Montana's

We went to Montana's last night for dinner. I am not particularily fond of restaraunts like this but some people are. This restaraunt tries to have the decor of a rough mountain cabin, but they also have the brown paper table cloth that many other "hip" restaraunts, like Jack Asstors have. You can colour on it if you like, which is good for kids. This restaraunt is also one where the servers will come out and put giant hats with horns or antlers on your head and loudly sing a "unique" version of a happy birthday song.

The food was good though. I ordered the 8 oz. bacon wrapped steak, with the sides of garlic mashed potatoes, and mixed vegtables plus the "dusted onions". Normaly it comes with baked beans (but they were out) as well as "dusted onions", which are the same thing as a piece of onion loaf or onion rings, and one choice of a side. I was pleasantly surprised by the steak. It was quite delicious. The bacon added just a hint of flavour to the steaks own flavour. The garlic mashed potatoes were quite delicious as well, they came with gravy even though i did not ask for it, buti would have. I only mention that for those of you who would not like gravy so that you know to mention you don't. The vegtables were typical.

My wife ordered a different steak meal that I don't recall the name of. She too was pleased with the meal. She also ordered the Montana Smashers, which are three scoops of mashed potatoes with cheese melted on them ans chives (i think) sprinkled on the top. There may have been more seasonings as well, I didn't try it. She liked it very much though. We also ordered a skillet of fried mushrroms, which were good but the skillet was so hot, that when they brought it out to us it was still cooking the mushrooms. Some of them had burnt sides from sitting in the skillet. The "toast" that it comes with is more like a lightly baked piece of focatia bread with butter, garlic salt, and parmeson cheese on it. It was good.

Overall the food is quite good, but i am not a fan of the atmosphere.

My Mom's House

I have a limited budget as I am a student with a small family. As Christmas and the end of last semester drew near my budget for going out to restaurants was low. I also found myself quite busy making preparations for the holidays and wrapping up my school responsibilities which resulted in little time at the computer for blogging.

I did have an amazing Christmas dinner at my mother’s house. I know that her house is not a restaurant but I thought I would write a bit about her to give her a little fame.

Unfortunately very few of the readers of this blog will have the opportunity to partake in my mothers delicious cooking. She loves to cook and is quite skilled. My parent’s house was designed to entertain, with a massive kitchen including two ovens, a six foot restaurant style stainless steel dual sink with high faucets, and so much cupboard and counter space that it would be impossible to fill. The entertaining area consists of a large dining room, with a long banquet table large enough to comfortably and properly seat thirty people, a music room and a large room for relaxing and conversing. This area was designed to be sort of separate from the rest of the house so that the entertaining would not interfere with daily living. It was especially important when I was a child and would have homework to do or friends over while my parents had dinner guests. The three entertaining rooms are connected to each other by three large door/walking ways that encourage movement throughout the spaces. Each room is connected to the other two with one entrance to the kitchen off the dining room (the kitchen also has an entrance to the rest of the house and breakfast area.) My mother’s dinner as always was fantastic; we had a number of dishes including such items as turkey (of course), sweat potatoes, potatoes, ham, fresh rolls, numerous salads, pies, cakes, jelabi, home made chocolates and more. I love holidays at my mother’s house, it is a huge change from the student lifestyle I normally live.