dinner.  It’s really a place you go for special meals, like anniversaries or birthdays.  The dining room atmosphere has also felt a little formal for our taste.  So enough with the lame excuses…

We finally ate dinner at Adam’s Place for the first time ever.  Matt’s company holiday party was held there last night and it was the best food and service I can remember at a holiday party.  They have a great room for hosting these types of events for small-ish groups (30 or so people) which we were in last night.

The passed appetizers consisting of butternut squash mousse on a homemade potato chip, various bruschetta including roasted chanterelle mushroom and white bean with sundried tomato were enough to send me home a content woman.  Not to mention the cheese and fruit plate with shropshire, chevre, cambozola, dried figs, apples and pears.  Oh yum.  And we hadn’t even sat down for the four course dinner.

The four courses all hit the mark equally as well.  The first course was a simple mixed green salad with a cranberry vinaigrette, hazelnuts and sugar crusted cranberries. The pasta course consisted of bolognese fettucini  and roasted chanterelle mushroom and spinach fettucini.  Even though I knew the main course was still coming, I had to have an extra couple of bites of the bolognese.

The main course was equally delicious – chicken piccata, beef skewers, and roasted fall vegetables.  I was particularly taken by the chicken piccata.  Normally I don’t think of chicken as being a special meal, but this fit the bill.  It was covered in a light, fluffy parmesan crust and served with a lemon caper beurre blanc sauce.  I want to go back just have another meal of the chicken piccata.

Finally, we ended the feast with an eggnog pannacota and chocolate volcano cake.   They were both amazing, but I was so full (imagine that) I couldn’t properly enjoy them.

All in all, I am sorry it took us so long to enjoy a meal at Adams.  We have been missing out on some great food.  It will definitely be considered the next time we have a special meal opportunity, despite the formal-ish dining room.  It may be a little easier on our pocketbook too.   I read in the Register Guard that they are reinventing the restaurant to lower prices a bit, while maintaining the high quality of ingredients.

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Mmmm… Belly

It’s rare that we go out for dinner these days, so tonight was pretty special. We have almost stopped going out altogether because we generally feel like we have better meals at home and we are guaranteed that the food sources are mostly local.

We had a wonderful meal with friends Brian and Caroline at a relatively new Eugene restaurant called Belly.We ordered a bottle of Tempranillo to share, which seemed perfect for a fall meal. I rarely have a difficult time making a decision on my dinner, but I was tempted by several dishes and concluded that we would have to revisit several times in the next few weeks to try everything that interests me on the menu before it changes.  I typically make a decision after looking at the menu once, maybe twice.

The Belly menu presented a little more difficult decision with its numerous local, unfussy options.  The menu is full of tempting fall dishes like pork shoulder confit, pork belly over lentils, braised lamb shank, and braised duck leg.  The menu focuses on fresh, local ingredients and changes monthly.

My first decision was between an endive salad with roasted brussel sprouts and roasted cashews or a beet salad with smoked trout, capers, and hard-boiled egg. Caroline ordered for the beet salad, so I decided on the endive salad. I was not disappointed, although I will definitely return to try the beet salad. I am a sucker for smoked trout.

For my main dish, I opted for a small plate of their house specialty – pork shoulder confit with fall fruit.When given the choice, I will almost always choose pork over fish, seafood, beef, or chicken. With my predisposition for pork, I was sold on the “house specialty” description. The fall fruit was grilled apple slices, which was perfect with the slow cooked pork. Matt and I followed our normal ritual of sharing our meals so I also sampled some of his braised duck leg with mashed sweet potatoes and chanterelles. Yum and yum.

Before our dinner tonight we joked about how our other friends, Ron and Judi, had visited Belly 4 times within 6 weeks. It makes sense to us now and we are counting how many times we need to return in November to taste all of the dishes we want to try. And I almost forgot one of the best parts – the most expensive dish on the menu is the filet mignon for $19. I have a feeling they will be seeing a lot of us at Belly.

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