Foodies rejoice! Once again restaurant week is upon the city of Huntsville. From August 10 until the 19th restaurants across Madison County are offering their fare at promotional prices. Even the breweries are jumping into the fun with new brews. As part of the promotion for Restaurant Week, I got to sample some of the promotional dishes with the Resturant Week Blogger tour.
This is my fourth year to participate (I missed last year because was visiting my in-laws in France! Lucky me!!) and I love it! I get to eat good food with lots of talented food bloggers. What’s not to love. Plus it’s nice because food bloggers don’t even notice the weird things I do like stand on a chair to photograph a piece of cheesecake or gush about how adorable that curl of lettuce it in a salad. Normal people just don’t understand, but food bloggers will offer to hold the reflector. Below: Bloggers doing their blog thang!
But seriously how pretty is the salad below!!!!
This year I got to try the special dishes at two restaurants I’d never tried before: Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Keegan’s Public House.
Let’s start with Ruth’s Chris. Great restaurants, but I find the name super confusing. Nine times out of ten I call it “Chris’s Ruth” or “that Ruth Steakplace” or “Ruth Christoper’s Resturant”. I digress. 
As I said before I’d never been, so I let me GPS lead the way. This was a mistake because it led me straight to the Publix Loading Dock. As I walked to the back of Publix I thought, “this is a weird place for a fancy steakhouse” and I was right because there was nothing but some confused employees and dumpsters back there. I eventually got there. It wasn’t confusing, but GPS was just a jerk.
I met an assortment of extremely talented bloggers and got to eating! Please check their blogs out as well. I know I will. www.diningwithdeliajo.com happeninsintheham.com the bitter socialite rocket city eats hvsfoodlife
We got to try an assortment of dishes but my absolute favorite was the scallops!! 
I really wanted to try to Lobster Mac and Cheese, but I have an allergy, but dang it looked GOOOOOOD!!!!!
Earlier in the day, I tried Keegan’s Public House. I did not get lost, so I was actually on time to this one. 
The restaurant itself is really fun. It is located in the AL.COM building (shout out to all my journalist besties! You rock!! May the Fourth Estate Be With You!)
There were different bloggers at this event and I got to meet Love at First Bite and Ihearthsv.com
We started out with the house chips with blue cheese.
I ordered the Shepard’s Pie, which was everything you want comfort food to be: warm, tasty, the vegetables hidden at the bottom. 
There was also a nice salad 
Bloggers taking the shots of the dessert on the left. It’s amazing that it wasn’t melted by the end.
…and most importantly yummy, totally unhealthy, but oh so good dessert. It was Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding with Ice Cream and Whipped Cream on top. Yes, you read that right. It came with 4 spoons to prevent anyone from overeating and slipping into a food coma.
As you go into Restaurant Week make sure you tag all your local food pics on social media with #dinehsv to win prices and if not prices glory. There are also the most adorable gifs from your posts on Instagram. Just search for #dinehsv. 
So grab your forks and see y’all out and about from Aug 10th to the 19th! 
I very rarely feel like a VIP, but I had a cool super-star moment at this event. Being Outback at dinnertime, there were many, many people waiting for tables. My husband and I walked up to the event (late as usual) and I was mentally preparing myself to wait. I told the host that I was there for the VIP Tasting and she ushered me to the back, no wait at all! The servers immediately started bringing us cocktails, appetizers, steaks, etc. I felt so much more important than I am.
There were also fellow ‘VIPs’ in attendance, including the illustrious Christy Jordan, super-star blogger and creator of 
I tried to pay attention to the names of all the dishes but I wasn’t as good as I should have been. If I have messed up a dish please let me know.
Then came shareable cocktails, which was a weird concept for me. Why would you share your cocktail. They were delicious though, despite the shareable issue. I tried the strawberry peach sangria and my hubby went for a fresh fruit gin cocktail. Both were great, but I loved mine. I’d totally get it again.
Of course there were some blooming onions (did you know the 
They also served Bacon Bourbon Salmon, which was to die for. 
We ended with Oreo Mousse, which unfortunately I couldn’t partake in because of current allergy issues, but it seemed like a hit.
Thank-you Outback for the invite! See you again soon!
While I was visiting Kyoto I had the pleasure of staying at the 
On the second night I got the violet sake again. By the third night both my husband and I got the violet sake and by the end of the trip I had never branched out. When we got back to the states I make it my mission to create my own violet sake. 
For months I played with various sakes, syrups and sodas to create the best possible drink. It was a fun project and my husband especially enjoyed the position of official cocktail tester. So here is the recipe!
I bough my flexible little ladies, a squat toilet, a woman serving sake, but the weirdest machine I bought is below!
How weird is that!!! It is a baby head with an alien inside. I didn’t have any coins when I spotted it so I dragged my husband into a cafe to get change so I could buy it! The best 2 yen I’ve ever spent!
The Jealous Crumpet