{"id":15839,"date":"2011-04-05T11:59:51","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T18:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=15839"},"modified":"2011-04-05T11:59:51","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T18:59:51","slug":"mussels-from-a-shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=15839","title":{"rendered":"Mussels From a Shell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday night I met my cousin Anna at American Pinot<\/a> for Happy Hour. I’ve been wanting to check out this restaurant for awhile now because I walk by it all the time during my lunch break.<\/p>\n

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\nMy cousin Anna and I were best friends growing up. In our mid-20’s she joined the Peace Corp and lived in Morocco for several years. She’s back in Portland now and we got caught up.<\/p>\n

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Anna and I, 1999<\/p><\/div>\n

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She was sipping a glass of the House Red when I arrived. She wasn’t impressed with the wine. I ordered a Syrah and it was delicious: light and not sweet. It was a little bolder than I was expecting for a Syrah too.<\/p>\n

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\nI ordered a bowl of French Onion Soup. I wasn’t that impressed with it, honestly. It was a little bland for being French Onion. But maybe I’ve just been spoiled with really, really good versions at Petite Provence<\/a> or Chez Machin<\/a>. Maybe all the soup needed was a dash of salt. I’m not sure but it was lacking.<\/p>\n

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\nAnna and I were eying the table next to us and their big platter of mussels were calling to us. I can’t remember the last time I had mussels or clams so we decided to go for it!<\/p>\n

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\nThey were Penn Cove Mussels pan-roasted with spicy sausage in a basil pesto butter sauce. I squeezed some fresh lemon over the mussels and we dug in.<\/p>\n

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\nThe mussels were soft and perfectly cooked. They weren’t rubbery or too chewy like some can be. The butter pesto sauce was surprisingly mild but delicious. I really loved this dish.<\/p>\n

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\nIt was good conversation and it was nice to catch up. I got a second glass of wine, a Cherry Hill Pinot that I didn’t like as much, and we split that glass. For a restaurant named after a wine I was surprised that their wine list wasn’t more extensive. The wine list fell short for me as well. I was also disappointed that there wasn’t a Happy Hour price for wines either.<\/p>\n

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\nI liked the restaurant but I was surprised at how dead it was. Granted it was a Monday night and it was pouring buckets of rain in Portland but it didn’t look like business was very good.<\/p>\n

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\nMaybe the weekend traffic at the restaurant is busy enough to keep them in business…?<\/p>\n

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\nAfter the mussels were eaten we got a small order of crusty French bread to soak up the sauce. It was awesome. The French bread was also piping hot.<\/p>\n

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\nOverall it was a nice night. The service was good, the conversation was nice. Most of the food was delicious. There are a few things that fell short for me with American Pinot and I have a feeling it won’t be in business long, which is a shame.<\/p>\n

Anna and I walked 10 blocks or so to the bus stop in the pouring rain. I was drenched to the bone and my shoes were water-logged. I had an enjoyable night despite the short-comings.<\/p>\n

I’ve been having anxiety lately about all the restaurant eating I’ve been doing. Eating out with friends, cooking that Four Course Dinner for Michael…I just feel like I’ve been a little out of control of my food and eating in the last few weeks. It’s been hard for me to thoroughly enjoy it because I feel like I’ve been over-indulging too much. I have a few more dinners planned with some friends in the next week or two so I’m going to really try and reign it in. I know how to make healthier choices at restaurants, it’s just a matter of doing it.<\/p>\n

I had also planned on working out at Crossfit with my old trainer today but I’m still too sore from the weekend’s yard work. I think I’ll push it to next week and hobble home tonight. My hamstrings are still screaming at me.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Do you like mussels? Have you prepared them at home? How do you get over your restaurant anxiety?
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Monday night I met my cousin Anna at American Pinot for Happy Hour. I’ve been wanting to check out this restaurant for awhile now because I walk by it all the time during my lunch break. My cousin Anna and I were best friends growing up. In our mid-20’s she joined the Peace Corp and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55,315,85,86,87,95,101,104,2565,1949,124,2559,171,193,194,195,196,2806,237,250,251,254,303,304],"tags":[2953,2954,2959,2955,522,8618,2343,8641,2956,2957,8691,2775,2958,8723],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/MUSSEL2-e1302018313453.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15839"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15867,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15839\/revisions\/15867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}