Money, Money, Money

So basically my husband and I vowed not to go out to eat ever again (exaggeration) after this weekend because of the crazy amount of money we spent on last night's dinner. And then went out to brunch this morning. I know, terrible planning. We don't normally do that but we did. Oh well, you live and learn. Research for the food blog, amiright? Luckily, I have my meals planned to cook for the rest of the week. 

Last night my husband was feeling Mexican so we narrowed down restaurants upon research and picked Tico in Back Bay. So. Our reservations were around 7pm. It was EMPTY when we arrived which was a bit surprising. The decor was really cool, modern Mexican-themed. Our waitress was very sweet. They had Moscow Mules on draught IN MASON JARS so obviously we had to order those. 

Tico mostly had small plates divided into different sections (tacos, ceviche, a la plancha, etc.) and some main entrees. I have been to a lot of different tapas-style restaurants. But we feel like we have paid the most money we ever have for the least amount of food. The food was very high quality, really good but teenier than other small plates I've had in the past for a lot of money per plate. I don't think we realized how small the plates were until we got the food. We started with 4 small plates which normally we get us pretty full but the waitress hinted we would need more (which we did have to order more). I wouldn't necessarily return back to Tico for this reason. 

We had fried manchego with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce. They were like grown-up (small) mozzarella sticks. So good but wished we had more.

After that, we had shrimp tacos with bacon and jalapenos.

This was followed by grilled chorizo with chimichurri. Now, there were 3 very small bites of the chorizo for $9. We figured we would each get a link at least. Nonetheless, they tasted amazing.

After that we had a ceviche with scallops with a spicy cilantro puree, pineapple salsa, chicharrones, and leek ash oil. The contrast of the chicharrones with the fresh scallops was very tasty but it was such a small amount for $17. I think there was maybe a total of 2 scallops chopped up in it. 

We are a bit spoiled because on our honeymoon in Belize, we went to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in San Pedro that served a giant bowl of shrimp ceviche with tortilla chips for like $5. It was amazingggg. But I digress.

Next up was fried calamari with tangerines, peppers, and black garlic aioli. Really good.

The tacos were tasty with homemade corn tortillas so we wanted to try a second one which was fried chicken with spicy buttermilk and fennel slaw. Really good! We liked it better than the shrimp tacos because they were unique.

Then we wanted to get dessert as we weren't all that full yet. This was a banana split with gelato and peanut butter mousse. Yup.

I don't ever want to bash restaurants on here at all. We had a good experience but felt we didn't get the best value for our food. 

This morning, we had brunch at Steel & Rye in Milton, one of our favorite restaurants. We have never had brunch here, only dinner, so we were super pumped to have this. The restaurant has a cool industrial and rustic feel. I love the decor.

I started off with a cocktail that was made with cold-brew coffee, tequila, and cacao. Tim's cocktail was a Bloody Mary with sambal oelek (a Thai spice paste) and jalapeno vodka. Both cocktails were awesome.

We split with a blueberry jam-filled donut covered in cinnamon and sugar.

I ordered a chicken and waffles with an andouille sausage gravy. This was amazing. The chicken was crunchy on the outside but extremely moist on the inside. I'm not a fried chicken fan but this was delicious.

I also ordered a side of homefries.

Tim had Anadama French Toast with walnuts and bourbon-maple syrup. This was also amazing. 

We swapped bites back and forth (and he ordered a last minute side of bacon). We have a rule that we are not allowed to order the same drinks or food so we can taste bites of each other's meal. My husband sticks to it more steadfastedly than I do. But in this case, it worked out great. We paid half the cost of the meal last night and got SO much more food in return.

I threw together a dinner for tonight. I had bought some chimichurri-marinated steak tips from Whole Foods so I put those onto my grill pan. I also bought purple cauliflower for fun and roasted it in the oven with garlic oil, salt, and pepper and sprinkled some lemon juice on the florets after they came out of the oven. I also put together a cucumber salad of cucumber, thinly sliced onion, greek yogurt, sugar, red wine vinegar, harissa, salt, and pepper. I let it sit in the refrigerator while I made the rest of the meal.

I also prepped a Greek salad and cherry pie overnight oats for the week. All good stuff.