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! 
It was an amazing workshop and I won’t do the disservice of giving away all of Ajay’s secrets (take a workshop with him, you won’t regret it), but here are two assignments he gave us in the workshop.
Huntsville has a new, ultra cool place to enjoy an upscale cocktail, a pint of local craft beer, and a truly amazing array of culinary delights. It’s hard to say what the restaurants food genre is other than an eclectic spectrum of deliciousness. Usually when I got to a restaurant opening I do a little research on the place, but I was pressed for time so as we were driving to the 
The menu had lots of different types of food: Japanese, Italian, good old American and even some New England fare. Mmm Clam Chowder. (It gives me flashbacks to my childhood).
The interior is sleek, yet comfortable. The restaurant is divided into different atmospheres, but all of them were equally enjoyable. It is a great place to grab a meal before a Saturday out on the town or settle in on a weeknight for numerous dishes, drinks and causal conversation. We opted to sit on the patio in the unseasonably warm weather with blogging superstar 
The staff was lovely, well-informed and so helpful. They brought us lots of different dishes to sample and offered to get anything we needed from their skilled chefs and bar staff. 
I started with the flatbread pizza. It was delicious, which is going to sound very redundant soon, but seriously everything tasted amazing.
After a while I noticed people sipping on fruity cocktails, and being a person that doesn’t want to miss out, I went and located a few for the table.
Mmm. Just looking at the pictures again makes me want another. They were fresh and fruit the with right amount of kick.
All of the sushi is made fresh in-house. It went so fast that I was barely able to get a photo before it was gone, but I snagged a couple of pieces. Once again delicious. 
We then enjoyed well-cooked burgers (American-style) and pork dumplings (Chinese-style). My absolute favorite was the tuna sashimi (Japanese-style) and we finished up with passion fruit creme brûlée (French-style). It was like visiting Epcot Center without all the crying children and overpriced Mickey merchandise. 
I highly recommend visiting 
Huntsville has a new brewery!!! Let’s all toast 
Back in 2009 craft beer in Huntsville was in its infancy. Prior to this beer with an alcohol content of more than 6% was banned from the state. Other prohibition era laws remained of the books and essentially stifled an industry that was thriving and benefiting other states throughout the country. In 2005, a group of passionate beer lovers started the 
Now that we’ve hit 2016 Green Bus will be the 8th brewery in Madison County. I had the pleasure of dropping into the Grand Opening.
The Grand Opening lasted all day and I picked a time that I thought would be dead, but I would be wrong. There were tons of people, lots of beer, food, games, live music, raffles, and a guy in lederhosen. ‘Tis the season I suppose. 
They even had the infamous green bus! It was covered with stickers from all the other local breweries. I love how the craft beer industry in Alabama is so supportive of each other. I can’t tell you how many times brewers have told me ‘when one of us succeeds we all do’.
I’d loved to have tasted the beer, but unfortunately I am currently under a strict gluten-free diet (doctor’s orders) so alas I could only photograph it. I will say it was quite pretty and the drinkers around me seemed immensely happy.
There is a new coffee shop in Madison County! Be still my caffeinated heart. 
Of course, like any good cafe, they offers a wide array of coffees, teas, and pastries. Most of the pasties are house or locally made. In fact the shop offers a variety of local products including 
In the hot Alabama sun you can enjoy a fresh smoothie, a 
There is a variety of sandwiches and salads. I took the staff’s recommendations (thanks Cayla!) and went with Theo’s Chicken Salad. I’m very particular about my chicken salad and I can honestly say this was delicious!! I loved it. 
I also had the Strawberry Pecan Salad. Don’t worry, I had help eating everything. It was also really nice, fresh and fruity. 
It was super gloomy/rainy out and a creamy, hot latte with dark chocolate on top was required. It was superb and hit the spot. 
Cayla made my coffee perfectly. It was pretty strong, which is alright by me! 
She even showed off her latte foam art skills by making a little heart for me. Awww. 
Next time I’m asking for her to create Da Vinci’s 
We finished with Peach Cheese cake that was created by owner, Josh. It was everything a dessert should be, sweet (but not too sweet), creamy, rich, and decadent. Delicious!! 
The restaurant itself was really fun. As I said, there is a rotating display of local art which sets off the clean, hip feel of the cafe. 
There are also many personal photos which gives the place a more intimate feel. The cafe is named after owner Josh’s mentor and grandfather James Theodore Martin and he is very present in the place.
There are also many events at Theo’s including: local bands and pottery glazing classes. The cafe is a great place to socialize, learn something new, or just spend some quite time by yourself to enjoy a cup of joe and slice a cheesecake. 
Maddio’s specializes in fresh pizza made with local ingredients. There are 3 types of crust (traditional, whole wheat and gluten-free), 6 types of sauce (tomato basil, BBQ, buttermilk ranch, buffalo, herb pesto and garlic olive oil) and 45 toppings!!
The restaurant is a family-friendly, casual restaurant with an emphasis on fresh, local ingredients.
The way it works is, you select your crust and sauce and then comes the hardest part, you have to pick your ingredients, which seems easy until you realize that you have 45 to choose from.
So many options!
I went with the gluten-free, Peachy Keen summer pizza, which had fresh peaches, basil, onions, prosciutto, and balsamic vinegar. It was de-licious!
The staff was friendly and lovely. The employee (pizza artist, pizzista, I don’t know the official title) making my pizza even happily tolerated my manic picture-taking and posed to let me get a photo right as it was about to go into the oven.
After the pizza is assembled it goes into the oven and you go to your table to wait.
We all received our meals promptly, which was impressive considering the throngs of people who were there. As us bloggers enjoyed our pizzas we were brought cookies and cannolis (though I think this was only because it was a VIP event). I am absolutely not supposed to have wheat or sugar (that’s a blog post for the future) but I did partake in one cannoli.
I’m such a sucker for tiny desserts!
Everyone’s pizza looked delectable and I’m looking forward to bringing my husband and trying Maddio’s again. They had so many local beers on tap for the adults and a children’s menu for the kiddies. There really is something for everyone!
Patrons can order online and avoid the line. The employees were fast, so the line wasn’t a problem for me, but if you have small children this could be a life saver.
Check out 
The Jealous Crumpet